Intermediate (ages 9-14)

Material appropriate for intermediate age groups

From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs.Basil E. Frank Weiler

When Claudia decided to run away, she planned very carefully. She would be gone just long enough to teach her parents a lesson in Claudia appreciation. And she would live in comfort-at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She invited her brother Jamie to go, too, mostly because he was a miser and would have money The two took up residence in the museum right on schedule. But once the fun of settling in was over, Claudia had two unexpected problems: She felt just the same, and she wanted to feel different; and she found a statue at the museum so beautiful she could not go home until she had discovered its maker, a question that baffled even the experts. The former owner of the statue was Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and without her help Claudia might never have found a way to go home.

The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales Of The Supernatural: (Newbery Honor Book, Coretta Scott King Author Award, Ala Notable Children’s Book) (Coretta Scott King Author Award Winner)

A collection of ghost stories with African American themes, designed to be told during the Dark Thirty–the half hour before sunset–when ghosts seem all too believable. With an extraordinary gift for suspense, McKissack brings us ten original spine-tingling tales inspired by African-American history and the mystery of that eerie half-hour before nightfall–the dark thirty. “The atmosphere of each selection is skillfully developed and sustained to the very end. Pinkney’s stark scratchboard illustrations evoke an eerie mood, which heightens the suspense of each tale. This is a stellar collection for both public and school libraries looking for absorbing books to hook young readers. Storytellers will also find it a goldmine.”

Days Of Jubilee (Days Of Jubilee)

Uses slave narratives, letters, diaries, military orders, and other documents to chronicle the various stages leading to the emancipation of slaves in the United States.

The Wheel on the School

Why do the storks no longer come to the little Dutch fishing village of Shora to nest? It was Lina, one of the six schoolchildren who first asked the question, and she set the others to wondering. And sometimes when you begin to wonder, you begin to make things happen. So the children set out to bring the storks back to Shora.

The Trumpeter Of Krakow

A Polish family in the Middle Ages guards a great secret treasure and a boy’s memory of an earlier trumpeter of Krakow makes it possible for him to save his father.

Gay Neck The Story Of A Pigeon

The story of the training of a carrier pigeon and its service during the First World War, revealing the bird’s courageous and spirited adventures over the housetops of an Indian village, in the Himalayan Mountains, and on the French battlefield.

Bud, Not Buddy

Ten-year-old Bud, a motherless boy living in Flint, Michigan, during the Great Depression, escapes a bad foster home and sets out in search of the man he believes to be his father–the renowned bandleader, H.E. Calloway of Grand Rapids.