6-8 Books | University of Central Florida

This collection contains materials from the DIVerse Families bibliography organized by Grades 6-8.

DIVerse Families is a comprehensive bibliography that demonstrates the growing diversity of families in the United States. This type of bibliography provides teachers, librarians, counselors, adoption agencies, children/young adults, and especially parents and grandparents needing to empower their children with materials that reflect their families.

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Runaways, Vol. 1: Find Your Way Home

Rainbow Rowell

When the Runaways eliminate the Pride from Los Angeles, it leaves a vacuum of power in the city's underworld, and soon Nico, Karolina, Gert, Chase, and Molly are on the run again to uncover the truth behind their parents' past before it catches up to them.
Runaways, Vol. 2: Best Friends Forever

Rainbow Rowell

The Runaways are a family again! But a family needs a guardian, and the only Runaway who's got her life together is in middle school. And, even for a kid like Molly who likes her classes, that can be fraught with peril. Meanwhile, there's a new arrival as the gang welcomes Karolina's girlfriend - Julie Power of Power Pack! Having an experienced adventurer around will be useful when one of the universe's most fearsome villains invades the hostel! But do some of the Runaways have mixed feelings about Julie's arrival? As Molly contemplates a supernatural deal that must have a monkey's paw-esque downside, one of the team suff ers a fate worse than death. Really! And will the Runaways' greatest foe be...well-meaning outsiders who want to help them?!
Runaway Twin

Peg Kehret

Thirteen-year-old Sunny, accompanied by a stray dog, takes advantage of a windfall to travel from her Nebraska foster home to Enumclaw, Washington, to find the twin sister from whom she was separated at age three.
Running on Empty

S. E. Durrant

After his grandfather dies, eleven-year-old JJ, a talented runner, assumes new responsibilities including taking care of his intellectually-challenged parents and figuring out how bills get paid.
Ruth and the Green Book

Calvin Alexander Ramsey and Gwen Strauss

When Ruth and her parents take a motor trip from Chicago to Alabama to visit her grandma, they rely on a pamphlet called "The Negro Motorist Green Book" to find places that will serve them. Includes facts about "The Green Book."
Saddle Sore

Bonnie Bryant

The girls of the Saddle Club have headed West to the Bar None Ranch. This time they've brought their friend, Emily, who has cerebral palsy. Emily is going to help the ranch's owner make it accessible to riders with special needs. Then the four girls meet a guest their own age. She's a former rider who has lost part of her leg in a motorbike accident. She doesn't plan to get on a horse ever again.
Saints and Misfits

S. K. Ali

Fifteen-year-old Janna Yusuf, a Flannery O'Connor-obsessed book nerd and the daughter of the only divorced mother at their mosque, tries to make sense of the events that follow when her best friend's cousin--a holy star in the Muslim community--attempts to assault her at the end of sophomore year.
Samurai Kids 1: White Crane

Sandy Fussell

Even though he has only one leg, Niya Moto is studying to be a samurai, and his five fellow-students are similarly burdened, but sensei Ki-Yaga, an ancient but legendary warrior, teaches them not only physical skills but mental and spiritual ones as well, so that they are well-equipped to face their most formidable opponents at the annual Samurai Games.
Samurai Kids 2: Owl Ninja

Sandy Fussell

Sensei Ki-yaga leads Niya and the other students of the Cockroach Ryu on a journey to beg the feudal Emperor to stop war from breaking out between the mountain ryus, putting to the test the firm friendship and unusual skills of these physically-disabled samurai-in-training.
Save the Date

Morgan Matson

When seventeen-year-old Charlie Grant's four older siblings reunite for a wedding, she is determined they will have a perfect weekend before the family home is sold, but last-minute disasters abound.
Saving Baby Doe

Danette Vigilante

Lionel and Anisa are the best of friends and have seen each other through some pretty tough times--Anisa's dad died and Lionel's dad left, which is like a death for Lionel. They stick together no matter what. So when Lionel suggests a detour through a local construction site on their way home, Anisa doesn't say no. And that's where Lionel and Anisa make a startling discovery--a baby abandoned in a port-o-potty. Anisa and Lionel spring into action. And in saving Baby Doe, they end up saving so much more.
Saving Montgomery Sole

Mariko Tamaki

Montgomery Sole is a square peg in a small town, forced to go to a school full of jocks and girls who don't even know what irony is. It would all be impossible if it weren't for her best friends, Thomas and Naoki. The three are also the only members of Jefferson High's Mystery Club, dedicated to exploring the weird and unexplained, from ESP and astrology to super powers and mysterious objects. Then there's the Eye of Know, the possibly powerful crystal amulet Monty bought online. Will it help her predict the future or fight back against the ignorant jerks who make fun of Thomas for being gay or Monty for having lesbian moms? Maybe the Eye is here just in time, because the newest resident of their small town is scarier than mothmen, poltergeists, or, you know, gym. Thoughtful, funny, and painfully honest, Montgomery Sole is someone you'll want to laugh and cry with over a big cup of frozen yogurt with extra toppings.
Scooter

Vera B. Williams

A child's silver blue scooter helps her to adjust to her new home. Elana Rose tells of her event-filled first summer after moving with her mother to a new apartment, as new neighbors and friends become an important part of Elana Rose's life. A treasure of a book--touching, funny, and totally original--with a surprise climax.
Search for Safety

John Langan

Ben McKee, a new student at Bluford High School, tries to hide the bruises covering his body from his teachers and his new friends.
Secret City

Julia Watts

Ruby Pickett didn't have any say about the family move to Tennessee. Her daddy's new job will help the war effort, though no one has told her exactly how. Brand new, government-built Oak Ridge quickly proves a curious and intriguing place for the sixteen-year-old's rampant curiosity. A voracious reader, Ruby wonders at mysteries in books and sees possible mysteries in the secrecy that surrounds Oak Ridge. She finds a kindred spirit in Iris, a young wife and mother who has moved to Oak Ridge with her scientist husband, and who chafes at the intellectual emptiness of her new home and life. Faraway events don't seem likely to answer any of Ruby's questions, but as the war grows more destructive Ruby begins to realize that her curiosity--like her deepening feelings for Iris--may be more dangerous than she could possibly imagine.
Seeing Lessons: The Story of Abigail Carter and America's First School for the Blind

Spring Hermann

In 1832, when Abigail Carter was only ten years old, two doctors from Boston invited her to be one of the first students in an experimental institution: a school for blind people. Abby and her younger sister Sophia, also blind, packed their bags and headed to the city. For the first time in their lives, the two girls were able to read a book for themselves and to write a letter to their father.
See You at Harry's

Jo Knowles

Twelve-year-old Fern feels invisible in her family, where grumpy eighteen-year-old Sarah is working at the family restaurant, fourteen-year-old Holden is struggling with school bullies and his emerging homosexuality, and adorable, three-year-old Charlie is always the center of attention, and when tragedy strikes, the fragile bond holding the family together is stretched almost to the breaking point.
Seven Ways We Lie

Riley Redgate

A chance encounter tangles the lives of seven high school students, each resisting the allure of one of the seven deadly sins, and each telling their story from their seven distinct points of view.
Shanghai Messenger

Andrea Cheng

A free-verse novel about eleven-year-old Xiao Mei's visit with her extended family in China, where the Chinese-American girl finds many differences but also the similarities that bind a family together.
Shark Girl

Kelly Bingham

After a shark attack causes the amputation of her right arm, fifteen-year-old Jane, an aspiring artist, struggles to come to terms with her loss and the changes it imposes on her day-to-day life and her plans for the future.
Ship of Dolls

Shirley Parenteau

In 1927 Japan, after disobeying her parents, eleven-year-old Chiyo is sent to an exclusive boarding school where she feels lonely and homesick until the Friendship Doll exchange with America piques her interest, but a bully stands in her way.
Shooting the Moon

Frances O'Roark Dowell

After her brother TJ joins the army and is sent to Vietnam, 12-year-old Jamie Dexter is proud that TJ is following in their father's footsteps. Instead of letters, TJ sends Jamie undeveloped rolls of film, and what she sees when she develops them reveals a whole new side of the war.
Signal

Cynthia C. DeFelice

After moving with his emotionally distant father to the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, twelve-year-old Owen faces a lonely summer until he meets an abused girl who may be a space alien.
Silence

Deborah A. Lytton

After an accident robs Stella of her hearing and her dream of going to Broadway, she meets Hayden, a boy who stutters, and comes to learn what it truly means to connect and communicate in a world filled with silence.
Silent Days, Silent Dreams

Allen Say

James Castle was born two months premature on September 25, 1899, on a farm in Garden Valley, Idaho. He was deaf, mute, autistic, and probably dyslexic. He didn't walk until he was four; he would never learn to speak, write, read, or use sign language. Yet, today Castle's artwork hangs in major museums throughout the world. The Philadelphia Museum of Art opened "James Castle: A Retrospective" in 2008. The 2013 Venice Biennale included eleven works by Castle in the feature exhibition "The Encyclopedic Palace." And his reputation continues to grow. Caldecott Medal winner Allen Say, author of the acclaimed memoir Drawing from Memory, takes readers through an imagined look at Castle's childhood, allows them to experience his emergence as an artist despite the overwhelming difficulties he faced, and ultimately reveals the triumphs that he would go on to achieve.