Science Fiction for Fifth and Sixth Graders

Bibliography created by the Schaumburg Township District Library

MYSTERY
ANDERSON, M. Whales on Stilts by M.T. Anderson.
Racing against the clock, shy middle-school student Lily and her best friends, Katie and Jasper, must foil the plot of her father’s conniving boss to conquer the world using an army of whales.

FICTION
BARRETT, T. On Etruscan Time by Tracy Barrett.
While spending the summer on an archaeological dig near Florence, Italy, with his mother, eleven-year-old Hector meets an Etruscan boy who needs help to foil his treacherous uncle’s plan to make him a human sacrifice—1,000 years in the past.

FICTION
BONDOUX, A. The Destiny of Linus Hoppe by Anne-Laure Bondoux.
In a utopian world, fourteen-year-old Linus, who is approaching the test that will determine which Realm he will live, rejects the accepted way of life and ventures to change his destiny.

FICTION
BUCKLEY-ARCHER, L. Gideon the Cutpurse: Being the First Part of the Gideon Trilogy by Linda Buckley-Archer.
Ignored by his father and sent to Derbyshire for the weekend, twelve-year-old Peter and his new friend, Kate, are accidentally transported back in time to 1763 England where they are befriended by a reformed cutpurse.

FICTION
CARMAN, P. Atherton: the House of Power by Patrick Carman.
Edgar, an eleven-year-old orphan, finds a book that reveals significant secrets about Atherton, the strictly divided world on which he lives.

FICTION
CONLY, J. The Rudest Alien on Earth by Jane Leslie Conly.
Having landed on a dairy farm in Vermont, an alien from another galaxy befriends two human children and uses her ability to change into animals to learn about Earth society.

FICTION
COVILLE, B. The Monsters of Morley Manor by Bruce Coville.
Anthony and his younger sister discover that the monster figures he got in an unusual box at an estate sale are alive, but they have no way of knowing that the "monsters" will lead them on fantastical adventures to other worlds in an effort to try to save Earth.

FICTION
CRILLEY, M. Akiko and the Journey to Toog written and illustrated by Mark Crilley.
Akiko, Mr. Beeba, Spuckler, and Gax journey to Toog to help their friend Poog save his planet from destruction—whether he likes it or not.

FICTION
DALEY, M. Shanghaied to the Moon by Michael J. Daley.
Desperate to become a space pilot like his mother, thirteen-year-old Stewart meets an old spacer who offers him the chance to learn AstroNav during a flight to the moon in the year 2065.

FICTION
ETCHEMENDY, N. The Power of Un by Nancy Etchemendy.
When he is given a device that will allow him to "undo" what has happened in the past, Gib Finney is not sure what event from the worst day in his life he should change in order to keep his sister from being hit by a truck.

FICTION
FARDELL, J. The Flight of the Silver Turtle by John Fardell.
Ben, Zara, Sam, and Marcia begin their summer vacation by helping Professor Ampersand and a new friend build the Silver Turtle, a futuristic airplane, but on the day the first test flight is planned, a strange woman steals the airplane with the children inside.

FICTION
FOREMAN, L. Shatterworld by Lelia Rose Foreman.
Fearing nuclear holocaust, a group of pacifists leave Earth in search of a new planet where they hope to live peacefully according to God’s will.

FICTION
GRAY, L. Timespinners by Luli Gray.
A brother and sister go back in time to the Ice Age and meet Neanderthals.

FICTION
GRUNWELL, J. Mind Games by Jeanne Marie Grunwell.
Each of the six members of Mr. Ennis’s Mad Science Club presents a report of his or her experiences working on a science fair project to investigate ESP, which resulted in their winning the Maryland lottery.

FICTION
HAARSMA, P. The Softwire: Virus on Orbis 1 by P.J. Haarsma.
When twelve-year-old Johnny and his sister arrive on Orbits in a space ship of orphans, he finds he has a unique ability to communicate with computers.

FICTION
HADDIX, M. Among the Free by Margaret Peterson Haddix.
When thirteen-year-old Luke Garner unwittingly sets off a rebellion which sweeps the country and ousts the population Police from power, he quickly realizes that the new regime is corrupt and he may hold the only key to true freedom.

FICTION
JR-HI
HALAM, A. Siberia by Ann Halam.
After spending two years at a prison school, thirteen-year-old Sloe sets off on a trek across frozen wastelands, tending to the secret “seeds” of wild animals her mother left in her care, trying to reach a new life for all of them.

FICTION
HARNESS, C. Ghosts of the Nile words and pictures by Cheryl Harness.
Zachary and his aunt travel through time to ancient Egypt where they have many adventures.

FICTION
HUNT, G. The Accidental Spaceship by Gene Hunt.
When a spaceship lands in the backyard of their grandfather’s Pennsylvania farm house, thirteen-year-olds twins Vernon and Junior Smith begin a series of adventures involving a robot named Thinker, interplanetary travel, and an unrelenting tax collector.

FICTION
JACOBS, P. Sleepers, Wake by Paul Samuel Jacobs.
Dody, a space pioneer of the future, wakes long before anyone else during his ship's journey and grows old while his family continues to sleep.

FICTION
MACKEL, K. Alien in a Bottle by Kathy Mackel.
With the help of a star-gazing classmate and an unusual assortment of aliens from outer space, teenager Sean Winger tries to find a way to convince his parents to let him pursue his dream of becoming a glass blower.

FICTION
MCCALL, J. The Blackout Gang by Josh McCall.
Three genius friends escape from their oppressive summer camp and get caught in a New York City power outage, which they discover has been caused by a classmate with evil plans that put the three of them in grave danger.

FICTION
JR-HI
MCNAUGHTON, J. The Secret Under My Skin by Janet McNaughton.
In the year 2368, humans exist under dire environmental conditions and one young woman, rescued from a workcamp and chosen for a special duty, uses her love of learning to discover the truth about the planet’s future and her own dark past.

FICTION
MEACHAM, M. Quiet! You’re Invisible by Margaret Meacham.
With his mother expecting a baby and a bully living next door, fifth-grader Hoby Hobson has enough to worry about even before Zirc, a time-traveling boy who can sometimes be invisible, shows up in his backyard.

FICTION
PAULSEN, G. The Time Hackers by Gary Paulsen.
When someone uses futuristic technology to play pranks on twelve-year-old Dorso Clayman, he and his best friend set off on a supposedly impossible journey through space and time trying to stop the gamesters who are endangering the universe.

FICTION
POW, T. The Pack by Tom Pow.
A band of children must scavenge to survive in a post-apocalyptic future where forbidden territories exist and the line between man and beast is blurred.

FICTION
PRATCHETT, T. Only You Can Save Mankind by Terry Pratchett.
Twelve-year-old Johnny endures tensions between his parents, watches television coverage of the Gulf War, and plays a computer game called Only You Can Save Mankind, in which he is increasingly drawn into the reality of the alien ScreeWee.

FICTION
REEVE, P. Infernal Devices by Philip Reeve.
In the distant future, when fifteen-year-old Wren Natsworthy, bored with life in Anchorage, steals an Old-Tech book for a Lost Boy, she sets off a sequence of events that leads her parents, Tom and Hester, back into battle with old enemies and new.

FICTION
SAGE, A. Physik by Angie Sage.
Pulled through a glass that brings him back in time, Septimus Heap becomes the apprentice of an alchemist.

FICTION
JR-HI
SLEATOR, W. The Last Universe by William Sleator.
When her desperately ill older brother insists that she take him into their mysterious backyard garden, designed by their quantum physicist great uncle, fourteen-year-old Susan discovers that things are not always what they seem.

FICTION
STEWART, T. The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trent Lee Stewart.
After passing a series of mind-bending tests, four children are selected for a secret mission that requires them to go undercover at the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened, where the only rule is that there are no rules.

FICTION
VANDE VELDE, V. Heir Apparent by Vivian Vande Velde.
While playing a total immersion virtual reality game of kings and intrigue, fourteen-year-old Giannine learns that demonstrators have damaged the equipment to which she is connected, and she must win the game quickly or be damaged herself.

FICTION
WAUGH, S. Who Goes Home? by Sylvia Waugh.
On his thirteenth birthday, Jacob learns a secret about his birth and becomes involved in his father’s work to protect other beings, from the planet Ormingat, who live on Earth.

FICTION
WILLIAMS, M. City of Ruins by Mark London Williams.
Having traced a dimensional rift to Jerusalem in 583 B.C.E., DARPA sends thirteen-year-old Eli and his friends into the past to try to prevent the unraveling of history and the spread of the deadly slow pox.

FICTION
WILLIAMS, M. The Hour of the Cobra by Maiya Williams.
When Rowan, Nina, Xanthe, and Xavier are reunited in a time travel mission to ancient Egypt in the time of Cleopatra, a jealous Xanthe makes decisions which put them all in jeopardy.

FICTION
WOOLFE, A. Avril Crump and Her Amazing Clones by Angela Woolfe.
Dr. Avril Crump, a chubby, balding, and lonely research scientist at Leviticus Laboratories, befriends three strange clones that were created during a failed laboratory experiment, but when she discovers a plot to destroy them, she embarks on a dangerous mission to save the only friends she has ever known.

MYSTERY ANDERSON, M.	*Whales on Stilts* by M.T. Anderson. Racing against the clock, shy middle-school student Lily and her best friends, Katie and Jasper, must foil the plot of her father’s conniving boss to conquer the world using an army of whales.
FICTION BARRETT, T.	*On Etruscan Time* by Tracy Barrett. While spending the summer on an archaeological dig near Florence, Italy, with his mother, eleven-year-old Hector meets an Etruscan boy who needs help to foil his treacherous uncle’s plan to make him a human sacrifice—1,000 years in the past.
FICTION BONDOUX, A.	*The Destiny of Linus Hoppe* by Anne-Laure Bondoux. In a utopian world, fourteen-year-old Linus, who is approaching the test that will determine which Realm he will live, rejects the accepted way of life and ventures to change his destiny.
FICTION BUCKLEY-ARCHER, L.	*Gideon the Cutpurse: Being the First Part of the Gideon Trilogy* by Linda Buckley-Archer. Ignored by his father and sent to Derbyshire for the weekend, twelve-year-old Peter and his new friend, Kate, are accidentally transported back in time to 1763 England where they are befriended by a reformed cutpurse.
FICTION CARMAN, P.	*Atherton: the House of Power* by Patrick Carman. Edgar, an eleven-year-old orphan, finds a book that reveals significant secrets about Atherton, the strictly divided world on which he lives.
FICTION CONLY, J.	*The Rudest Alien on Earth* by Jane Leslie Conly. Having landed on a dairy farm in Vermont, an alien from another galaxy befriends two human children and uses her ability to change into animals to learn about Earth society.
FICTION COVILLE, B.	The Monsters of Morley Manor by Bruce Coville. Anthony and his younger sister discover that the monster figures he got in an unusual box at an estate sale are alive, but they have no way of knowing that the "monsters" will lead them on fantastical adventures to other worlds in an effort to try to save Earth.
FICTION CRILLEY, M.	*Akiko and the Journey to Toog* written and illustrated by Mark Crilley. Akiko, Mr. Beeba, Spuckler, and Gax journey to Toog to help their friend Poog save his planet from destruction—whether he likes it or not.
FICTION DALEY, M.	*Shanghaied to the Moon* by Michael J. Daley. Desperate to become a space pilot like his mother, thirteen-year-old Stewart meets an old spacer who offers him the chance to learn AstroNav during a flight to the moon in the year 2065.
FICTION ETCHEMENDY, N.	*The Power of Un* by Nancy Etchemendy. When he is given a device that will allow him to "undo" what has happened in the past, Gib Finney is not sure what event from the worst day in his life he should change in order to keep his sister from being hit by a truck.
FICTION FARDELL, J.	*The Flight of the Silver Turtle* by John Fardell. Ben, Zara, Sam, and Marcia begin their summer vacation by helping Professor Ampersand and a new friend build the Silver Turtle, a futuristic airplane, but on the day the first test flight is planned, a strange woman steals the airplane with the children inside.
FICTION FOREMAN, L.	*Shatterworld* by Lelia Rose Foreman. Fearing nuclear holocaust, a group of pacifists leave Earth in search of a new planet where they hope to live peacefully according to God’s will.
FICTION GRAY, L.	Timespinners by Luli Gray. A brother and sister go back in time to the Ice Age and meet Neanderthals.
FICTION GRUNWELL, J.	*Mind Games* by Jeanne Marie Grunwell. Each of the six members of Mr. Ennis’s Mad Science Club presents a report of his or her experiences working on a science fair project to investigate ESP, which resulted in their winning the Maryland lottery.
FICTION HAARSMA, P.	*The Softwire: Virus on Orbis 1* by P.J. Haarsma. When twelve-year-old Johnny and his sister arrive on Orbits in a space ship of orphans, he finds he has a unique ability to communicate with computers.
FICTION HADDIX, M.	*Among the Free* by Margaret Peterson Haddix. When thirteen-year-old Luke Garner unwittingly sets off a rebellion which sweeps the country and ousts the population Police from power, he quickly realizes that the new regime is corrupt and he may hold the only key to true freedom.
FICTION JR-HI HALAM, A.	*Siberia* by Ann Halam. After spending two years at a prison school, thirteen-year-old Sloe sets off on a trek across frozen wastelands, tending to the secret “seeds” of wild animals her mother left in her care, trying to reach a new life for all of them.
FICTION HARNESS, C.	*Ghosts of the Nile* words and pictures by Cheryl Harness. Zachary and his aunt travel through time to ancient Egypt where they have many adventures.
FICTION HUNT, G.	*The Accidental Spaceship* by Gene Hunt. When a spaceship lands in the backyard of their grandfather’s Pennsylvania farm house, thirteen-year-olds twins Vernon and Junior Smith begin a series of adventures involving a robot named Thinker, interplanetary travel, and an unrelenting tax collector.
FICTION JACOBS, P.	*Sleepers, Wake* by Paul Samuel Jacobs. Dody, a space pioneer of the future, wakes long before anyone else during his ship's journey and grows old while his family continues to sleep.
FICTION MACKEL, K.	*Alien in a Bottle* by Kathy Mackel. With the help of a star-gazing classmate and an unusual assortment of aliens from outer space, teenager Sean Winger tries to find a way to convince his parents to let him pursue his dream of becoming a glass blower.
FICTION MCCALL, J.	*The Blackout Gang* by Josh McCall. Three genius friends escape from their oppressive summer camp and get caught in a New York City power outage, which they discover has been caused by a classmate with evil plans that put the three of them in grave danger.
FICTION JR-HI MCNAUGHTON, J.	*The Secret Under My Skin* by Janet McNaughton. In the year 2368, humans exist under dire environmental conditions and one young woman, rescued from a workcamp and chosen for a special duty, uses her love of learning to discover the truth about the planet’s future and her own dark past.
FICTION MEACHAM, M.	*Quiet! You’re Invisible* by Margaret Meacham. With his mother expecting a baby and a bully living next door, fifth-grader Hoby Hobson has enough to worry about even before Zirc, a time-traveling boy who can sometimes be invisible, shows up in his backyard.
FICTION PAULSEN, G.	*The Time Hackers* by Gary Paulsen. When someone uses futuristic technology to play pranks on twelve-year-old Dorso Clayman, he and his best friend set off on a supposedly impossible journey through space and time trying to stop the gamesters who are endangering the universe.
FICTION POW, T.	*The Pack* by Tom Pow. A band of children must scavenge to survive in a post-apocalyptic future where forbidden territories exist and the line between man and beast is blurred.
FICTION PRATCHETT, T.	*Only You Can Save Mankind* by Terry Pratchett. Twelve-year-old Johnny endures tensions between his parents, watches television coverage of the Gulf War, and plays a computer game called Only You Can Save Mankind, in which he is increasingly drawn into the reality of the alien ScreeWee.
FICTION REEVE, P.	*Infernal Devices* by Philip Reeve. In the distant future, when fifteen-year-old Wren Natsworthy, bored with life in Anchorage, steals an Old-Tech book for a Lost Boy, she sets off a sequence of events that leads her parents, Tom and Hester, back into battle with old enemies and new.
FICTION SAGE, A.	*Physik* by Angie Sage. Pulled through a glass that brings him back in time, Septimus Heap becomes the apprentice of an alchemist.
FICTION JR-HI SLEATOR, W.	*The Last Universe* by William Sleator. When her desperately ill older brother insists that she take him into their mysterious backyard garden, designed by their quantum physicist great uncle, fourteen-year-old Susan discovers that things are not always what they seem.
FICTION STEWART, T.	*The Mysterious Benedict Society* by Trent Lee Stewart. After passing a series of mind-bending tests, four children are selected for a secret mission that requires them to go undercover at the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened, where the only rule is that there are no rules.
FICTION VANDE VELDE, V.	*Heir Apparent* by Vivian Vande Velde. While playing a total immersion virtual reality game of kings and intrigue, fourteen-year-old Giannine learns that demonstrators have damaged the equipment to which she is connected, and she must win the game quickly or be damaged herself.
FICTION WAUGH, S.	*Who Goes Home?* by Sylvia Waugh. On his thirteenth birthday, Jacob learns a secret about his birth and becomes involved in his father’s work to protect other beings, from the planet Ormingat, who live on Earth.
FICTION WILLIAMS, M.	*City of Ruins* by Mark London Williams. Having traced a dimensional rift to Jerusalem in 583 B.C.E., DARPA sends thirteen-year-old Eli and his friends into the past to try to prevent the unraveling of history and the spread of the deadly slow pox.
FICTION WILLIAMS, M.	*The Hour of the Cobra* by Maiya Williams. When Rowan, Nina, Xanthe, and Xavier are reunited in a time travel mission to ancient Egypt in the time of Cleopatra, a jealous Xanthe makes decisions which put them all in jeopardy.
FICTION WOOLFE, A.	*Avril Crump and Her Amazing Clones* by Angela Woolfe. Dr. Avril Crump, a chubby, balding, and lonely research scientist at Leviticus Laboratories, befriends three strange clones that were created during a failed laboratory experiment, but when she discovers a plot to destroy them, she embarks on a dangerous mission to save the only friends she has ever known.