LitPick Book Reviews - reviews by kids for kids
Good Reads - for readers of all ages
Browse some great fiction books and don't forget to take a peek at the videos to see what you want to read next!
Chains: After being sold to a cruel couple in New York City, a slave named Isabel spies for the rebels during the Revolutionary War.
The Boy Who Dared: In October, 1942, seventeen-year-old Helmuth Hübener, imprisoned for distributing anti-Nazi leaflets, recalls his past life and how he came to dedicate himself to bring the truth about Hitler and the war to the German people.
The Trial: Have you ever wondered if O. J. Simpson was guilty, even though he was acquitted? OJ’s trial and its outcome was preceded some 70 years earlier by a court case dubbed, “The Trial of the Century.” Living in Flemington, New Jersey, in 1935, twelve-year-old Katie Leigh Flynn describes, in a series of poems, the effect on her small town of the ongoing trial of Bruno Hauptmann for the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh's baby son.
Swindle: After unscrupulous collector S. Wendell Palamino cons him out of a valuable baseball card, sixth-grader Griffin Bing puts together a band of misfits to break into Palomino's heavily guarded store and steal the card back, planning to use the money to finance his father's failing invention, the SmartPick fruit picker.
Schooled: Cap lives in isolation with his grandmother, a former hippie; but when she falls from a tree and breaks her hip, Cap is sent to a foster home where he has his first experience in a public school. Read Schooled and find out what is in store for Cap in the new and foreign land of the place called “middle school.”
These books by Carl Hiaasen are great books about saving our planet and the environment.
Flush: With their father jailed for sinking a river boat, Noah Underwood and his younger sister, Abbey, must gather evidence that the owner of this floating casino is emptying his bilge tanks into the protected waters around their Florida Keys home.
Scat: Nick and Marta are both suspicious when their biology teacher, the feared Mrs. Bunny Starch, disappears, and try to uncover the truth despite the police and headmaster's insistence that nothing is wrong.
Hoot: Roy, who is new to his small Florida community, becomes involved in another boy's attempt to save a colony of burrowing owls from a proposed construction site.
...and some more popular books
Heat: Pitching prodigy Michael Arroyo is on the run from social services after being banned from playing Little League baseball because rival coaches doubt he is only twelve years old and he has no parents to offer them proof.
My 13th Season: Already downhearted due to the loss of her mother and her father's overwhelming grief, thirteen-year-old Fran decides to give up her dream of becoming the first female in professional baseball after a coach attacks her just for being a girl.
Go Long: When Coach Spangler leaves at the start of their second year of junior high school, thirteen-year-old twins Tiki and Ronde wonder if his replacement, science teacher Mr. Wheeler, can coach the Eagles to another winning football season.
Tangerine: Twelve year old Paul, who lives in the shadow of his football hero brother Erik, fights for the right to play soccer despite his near blindness. Slowly Paul begins to rember the incident that damaged his eyesite - and he thinks it might involve Erik.
The Hunger Games: Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen accidentally becomes a contender in the annual Hunger Games, a grave competition hosted by the Capitol where young boys and girls are pitted against one another in a televised fight to the death. If you like the TV show Survivor you'll enjoy The Hunger Games and the sequel Catching Fire.
Peak: When fourteen-year-old Peak Marcello's long-lost father presents the opportunity for them to summit Everest together, Peak doesn't even consider saying no-even though he suspects there are a few strings attached.
Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life: Just before his thirteenth birthday, Jeremy Fink receives a keyless locked box--set aside by his father before his death five years earlier--that purportedly contains the meaning of life.
Notes From the Midnight Driver: After being assigned to perform community service at a nursing home, sixteen-year-old Alex befriends a cantankerous old man who has some lessons to impart about jazz, guitar playing, love, and forgiveness.
Flipped: Have you ever wondered what the opposite sex is thinking? In alternating chapters, two teenagers describe how their feelings about themselves, each other, and their families have changed over the years. In this amusing story you learn how two different people can see the same situations in very different ways.
Rules: Frustrated at life with an autistic brother, twelve-year-old Catherine longs for a normal, simple existence. She sets Rules for her brother that he doesn't always follow...
• Chew with your mouth closed.• Say thank you when someone gives you something, even if you don’t want it.• If someone says “Hi,” say “Hi” back.• If the bathroom door is closed, knock.• Don’t take your pants off.• No toys in the fish tank.• No making a scene in public so that people stare. Catherine's world is further complicated by a friendship with an young paraplegic. Read Rules to find out how Catherine's life changes in one summer.
The Lightning Thief: Percy Jackson who is expelled from six schools for being unable to control his temper, learns the truth from his mother that his father is the Greek god Poseidon. Percy is sent to Camp Half Blood where he is befriended by a satyr and the demigod daughter of Athena who join him in a journey to the Underworld to retrieve Zeus's lightning bolt and prevent a catastrophic war. Read all the books in the percy Jackson's adventures to see how he battles mythological monsters.
Inkheart: Twelve-year-old Meggie learns that her father Mo, a bookbinder, can "read" fictional characters to life when an evil ruler named Capricorn, freed from the novel "Inkheart" years earlier, tries to force Mo to release an immortal monster from the story. Click the above link to preview the world of Inkheart.
Code Orange: While conducting research for a school paper on smallpox, Mitty finds an envelope containing 100-year-old smallpox scabs and fears that he has infected himself and all of New York City.
Monster: While on trial as an accomplice to a murder, sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon records his experiences in prison and in the courtroom in the form of a film script as he tries to come to terms with the course his life has taken.
The 39 Clues: What would happen if you discovered that your family was one of the most powerful in human history? What if you were told that the source of the family’s power was hidden around the world, in the form of 39 Clues? What if you were given a choice – take a million dollars and walk away … or get the first Clue? If you’re Amy and Dan Cahill, you take the Clue – and begin a very dangerous race.
The Redwall Series: If you like adventure, battles, plot twists, and heroic animals who behave like fascinating humans, but still retain their animal characteristics, you'll love this book. In this sereies there are plenty of plot twists to keep you guessing and battles to both save and destroy. You don't even have to read all16 in the Redwall series, but you might want to, because the world of Mossflower County and Redwall Abbey is a captivating world.
Into The Wild: Tells the story of Chris McCandless, a twenty-four-year-old who walked into the Alaskan wilderness on an idealistic journey and was found dead of starvation four months later. Attempts to discover what led the young man to that point.
The Quest Begins, book 1 in The Seekers Series: Three young bears of different species--one black, one polar, and one grizzly--travel on a perilous quest to the Northern Lights, escorting a shape-shifting grizzly cub whose destiny will affect them all.
Kokopelli's Flute: Thirteen-year-old Tepary discovers an old flute in a cliff dwelling in New Mexico, and through its power he learns about ancient Native American magic.
Guts: the true stories behind Hatchet and the Brian books: The author relates incidents in his life and how they inspired parts of his books about the character, Brian Robeson.
Alive: the story of the Andes survivors: This book describes the ordeal of the survivors of an airplane crash in 1972 in the Andes wilderness.
Descriptions adapted from: Destiny Online Catalog