The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) annually recognizes a list of the best books for children.  The list is a lengthy one, so I’ll break it up by ages, as the committee does.

Here is the list for Middle Readers:

America Is under Attack : September 11, 2001 : the Day the Towers Fell. By Don Brown.

Balloons over Broadway: the True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade. By Melissa Sweet.

Breaking Stalin’s Nose. By Eugene Yelchin.

  

The Cheshire Cheese Cat : a Dickens of a Tale. By Carmen Agra Deedy Illus. by Barry Moser.

Diego Rivera: His World and Ours. By Duncan Tonatiuh.

Dream Something Big : the Story of the Watts Towers. By Dianna Hutts Aston, Illus. by Susan L.Roth.

  

E-mergency. By Tom Lichtenheld, Illus. by Ezra Fields-Meyer.

Emma Dilemma : Big Sister Poems. By Kristine O’Connell George, Illus. by Nancy Carpenter.

The Great Migration : Journey to the North. By Eloise Greenfield, Illus. by Jan Spivey Gilchrist.

  

Inside Out and Back Again. By Thanhha Lai.

Junonia. By Kevin Henkes.

Lemonade, and Other Poems Squeezed from a Single Word. By Bob Raczka, Illus. by Nancy Doniger.

  

The Lily Pond By Annika Thor. Trans. by Linda Schenck.

The Mangrove Tree: Planting Trees to Feed Families. By Susan L. Roth and Cindy Trumbore

Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match /Marisol McDonald no combina By Monica Brown, Illus. by Sara Palacios.

  

Maximilian and the Mystery of the Guardian Angel: A Bilingual Lucha Libre Thriller. By Xavier Garza .

Migrant. By Maxine Trottier, Illus. by Isabelle Arsenault.

Night flight : Amelia Earhart crosses the Atlantic. By Robert Burleigh, Illus. by Wendell Minor

  

No Ordinary Day. By Deborah Ellis.

Nursery rhyme comics: 50 timeless rhymes from 50 celebrated cartoonists. Illus. by Patrick McDonnell … et al.

Soldier Bear By Bibi Dumon Tak, Illus. by by Philip Hopman. Trans. by Laura Watkinson.

  

The third gift. By Linda Sue Park, Illus. by Bagram Ibatoulline.

Thunder birds: nature’s flying predators. By Jim Arnosky.

Treasury of Greek mythology: classic stories of gods, goddesses, heroes & monsters. By Donna Jo Napoli, Illus. by Christina Balit.

  

The trouble with May Amelia. By Jennifer L. Holm.

Underground. By Shane Evans, Illus. by Shane Evans.

The unforgotten coat. By Frank Cottrell Boyce, Illus. by Carl Hunter, and Clare Heney.

  

The watcher : Jane Goodall’s life with the chimps. By Jeanette Winter.

Wonderstruck. By Brian Selznick.

Won-Ton : a cat tale told in haiku. By Lee Wardlaw, Illus. by Eugene Yelchin.

 

Young Fredle. By Cynthia Voigt, Illus. by Louise Yates.

Zita the spacegirl. By Ben Hatke.