For twelve-year-old Neve, it’s always been she and her older sister against the world, their lives entwined just like sisters in a fairy tale. So, if Rose loves tennis, Neve will play it too—even if secretly she’d rather be home turning cardboard boxes into offbeat art projects. Not even being moved to the piney woods outside Etters, South Carolina, can change what they are to each other—until a mysterious fog seems to swallow up Rose before Neve’s eyes.
Battle of the Books
Are You Ready to Test Your Wits?
A fierce battle will rage as middle battles middle school for book-knowledge supremacy. Be a part of the action to make sure HSMS Riverhawks take home the trophy.
How to Participate
Form a team of four dedicated readers. (Teams are limited to four students.)
Divide up the eight books below to decide which team member reads which book. (This is usually three books per person.)
Prepare for the school-wide competition in February. The winning team will advance to the county competition March 26, 2025, in Aiken.
Students who participate in Battle of the Books can complete one graphic organizer for each book on the Battle list. I strongly suggest that students complete this graphic organizer as they are reading the books. Don't procrastinate! You may use Internet sites and Destiny book summaries or collaborate with your friends to complete the graphic organizer. Using this organizer will help you remember a lot of details from the book so that you can use this review just before the competition. If you read a Battle book in August, it might be difficult to remember much about the book in March. That's why I strongly suggest teams complete the graphic organizer.
The best players are always the students who commit to this work. Former players have told me that these organizers help them retain their reading and prepare for competition. This is a tool for your use to make your Battle preparation great. Use it!
The Whispering Fog by Landra Jennings
Camp Famous by Jennifer Blecher
Abby Herman is beyond excited that her parents are letting her go to summer camp for the first time ever. But—surprise!—she’s not going to just any summer camp, she’s going to Camp Famous, the one exclusively for famous kids escaping the spotlight. Desperate to fit in with the pop stars, princesses, and geniuses, Abby creates a fake identity. Everything goes as planned, but as camp comes to a close, Abby finds herself torn between who she has pretended to be and who she truly is.
Dream, Annie, Dream by Waka T. Brown
As the daughter of immigrants who came to America for a better life, Annie Inoue was raised to dream big. And at the start of seventh grade, she’s channeling that irrepressible hope into becoming the lead in her school play. So when Annie lands an impressive role in the production of The King and I, she’s thrilled. That is until she starts to hear grumbles that she only got the part because it’s an Asian play with Asian characters. Is this all people see when they see her? Disheartened but determined, Annie channels her hurt into a new dream: showing everyone what she’s made of.
Yonder by Ali Standish
Danny Timmons has looked up to Jack Bailey ever since Jack saved two small children from drowning during the Great Flood of 1940. Now, with his father away fighting in World War II and his mother about to have a new baby, Danny relies on Jack’s friendship and guidance more than ever. So when Jack goes missing without a trace from their small Appalachian town, Danny is determined to find him. As answers elude him, Danny begins to fear that he didn’t know Jack as well as he thought.
Playing through the Turnaround by Mylisa Larsen
Fifth period is hands down the best time of day in Connor U. Eubanks Middle School because that’s when Mr. Lewis teaches Jazz Lab. So his students are devastated when their beloved teacher quits abruptly. Once they make a connection between budget cuts and Mr. Lewis’s disappearance, they hatch a plan: stop the cuts, save their class. Soon, they become an unlikely band of crusaders, and their quest quickly snowballs into something much bigger—a movement involving the whole middle school. But the adults in charge seem determined to ignore their every protest. How can the kids make themselves heard?
A Song Called Home by Sara Zarr
Lou and her family don’t have much, but for Lou it's enough. Mom. Her sister, Casey. Their apartment in the city. Her best friend, Beth. It would be better if Dad could stop drinking and be there for her and Casey, and if they didn't have to worry about money all the time. But Lou doesn’t need better—she only needs enough. What’s enough for Lou, however, is not enough for Mom. Steve, Mom's boyfriend, isn’t a bad guy, he's just…not what Lou is used to. And now, he and Mom are getting married, and that means moving. Their last night in the city, Lou receives a mysterious birthday gift: A guitar, left for her by their front door. There’s nothing saying who left it, but it must be from Dad. And as she leaves the only place she’s ever known, she starts to believe that if she can learn how to play it, maybe she can bring a piece of him, and of her old life, home.
What Happened to Rachel Riley? by Claire Swinarski
Anna Hunt may be the new girl at East Middle School, but she can already tell there’s something off about her eighth-grade class. Rachel Riley, who just last year was one of the most popular girls in school, has become a social outcast. But no one, including Rachel Riley herself, will tell Anna why. As a die-hard podcast enthusiast, Anna knows there’s always more to a story than meets the eye. So she decides to put her fact-seeking skills to the test and create her own podcast around the question that won’t stop running through her head: What happened to Rachel Riley?
We Were the Fire: Birmingham 1963 by Shelia P. Moses
Rufus Jackson Jones is from Birmingham, the place Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called the most segregated place in the country. A place that in 1963 is full of civil rights activists including Dr. King. The adults are trying to get more attention to their cause—to show that separate is not equal. Rufus’s dad works at the steel factory, and his mom is a cook at the mill, and if they participate in marches, their bosses will fire them. So that’s where the kids decide they will come in: Nobody can fire them!
Attack of the Black Rectangles by Amy Sarig King
When Mac first opens his classroom copy of Jane Yolen's The Devil’s Arithmetic and finds some words blacked out, he thinks it must be a mistake. But then when he and his friends discover what the missing words are, he's outraged. Someone in his school is trying to prevent kids from reading the full story. But who?
Hummingbird by Natalie Lloyd
Twelve-year-old homeschooled Olive is tired of being seen as "fragile" just because she has osteogenesis imperfecta (otherwise known as brittle bone disease) so she's thrilled when she finally convinces her parents to let her attend Macklemore Elementary. Olive can't wait to go to a traditional school and make the friends she's always longed for, until a disastrous first day dashes her hopes of ever fitting in. Then Olive hears whispers about a magical, wish-granting hummingbird that supposedly lives near Macklemore. It’ll be the solution to all her problems if she can find the bird and prove herself worthy! But can she do it on her own?