Reading List
Grades 6-8
Grades 9-10
Grades 11-12

Our Time Machine Delve Deeper Reading List Fiction For Younger Readers

Fiction For Younger Readers

Acheson, Alison. Grandpa’s Music: a Story about Alzheimer’s. New York, NY: AV2 by Weigl Publishing, 2013.
Grandpa takes care of the garden, kneads bread, and makes music on the piano. Everyone in Callie's family helps out around the house, now that Grandpa, who has Alzheimer's, lives with them. The family becomes Grandpa's "home team," and Callie loves spending time with them. As months go by, Grandpa forgets more, and he can't do as much as he could before. But he can still make music - his fingers remember the notes on the piano. And when he can't recall the words to a favorite old song, Callie helps him come up with new things that they can sing about together.

Eagar, Lindsay. Hour of the Bees.Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press, 2016.
While her friends are spending their summers having pool parties and sleepovers, twelve-year-old Carolina is spending hers in the middle of the New Mexico desert, helping her parents move the grandfather she's never met into a home for people with dementia. At first, Carol avoids Grandpa Serge. But as the summer wears on, Carol finds herself drawn to him, fascinated by the crazy stories he tells her about a healing tree, a green-glass lake, and the bees that will bring back the rain and end a hundred years of drought. As the thin line between magic and reality starts to blur, Carol must decide for herself what is possible and what it means to be true to her roots.

Fitzgerald, Sarah Moore. Back to Blackbrick.New York, NY: Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2013. Cosmo's granddad used to be the cleverest person he ever knew. That is, until his granddad's mind began to fail. In a rare moment of clarity, his granddad gives Cosmo a key and pleads with Cosmo to go to the South Gates of Blackbrick Abbey, where his granddad promises an "answer to everything." In the dead of night, Cosmo does just that. When Cosmo unlocks the rusty old gates, he is whisked back to Blackbrick of years past, along with his granddad--now just sixteen-years old and sharp as a tack--beautiful Maggie, and the absolutely dreadful Corporamore family. But much more than time travel adventure awaits Cosmo on the old, sprawling estate: he'll also discover revealing truths about his granddad, his family, and himself.

Fox, Mem, and Julie Vivas. Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge. La Jolla, CA. Kane Miller Book, 1984.
Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, a rather small boy, lives next door to a nursing home in which resides Miss Nancy Alison Delacourt Cooper, his favorite friend, because she has four names as well. When Miss Nancy "loses" her memory, the intrepid Wilfrid sets out to find it for her.

Selznick, Brian. The Invention of Hugo Cabret.New York, NY: Scholastic Press, 2007.
Orphan, clock keeper, and thief: Hugo lives in the walls of a busy Paris train station, where his survival depends on secrets and anonymity. But when his world suddenly interlocks with an eccentric, bookish girl and a bitter old man who runs a toy booth in the station, Hugo's undercover life, and his most precious secret, are put in jeopardy. A cryptic drawing, a treasured notebook, a stolen key, a mechanical man, and a hidden message from Hugo's dead father form the backbone of this intricate, tender, and spellbinding mystery.

Steinhofel, Andreas. If My Moon Was Your Sun.Farmington, PA: Plough Publishing House, 2017.
Max lives in a small town, much smaller than yours. His grandpa is losing his memory, but still remembers quite a bit. You can imagine how they hurried, Max and his grandpa, followed by old Miss Schneider, who insisted on coming along. Why were they in a hurry? Because everyone was after them. Max had skipped school to rescue his grandpa, and they were just starting out on what promised to be one of the best days of their entire lives.

Sullivan, Sarah. All That’s Missing. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press, 2013.
Arlo's grandfather travels in time. Not literally, he just mixes up the past with the present. Arlo holds on as best he can, fixing himself cornflakes for dinner and paying back the owner of the corner store for the sausages Poppo eats without remembering to pay. But how long before someone finds out that Arlo is taking care of the grandfather he lives with instead of the other way around?

Walliams, David. Grandpa’s Great Escape. New York, NY: HarperCollins 2017
Grandpa is Jack's favorite person in the world. It doesn't matter that he wears his slippers to the supermarket, serves Spam a la Custard for dinner, and often doesn't remember Jack's name. But then Grandpa starts to believe he's back in World War II, when he was a Spitfire fighter pilot, and he's sent to live in an old folk's home run by the sinister Matron Swine. Now it's up to Jack to help Grandpa plot a daring escape!

Sources

About the author:

Sarah Burris

Sarah Burris