Need an adventure this summer? Try these books! From kidnapping to getting marooned on desert islands, zombie apocalypses to plane crashes, these middle grade-level books have action on every page!
In the mood for epic tree houses and zombie chases? Try The Last Kids on Earth. Want a spine-tingling road trip with a doll that might be haunted? Take a peek at Doll Bones. Ever dreamed about living on a deserted island? Try the classic adventure story Island of the Blue Dolphins!
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
AR level 5.7 - AR Pts: 7.0
On his way to visit his recently divorced father in the Canadian mountains, thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson is the only survivor when the single-engine plane crashes. His body battered, his clothes in shreds, Brian must now stay alive in the boundless Canadian wilderness.
More than a survival story, Hatchet is a tale of tough decisions. When all is stripped down to the barest essentials, Brian discovers some stark and simple truths. Self-pity doesn't work. Despair doesn't work. And if Brian is to survive physically as well as mentally, he must discover courage.
The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss
AR level 9.7 - AR Pts: 23.0
After the Robinsons - a minister, his wife, and their 4 young sons - are shipwrecked on a desert island, they must adapt to their new environment, which includes exotic birds and animals, but none of the comforts they enjoyed in their native Switzerland. Without modern conveniences or even clocks and calendars, the Robinsons must use common sense to build a home, find food, and tame the island's wild animals. Through their struggles and achievements, the courageous family not only survives, but finds a spiritual happiness that they never experienced in their civilized homeland.
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
AR level 7.6 - AR Pts: 14.0
Spirited, romantic, and full of danger, Kidnapped is Robert Louis Stevenson's classic of high adventure. Beloved by generations, it is the saga of David Balfour, a young heir whose greedy uncle connives to do him out of his inherited fortune and plots to have him seized and sold into slavery. But honor, loyalty, and courage are rewarded; the orphan and castaway survives kidnapping and shipwreck, is rescued by a daredevil of a rogue, and makes a thrilling escape to freedom across the wild highlands of Scotland.
Last Kids on Earth by Max Brallier
AR level 4.1 - AR Pts: 3.0
Ever since the monster apocalypse hit town, average 13-year-old Jack Sullivan has been living in his tree house, which he's armed to the teeth with catapults and a moat, not to mention video games and an endless supply of Oreos and Mountain Dew scavenged from abandoned stores. But Jack alone is no match for the hordes of Zombies and Winged Wretches and Vine Thingies, and especially not for the eerily intelligent monster known only as Blarg. So Jack builds a team: his dorky best friend, Quint; the reformed middle school bully, Dirk; Jack's loyal pet monster, Rover; and Jack's crush, June. With their help, Jack is going to slay Blarg, achieve the ultimate Feat of Apocalyptic Success, and be average no longer! Can he do it?
This is the perfect book for any kid who's ever dreamed of starring in his or her own comic book or video game. And then grab the rest of the series, now a New York Times best seller!
Doll Bones by Holly Black
AR level 5.4 - AR Pts: 7.0
Zach, Poppy, and Alice have been friends forever. And for almost as long, they’ve been playing one continuous, ever-changing game of pirates and thieves, mermaids and warriors. Ruling over all is the Great Queen, a bone-china doll cursing those who displease her. But they are in middle school now. Zach’s father pushes him to give up make-believe, and Zach quits the game. Their friendship might be over, until Poppy declares she’s been having dreams about the Queen - and the ghost of a girl who will not rest until the bone-china doll is buried in her empty grave.
Zach and Alice and Poppy set off on one last adventure to lay the Queen’s ghost to rest. But nothing goes according to plan, and as their adventure turns into an epic journey, creepy things begin to happen. Is the doll just a doll or something more sinister? And if there really is a ghost, will it let them go now that it has them in its clutches?
The Cay by Theodore Taylor
AR level 5.3 - AR Pts: 4.0
Phillip is excited when the Germans invade the small island of Curacao. War has always been a game to him, and he's eager to glimpse it firsthand, until the freighter he and his mother are traveling to the United States on is torpedoed. When Phillip comes to, he is on a small raft in the middle of the sea. Besides Stew Cat, his only companion is an old West Indian, Timothy. Phillip remembers his mother's warning about black people: "They are different, and they live differently."
But by the time the castaways arrive on a small island, Phillip's head injury has made him blind and dependent on Timothy.
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell
AR level 5.4 - AR Pts: 6.0
Far off the coast of California looms a harsh rock known as the island of San Nicholas. Dolphins flash in the blue waters around it, sea otter play in the vast kep beds, and sea elephants loll on the stony beaches.
Here, in the early 1800s, according to history, an Indian girl spent eighteen years alone, and this beautifully written novel is her story. It is a romantic adventure filled with drama and heartache, for not only was mere subsistence on so desolate a spot a near miracle, but Karana had to contend with the ferocious pack of wild dogs that had killed her younger brother, constantly guard against the Aleutian sea otter hunters, and maintain a precarious food supply.
More than this, it is an adventure of the spirit that will haunt the reader long after the book has been put down. Karana's quiet courage, her Indian self-reliance and acceptance of fate, transform what to many would have been a devastating ordeal into an uplifting experience. From loneliness and terror come strength and serenity in this Newbery Medal-winning classic.
Holes by Louis Sachar
AR level 4.6 - AR Pts: 7.0
Stanley Yelnats IV is a 14-year-old boy from a hard-working but poor family that is allegedly cursed, for which they blame Stanley's "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing great-great-grandfather".Stanley's latest stroke of misfortune occurs when he is wrongfully convicted of stealing a pair of athletic shoes that belonged to a famous baseball player. He is sent to Camp Green Lake, a juvenile corrections facility which is ironically located in the middle of a desert; the lake dried up decades ago. The inmates are assigned to dig one hole each day, five feet wide and five feet deep, which the Warden claims "builds their character"
~Jenny