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Flight of the Phoenix , by R. L. LaFevers (Lexile 600) In 1928, when timid ten-year-old Nate learns that his parents have been lost at sea, he joins his father's cousin on a flight to Arabia where they must oversee the death and rebirth of the phoenix, thus beginning his training as a "beastologist." Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, by Grace Lin (Lexile 820) Minli, an adventurous girl from a poor village, buys a magical goldfish, and then joins a dragon who cannot fly on a quest to find the Old Man of the Moon in hopes of bringing life to Fruitless Mountain and freshness to Jade River Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, school and other scary things, by Lenore Look (Lexile 600) There are several things you should know about Alvin Ho. The first is that he is afraid of everything. The second thing is that Alvin is so afraid of school that he can't even talk when he's there. He can talk fine everywhere else, but school is too much. To help him survive, Alvin carries a PDK - a Personal Disaster Kit. And he’s going to need it this year. How Oliver Olson Changed the World, by Claudia Mills (Lexile 730) Afraid he will always be an outsider like ex-planet Pluto, nine-year-old Oliver finally shows his extremely overprotective parents that he is capable of doing great things without their help while his class is studying the solar system. Captain Nobody, by Dean Pitchford (Lexile 730) Ten-year-old Newt Newman is used to fading into the background. Determined to get noticed this Halloween, he and his friends vow to come up with original costumes. But then Newt’s brother Chris gets hurt and in a coma in the hospital, and Newt has no time for a costume. His friends help him transform an assortment of Chris's outgrown clothes into a get-up for a new superhero: Captain Nobody! The costume is a hit, and helps Newt be so confident he doesn’t want to take it off, and opportunities start cropping up for him to really save the day as a super hero. Captain Nobody gets the job done. ther's coma, even Captain Nobody is powerless…or is he? Dragon's Egg, by Sarah Thompson (Lexile 770) Mella, a young girl trained as a dragon keeper, learns that the legends of old are true when she is entrusted with carrying a dragon's egg to the fabled Hatching Grounds, a dangerous journey on which she is assisted by a knight's squire. Bobby vs. Girls (accidentally), by Lisa Yee (Lexile 650) Meet Robert Carver Ellis-Chan -- a perfectly normal fourth-grader who gets into perfectly crazy situations! Like when he was running for class president and discovered his big sister's panties (static-)clinging to the back of his sweater. Or when he got stuck to the rare sticky (and stinky) Koloff tree on a field trip. . . . Then there's his family -- busy mom, ex-pro football player dad, a bossy older sister and an adoring younger one -- and best friends (one of whom is a secret, because she's a *girl*). Life may be complicated for Bobby, but it's going to turn out just fine. The 100-year old secret, by Tracy Barrett (Lexile 650) Xena and Xander Holmes, an American brother and sister living in London for a year, discover that Sherlock Holmes was their great-great-great grandfather when they are inducted into the Society for the Preservation of Famous Detectives and given his unsolved casebook, from which they attempt to solve the case of a famous missing painting. The Magic Half, by Annie Barrows (Lexile 640) The middle child between two sets of twins, Miri often feels left out, overlooked, and unremarkable. When her family moves to a new home, she feels lonelier than ever. She soon learns from an elderly neighbor of a legend surrounding her house. According to town lore, many years earlier a thief left buried treasure somewhere on her property. Quickly, the siblings race to uncover it. Soon after the hunt begins she notices a small piece of glass taped to her wall. Looking through the lens, Miri finds herself still in her room, but in 1935. It is here that she meets Molly, a girl badly in need of help to escape her abusive situation, but Miri accidentally returns to her own time before she can save her new friend. Alone again, she must figure out how to rescue Molly before it's too late. NERDS: National Espionage Rescue, and Defense Society, by Michael Buckely (Lexile 760) A group of unpopular fifth graders run a spy network from inside their school. With the help of cutting-edge science, they transform their nerdy qualities into incredible abilities! Their enemies? An array of James Bond–style villains, each with an evil plan more diabolical and more ridiculous than the last. Extra Credit , by Andrew Clements (Lexile 830) Never a scholar, Abby prefers the woods behind her family's farm and the climbing wall in her Illinois school, but she's about to flunk out of sixth grade and the only way of passing is extra credit. She chooses as her assignment to be a penpal. Sadeed is the best English-language student in his Afghan village and is chosen to write back to Abby. It isn't proper for a boy to be penpals with a girl in Afghanistan, so he has to pretend to be his sister. But soon Sadeed can't resist telling Abby that it is he who has been writing to her. They learn, as Abby reports, that "people are simple, but the stuff going on around them can get complicated." Out of my Mind, by Sharon Draper (Lexile 700) Eleven-year-old Melody has a photographic memory. She's the smartest kid in her whole school—but no one knows it. Most people don't think she's capable of learning, and up until recently her school days consisted of listening to the same preschool-level alphabet lessons again and again and again. If only she could speak up, if only she could tell people what she thinks and knows . . . but she can't, because Melody can't talk. She can't walk. She can't write. Being stuck inside her head is making Melody go out of her mind--that is, until she discovers something that will allow her to speak for the first time ever. Umbrella Summer, by Lisa Graff (Lexile 820) Annie Richards knows there are a million things to look out for—bicycle accidents, chicken pox, runaway zoo animals. That's why being careful is so important, even if it does mean giving up some of her favorite things. Everyone keeps telling Annie not to worry so much, that she's just fine. But they thought her brother, Jared, was just fine too, and Jared died. The Secret of Zoom, by Lynne Jonell (Lexile 770) Christina lives in a mansion on the edge of a dark forest surrounded by barbed wire. Deep in the forest is the lab where her father works—and where her mother was blown to bits years ago. Christina’s father knows just how dangerous the world can be, so he keeps her safe at home, forbidding her from talking to the orphans down the road. But when an orphan boy named Taft talks to her, she discovers there’s more to the orphanage, the lab, and the mystery of her mother’s accident than she ever suspected. Dying to Meet You, by Kate Klise (Lexile 730) When former best-selling children's author I.B. Grumply moves into a Victorian mansion in Ghastly, IL, to write the latest installment in his "Ghost Tamer" series, he is hindered by more than just his overwhelming case of writer's block. He is dismayed to find the mansion already occupied by an 11-year-old boy named Seymour Hope, his cat, and Olive C. Spence, a ghost living in the cupola who is unhappy because she never managed to publish her books in her lifetime. Similar to the Klises' other offerings, the story is successfully told through letters, newspaper clippings, drawings, and related devices. Although Grumply has written ghost tales, he himself is a nonbeliever, and Olive and Seymour attempt to convince him. They then collaborate on a book about their own experiences, including the possibility of the demolition of the mansion, a ghost who falls in love with the occupant of her house, and Seymour's parents and their lack of responsibility for his care.