Clean Reads

Sidetracked / Diana Harmon Asher

Joseph Friedman spends most of his time avoiding the class bully until a teacher encourages him to join the school cross country team, and he meets Heather, a new student who's tough and athletic and refuses to be pushed around by anybody.

Close to famous / Joan Bauer

Twelve-year-old Foster McFee and her mother escape from her mother's abusive boyfriend and end up in the small town of Culpepper, West Virginia, where they use their strengths and challenge themselves to build a new life, with the help of the friends they make there.

The girl of fire and thorns / Rae Carson

Chosen for an extraordinary and fearsome destiny, sixteen-year-old princess Elisa becomes the heart of a revolution after the king asks her to save his troubled country.

Princess Academy / Shannon Hale

While attending a strict academy for potential princesses with the other girls from her mountain village, fourteen-year-old Miri discovers unexpected talents and connections to her homeland.

Book scavenger / Jennifer Chambliss Bertman ; with illustrations by Sarah Watts

After Emily and her family move to San Francisco, she teams up with new friend James to figure out the secrets of an odd book they find before the men who attacked Emily's hero solve the mystery or come after them.

What we found in the sofa and how it saved the world / Henry Clark ; illustrated by Jeremy Holmes

Discovering a rare crayon between the cushions of a mysterious sofa found at their bus stop, River, Freak and Fiona unwittingly embark on a quest to save the world from an alien invasion unleashed by a criminal mastermind.

Summerlost / Ally Condie

After the sudden deaths of her father and autistic younger brother, Cedar Lee spends the summer working at a Shakespearean theater festival, making a new friend, and coming to terms with her grief.

The last apprentice : revenge of the witch / Joseph Delaney ; illustrations by Patrick Arrasmith

Young Tom, the seventh son of a seventh son, starts work as an apprentice for the village spook, whose job is to protect ordinary folk from "ghouls, boggarts, and all manner of wicked beasties."

The graveyard book / Neil Gaiman

Nobody Owens is a normal boy, except that he has been raised by ghosts and other denizens of the graveyard.

Heist society / Ally Carter

When Katarina's father, the patriarch of a thieving family, is the only suspect in the theft of a mobster's art collection, Kat must re-enter "the life" and steal back the paintings with her teenage crew before the Mafia catches up with her dad.

Change-up : mystery at the World Series / John Feinstein

While covering baseball's World Series, teenage sports reporters Stevie and Susan Carol investigate a rookie pitcher whose evasive answers during an interview reveal more than a few contradictions in his life story.

Belly up / Stuart Gibbs

Twelve-year-old Teddy investigates when a popular Texas zoo's star attraction--Henry the hippopotamus--is murdered.

Al Capone does my shirts / Gennifer Choldenko

A twelve-year-old boy named Moose moves to Alcatraz Island in 1935 when guards' families were housed there, and has to contend with his extraordinary new environment in addition to life with his autistic sister.

Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's library / Chris Grabenstein

Twelve-year-old Kyle gets to stay overnight in the new town library, designed by his hero (the famous gamemaker Luigi Lemoncello), but finds that come morning he must work with friends to solve puzzles in order to escape.

Theodore Boone : The abduction / John Grisham

When his best friend disappears from her bedroom in the middle of the night, thirteen-year-old Theo uses his legal knowledge and investigative skills to chase down the truth and save April.

Winterhouse / Ben Guterson ; with illustrations by Chloe Bristol

Orphan Elizabeth locates a magical book of puzzles that will unlock a mystery involving Winterhouse. As fate would have it, Elizabeth is the only person who can break the hotel's curse and solve the mystery. But will it be at the cost of losing the people she has come to care for, and even Winterhouse itself?

Michael Vey : the prisoner of cell 25 / Richard Paul Evans

Michael Vey, a fourteen-year old who has Tourette's syndrome and special electric powers, finds there are others like him, and must rely on his powers to save himself and the others from a diabolical group seeking to control them.

The detective's assistant / Kate Hannigan

In 1859, eleven-year-old Nell goes to live with her aunt, Kate Warne, the first female detective for Pinkerton's National Detective Agency. Nell helps her aunt solve cases, including a mystery surrounding Abraham Lincoln, and the mystery of what happened to Nell's own father.

Summer of a thousand pies / Margaret Dilloway

After her father goes to jail, Cady Bennett, twelve, is taken from foster care to spend a summer with her estranged Aunt Michelle, trying to save her failing pie shop.

Just one wish / Janette Rallison

Seventeen-year-old Annika tries to cheer up her little brother Jeremy before his surgery to remove a cancerous tumor by bringing home his favorite television actor, Steve Raleigh, the star of "Teen Robin Hood."

Song for a whale / Lynne Kelly

Twelve-year-old Iris and her grandmother, both deaf, drive from Texas to Alaska armed with Iris's plan to help Blue-55, a whale unable to communicate with other whales.

Schooled / Gordon Korman

After his hippie grandmother ends up in the hospital, Cap Anderson is forced to leave the commune where he is homeschooled and attend Claverage Middle School, where his odd looks and behavior make him the target of bullies.

On thin ice / Michael Northrop

Targeted by the school bully because of his spinal abnormality, twelve-year-old social outcast Ked Eakins, the son of a gambler, organizes an innovative but risky venture to save his home while finding a creative place to belong.

Hiding out at the pancake palace / Nan Marino ; illustrations by John Hendrix

When musical prodigy, Elvis Ruby, completely freezes up on television, he is forced to hide out in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, where he spends the summer working with his aunt and cousin at Piney Pete's Pancake Palace, the perfect place to remain anonymous until he meets Cecilia, a girl who can't seem to help blurting out whatever's on her mind.

Across the pond / Joy McCullough

Hoping to reinvent herself in the wake of a friendship breakup and a relocation to Scotland, Callie struggles to feel at home in a drafty, run-down historic castle before the discovery of a hidden journal inspires her to join a birding club.

Candidly Cline / Kathryn Ormsbee

Signing up for a young musicians’ workshop as she learns to make music of her own, Cline Alden realizes how much of herself she’s been holding back when she falls for talented singer Sylvie.

The red pyramid / Rick Riordan

Egyptologist Dr. Julius Kane accidentally unleashes the Egyptian god Set, who banishes the doctor to oblivion and forces his two children to embark on a dangerous journey to save him.

The invention of Hugo Cabret : a novel in words and pictures / Brian Selznick

When Hugo, an orphan living and repairing clocks within the walls of a Paris train station in 1931, meets a mysterious toy seller and his goddaughter, his undercover life and his biggest secret are jeopardized.

The Wednesday wars / Gary D. Schmidt

In 1967, Holling spends Wednesday afternoons with Mrs. Baker reading Shakespeare and discussing the world he lives in while his classmates attend religious instruction.

Drums, girls, & dangerous pie / Jordan Sonnenblick

The life of eighth-grader Steven Alper, already complicated by his friendship with two girls and a prodigious talent for drumming, is turned upside down when his five-year-old brother Jeffrey is diagnosed with leukemia.

The Grimm legacy / Polly Shulman

After high school student Elizabeth, working as a page, gains access to the Grimm Collection of magical objects, she and the other pages are drawn into a series of frightening adventures involving mythical creatures and stolen goods.

Dear student / Elly Swartz

When Autumn becomes the secret voice of the advice column in her middle school newspaper she is faced with a dilemma--can she give fair advice to everyone, including her friends, while keeping her identity a secret?

Three times lucky / Sheila Turnage

Making a home in a small North Carolina town where she washed up as a baby during a hurricane eleven years earlier, sixth-grader Mo taps into the power of her strong will and tough attitude when a lawman arrives in town to investigate a murder case that threatens to destabilize Mo's adopted family.

Rules / Cynthia Lord

Frustrated at life with an autistic brother, twelve-year-old Catherine longs for a normal existence, but her world is further complicated by a friendship with a young paraplegic.

Dear Julia / Amy Bronwen Zemser

Shy sixteen-year-old Elaine has long dreamed of being the next Julia Child, to the dismay of her feminist mother. When her friend, the outrageous Lucida Sans, convinces Elaine to enter a cooking contest, anything could happen.

The apothecary / Maile Meloy

Follows a fourteen-year-old American girl whose life unexpectedly transforms when she moves to London in 1952 and gets swept up in a race to save the world from nuclear war.

The thief : a Queen's thief novel / Megan Whalen Turner

Eugenides, the queen’s thief, can steal anything—or so he says. When his boasting lands him in prison and the king’s magus invites him on a quest to steal a legendary object, he’s in no position to refuse.

The memory of forgotten things / Kat Zhang

Twelve-year-old Sophia has never told anyone about her unusual memories, snapshots of a past that never happened. She becomes convinced that the upcoming solar eclipse will grant her the opportunity to make her alternate life come true, to enter a world where her mother never died. With the help of two misfit boys, she must figure out a way to bring her mother back to her, before the opportunity is lost forever.

A song called home / Sara Zarr

Receiving a mysterious guitar the night before she leaves the city to live with her mom and new stepdad, Lou believes that if she learns how to play it, she can bring a piece of her old life home.

Mockingbird / Kathryn Erskine

Caitlin, who has Asperger's Syndrome, struggles to understand emotions, show empathy, and make friends at school, while at home she seeks closure by working on a project with her father.

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Book List: Clean Reads

Sachem Public Library