Adventure Books for Third and Fourth Graders

L = Lexile
FICTION AMATO, M.	The Naked Mole Rat Letters by Mary Amato. (L670) When her father begins a long-distance romance with a Washington, D. C. zookeeper, twelve-year-old Frankie sends fabricated email letters to the zookeeper in an attempt to end the relationship.
FICTION AREVAMIRP, E.	Fred & Anthony Escape from the Netherworld by Esile Arevamirp. Fred and Anthony go the netherworld where they encounter ghosts and monsters, including the ghost writer Esile Arevamirp who then writes their story.
FICTION BARSHAW, R.	Ellie McDoodle: Have Pen, Will Travel by Ruth McNally Barshaw. Eleven-year-old Ellie McDoodle illustrates her sketchbook with chronicles of her adventures and mishaps while camping with her cousins, aunt, and uncle.
FICTION BAUER, M.	A Bear Named Trouble by Marion Dane Bauer. (L820) In Anchorage, Alaska, two lonely boys make a connection about a brown bear injured just after his mother sends him out on his own, and a human whose father is a new keeper at the Alaska Zoo.
FICTION BERNASCONI, P.	Captain Arsenio: Inventions and (Mis)Adventures in Flight by Pablo Bernasconi. (L920) Captain Manuel J. Arsenio, in which are recorded his many failed attempts to create a flying machine, starting in the 1780s with the Motocanary, progressing through the Aerial Submarine, the Hamstertronic, and three other disasters.
FICTION BODE, N.	The Slippery Map by N. E. Bode. Oyster R. Motel, a lonely boy raised as a foundling in a Baltimore nunnery, travels through a portal to the imaginary world of his parents, where he heroically confronts the villainous Dark Mouth.
FICTION BORDEN, L.	The Greatest Skating Race: a World War II Story from the Netherlands by Louise Borden. (L750) During World War II in the Netherlands, a ten-year-old boy’s dream of skating in a famous race allows him to help two children escape to Belgium by ice skating past German soldiers and other enemies.
FICTION BREDSDORFF, B.	The Crow-Girl: the Children of Crow Cove by Bodil Bredsdorff. (L810) After the death of her grandmother, a young orphaned girl leaves her house by the cove and begins a journey which leads her to people and experiences that exemplify the wisdom her grandmother had shared with her.
FICTION CRISP, M.	White Star: a Dog on the Titanic by Marty Crisp. (L780) Twelve-year-old Sam, a passenger on the Titanic maiden sea voyage, volunteers to help care for the dogs in the ocean liner’s kennel and becomes fast friends with the Irish setter of J. Bruce Ismay, the ship’s owner.
FICTION FRIEDMAN, L.	Heart-to-Heart with Mallory by Laurie Friedman. (L740) Nine-year-old Mallory turns to her diary to sort through her emotions when she finds out she has a secret admirer and her two best friends’ parents may be getting engaged.
FICTION GREENBURG, J.	With the Dinosaurs by J.C. Greenburg. When Beeper accidentally releases the escape hatch to the Time-a-Tron, the time travelers must protect themselves from the world’s most fearsome creature, Tyrannosaurus Rex.
FICTION HIRSCH, O.	Something’s Fishy, Hazel Green by Odo Hirsch. As Hazel tries to find out who took two lobsters from Mr. Petrusca’s fish shop, she discovers that the fishmonger has a secret and determines to help him.
FICTION HORSE, H.	The Last Polar Bears by Harry Horse. Letters from Grandfather, who has gone on an expedition with his little dog Roo, to find the last polar bears at the North Pole.
FICTION HUNT, L.	The Abernathy Boys by L. J. Hunt. A fictionalized account of the adventurous 1909 journey of nine-year-old Bud Abernathy and his five-year-old brother, Temp, who traveled round-trip, mostly on horseback, from their home in Oklahoma through the vast, desert like no-man’s-land in the Texas panhandle to Santa Fe, New Mexico.
FICTION KLAGES, E.	The Green Glass Sea: a Novel by Ellen Klages. (L790) It is 1943, and 11-year-old Dewey Kerrigan is traveling west on a train to live with her scientist father—but no one will tell her exactly where he is. When she reaches Los Alamos, New Mexico, she learns why: he’s working on a top secret government program.
FICTION KVASNOSKY, L.	Zelda and Ivy, the Runaways by Laura McGee Kvasnosky. (L470) In three short stories, two fox sisters run away from home, bury a time capsule, and take advantage of some creative juice.
FICTION LAYBOURN, E.	Missing Magic by Emma Laybourn. In a world where everyone has magical abilities, eleven-year-old Ned has none, but when the world turns upside down his lack of powers turns out to be his best asset.
FICTION LISLE, R.	Cooper by Rebecca Lisle. (L670) Pursued by enemies of the family she never knew she had, ten-year-old Cooper Beach flees to Spindle House, her paternal home, and decides to uncover the truth about a feud between the Stone and Wood clans that sent her into exile six years earlier.
FICTION LOGAN, C.	The 5,000-Year-Old Puzzle: Solving a Mystery of Ancient Egypt by Claudia Logan. (L900) A fictionalized account of the excavation of a secret tomb at Giza, Egypt, in 1925, told through the experiences of a young boy who accompanies his father on an archeological dig.
FICTION LUBAR, D.	Punished! by David Lubar. (L540) Logan and his friend Benedict are playing tag in the library. Logan gets caught when he runs into a mysterious man. When Logan doesn’t apologize sincerely, the mysterious gentleman punishes him by causing him to speak in puns. Only finding seven examples each of oxymorons, anagrams and palindromes within the time limits will return Logan to normal.
FICTION MAUNER, C.	Zoe Sophia’s Scrapbook: an Adventure in Venice by Claudia Mauner. Nine-year-old Zoe Sophia travels with Mickey, her dachshund, from New York City to Venice, Italy, for a visit with a famous author, her Aunt Dorothy.
FICTION NAYLOR, P.	Polo’s Mother by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. (L960) Polo the cat finds his mother and tries to impress her with his courage as he and the other members of the Club of Mysteries set out on new adventures.
FICTION PATRON, S.	The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron. (L1010) Fearing that her legal guardian plans to abandon her to return to France, ten-year-old aspiring scientist Lucky Trimble determines to run away while also continuing to seek the Higher Power that will bring stability to her life.
FICTION PETERSEN, P.	Rising Water by P. J. Petersen (480) Tracy, her brother, and the new animal care volunteer at the Jefferson Science Center travel by boat to feed a dog stranded by flooding and end up having a full day of dangerous adventures, which gives them new perspective about themselves and about each other.
FICTION SAGE, A.	Frognapped by Angie Sage. Barry Wizard’s five acrobatic frogs are missing, and Araminta and her best friend Wanda, aided by the spectral Sir Horace, follow the trail to Morris’s Water Wonderland, where something fishy is going on.
FICTION SAGE, A.	Vampire Brat by Angie Sage. Things get even spookier at Spookie House when Uncle Drac’s nephew Max comes to stay for a week and Araminta goes on a combined werewolf and vampire hunting expedition.
FICTION SHALANT, P.	The Great Cape Rescue by Phyllis Shalant. Upon entering fourth grade, Fin and his friends think they must stop playing superheroes, until they discover that their game might become real through a magaical cape, and the Society of Secret Superheroes is born.
FICTION STEWART, P.	Hugo Pepper by Paul Stewart. A boy, orphaned and raised in the Frozen North by reindeer herders, boards his birth parents’ sled and sets its special compass to “Home”, where he uncovers a plot that threatens his mermaid godmothers and other friends of his family.
FICTION TRINE, G.	The Curse of the Bologna Sandwich by Greg Trine. (L550) After graduating from the superhero academy, Melvin Beederman heads for Los Angeles, where he unexpectedly teams up with Candace Brinkwater, school play actress, to nab the evil McNasty Brothers.
FICTION WHELAN, G.	Night of the Full Moon by Gloria Whelan. (L660) On the night of the full moon, Libby sneaks away from home to see a native ceremony of the Potowatomi Indians and is forced to join her Indian-friend Fawn and her family, as they are rounded up and driven them from their lands by soldiers.
FICTION WRIGHT, B.	Princess for a Week by Betty Ren Wright. (L620) When a confident girl named Princess arrives to spend a week at Roddy’s house, she encourages him to help her investigate the suspicious activities happening at a supposedly haunted house.
FICTION WYNNE-JONES, T.	Rex Zero and the End of the World by Tim Wynne-Jones. In the summer of 1962 with everyone nervous about a possible nuclear war, ten-nearly-eleven-year-old Rex, having just moved to Ottawa from Vancouver with his parents and five siblings, faces his own personal challenges as he discovers new friends and a new understanding of the world around him.
FICTION YEP, L.	Skunk Scout by Laurence Yep. (L500) As their first outing away from San Francisco’s Chinatown, ten-year-old Teddy and his younger brother go on a camping trip, a present from his uncle, where they learn some interesting facts about nature, his uncle, and themselves.
FICTION YOUNG, S.	Winchell Mink: the Misadventure Begins by Steve Young. (L740) When a bullied eleven-year-old boy is transformed into his pet turtle, he finds himself catapulted into a series of bizarre adventures.