Youth Collection -- University of Northern Iowa

Full-length fiction for elementary children in the upper grades includes fantasy, historical fiction, and contemporary realism. Here's a list of some of the best from the past. These titles are as popular today as the day they were published.

Alcott, Louisa May. LITTLE WOMEN. Holt, 1868.
When their father leaves to serve the Union during the Civil War, the four March sisters and their mother learn how to survive without him.

Armstrong, William Howard. SOUNDER. Harper & Row, 1969.
Set in the South in the early 1900s, a sharecropper imprisoned for stealing a ham to feed his hungry family seeks freedom with the help of his son and the family coon dog, Sounder.

Babbitt, Natalie. TUCK EVERLASTING. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1975.
A magic spring keeps members of a family from growing older until others discover it.

Barrie, J.M. PETER PAN. Scribner, 1911.
Peter Pan, the boy who never grows up, takes children on adventure after adventure in Never-Never Land.

Bauer, Marion Dane. ON MY HONOR. Clarion, 1986.
A powerful book about peer relationships, Joel realizes that he must tell his best friend's family that their son has drowned because the boys disobeyed their parents.

Baum, L. Frank. THE WIZARD OF OZ. Holt, 1900.
Dorothy dreams she visits a fantasy world with many unusual characters.

Burnett, Frances Hodgson. THE SECRET GARDEN. Stokes, 1909.
Two children discover a locked garden and secretly restore it.

Burnfield, Sheila. THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY. Little, Brown, 1961.
Much to the surprise of their owners, two dogs and a cat make the 250-mile trek across Canada back to their home.

Carroll, Lewis. ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND, AND THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS. St. Martin's, 1872.
Alice climbs through a mirror to a fantasy world in which everything appears in reverse.

Cleary, Beverly. DEAR MR. HENSHAW. Morrow, 1983.
Over a four-year period, Leigh Botts' letters to his favorite author and the journal entries the author encourages him to write offer an in-depth look at a child's view of his parents' divorce.

Cleary, Beverly. HENRY HUGGINS. Morrow, 1950.
Henry, a typical boy, finds a way to get a dog, even though he gets into trouble in the process.

Cleary, Beverly. THE MOUSE AND THE MOTORCYCLE. Morrow, 1965. Sequels RUNAWAY RALPH, Morrow, 1970; RALPH S. MOUSE, Morrow, 1982.
Ralph, a mouse living in a hotel, finds a toy motorcycle belonging to one of the guests and discovers that it is exactly the right size for him.

Cleary, Beverly. RAMONA QUIMBY, AGE 8. Morrow, 1981.
Something is always happening to Ramona the year she is in third grade, including her decision to show off by breaking an egg over her head and her subsequent discovery that the egg she had packed in her lunch was raw, not boiled.

Collier, James Lincoln. MY BROTHER SAM IS DEAD. Four Winds, 1985.
Set during the Revolutionary War, Sam, the oldest son in a Tory family, decides to join the Patriots.

Collodi, Carlo. THE ADVENTURES OF PINOCCHIO.
A wooden puppet suffers unusual circumstances when he lies.

Fitzhugh, Louis. HARRIET THE SPY. Harper & Row, 1964.
When Harriet's journal criticizing those around her is discovered by her sixth grade classmates, she is shunned by all of them.

Fox, Paula. ONE-EYED CAT. Bradbury, 1984.
Disobeying his father, Jed shoots his new air rifle at a dark moving object one night and suffers much guilt.

George, Jean Craighead. JULIE OF THE WOLVES. Harper & Row, 1972. Sequels JULIE, HarperCollins, 1994; JULIE'S WOLF PACK, HarperCollins, 1997.
Julie survives in the Arctic tundra by following a pack of wolves, and in the sequels she fights to save them from extinction.

Hahn, Mary Downing. THE DOLL IN THE GARDEN. Clarion, 1989.
Two girls find an antique doll buried in the garden and learn about its past by going through a hole in the hedge to the same yard during Victorian times.

Hahn, Mary Downing. WAIT TIL HELEN COMES. Clarion, 1986.
Molly and Michael try to save their stepsister from drowning when she follows the ghost of a child buried in an old cemetery near their home.

Konigsburg, E.L. FROM THE MIXED-UP FILES OF MRS. BASIL E. FRANKWEILER. Atheneum, 1967.
When Claudia and her younger brother run away, they become resourceful residents of the New York Museum of Art.

L'Engle, Madeleine. A WRINKLE IN TIME. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1962. Sequels A WIND IN THE DOOR, Atheneum, 1973; A SWIFTLY TILTING PLANET, Atheneum, 1978; MANY WATERS, Atheneum, 1986.
After Mr. Austin disappears while working on a secret government project, his children search for him through the tesseracts, or wrinkles in time, he has been researching.

Lewis, C.S. THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE. Macmillan, 1950.
In the first book in the Narnia series, four children discover a fantasy world by going through the back of a wardrobe.

Lindgren, Astrid. PIPPI LONGSTOCKING. Viking, 1950.
In this Swedish story, Pippi, a nine-year-old with her own lifestyle, makes life exciting for those around her.

Lowry, Lois. THE GIVER. Houghton Mifflin, 1993.
A futuristic novel in which feelings and memories are sacrificed for freedom from poverty and pain.

Lowry, Lois. NUMBER THE STARS. Houghton Mifflin, 1989.
Set in Denmark during World War II, the Johansens help the Rosen family escape the Nazis by hiding them in a relative's fishing boat bound for Sweden.

MacLachlan, Patricia. SARAH, PLAIN AND TALL. Harper & Row, 1985.
Two pioneer children fall in love with the woman from Maine who has arrived as their father's mail-order bride.

Milne, A.A. WINNIE-THE-POOH. Dutton, 1926.
Pooh, Eeyeore, Tigger, Piglet, Kanga, and Roo, are animals residing in Christopher Robin's fantasy world.

Montgomery, L.M. ANNE OF GREEN GABLES. Page, 1908.
Anne is adopted by her elderly brother and sister and comes to live with them on a farm on Prince Edward Island.

Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds. SHILOH. Atheneum, 1991. Sequel SHILOH SEASON, Atheneum, 1996; SAVING SHILOH, Atheneum, 1997.
Marty befriends a dog mistreated by his master and names him Shiloh, but his father insists that he return the dog to its rightful owner.

O'Brien, Robert. MRS. FRISBY AND THE RATS OF NIMH. Atheneum, 1971. Sequels by Jane Leslie Conly, RASCO AND THE RATS OF NIMH, Harper, 1986; RT, MARGARET, AND THE RATS OF NIMH, Harper, 1990.
When a mouse, Mrs. Frisby, seeks help from the community of rats living nearby, she discovers that they are highly intelligent and literate.

O'Dell, Scott. ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS. Houghton Mifflin, 1960. Sequel ZIA, Houghton Mifflin, 1976.
Karana, a Native American girl, must fend for herself when her tribe inadvertently leaves her on an island off the coast of California.

Paterson, Katherine. BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA. Crowell, 1977.
When Terabithia moves into the neighborhood, she and Jess create a secret hideaway entered by swinging on a special vine, but the friendship ends in an untimely death.

Paulsen, Gary. HATCHET. Bradbury, 1987.
Brian finds himself alone in the wilderness of the northern woods with only a hatchet to help him survive.

Rawls, Wilson. WHERE THE RED FERN GROWS; Doubleday, 1961.
A boy growing up in the Ozarks hunts with two coon hounds, but when one is killed by a mountain lion the other dies of grief.

Robinson, Barbara. THE BEST CHRISTMAS PAGEANT EVER. Harper & Row, 1972. Sequel THE BEST SCHOOL YEAR EVER, HarperCollins, 1994.
Many funny episodes describe the six Herdman children bullying their way through school and the church nativity play, yet one feels sorry for these neglected children.

Speare, Elizabeth George. THE WITCH OF BLACKBIRD POND. Houghton Mifflin, 1958.
Set during the Salem Witch Trials, Kit Tyler tries to assist a woman accused of witchcraft, only to be accused and on trial herself.

Taylor, Mildred. ROLL OF THUNDER, HEAR MY CRY. Dial, 1976.
This book and others by Taylor are set during the early 1900s and relate the story of the author's family, the Logans, the only black landowners in their Mississippi neighborhood.

Twain, Mark. THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER. McKay, 1876.
Tom, and his friends Huck Finn and Becky Thatcher move from one adventure to another growing up along the Mississippi River in the 1800s.

White, E.B. CHARLOTTE'S WEB. Harper & Row, 1952.
Wilbur, the pig, is headed for the market until an amazing spider named Charlotte befriends him.

Wilder, Laura Ingalls. LITTLE HOUSE IN THE BIG WOODS. Harper & Row, 1953. Sequels LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE, Harper, 1935; ON THE BANKS OF PLUM CREEK, Harper, 1937; BY THE SHORE OF SILVER LAKE, Harper, 1939; THE LONG WINTER, Harper, 1940; LITTLE TOWN ON THE PRAIRIE, Harper, 1941; THESE HAPPY GOLDEN YEARS, Harper, 1943; THE FIRST FOUR YEARS, Harper, 1971.
Laura's family suffers many hardships, but they also have many fun times in this autobiographical fiction series about growing up on the Midwestern prairie during the late 1800s.

LL: 4/99