20 Great Books for Seventh Grade Students
I’ve collected some of my favorite books for a seventh grader to read. Enter your email address below and I’ll send this printable book list straight to your inbox!
During this school year, I have been working on book lists by class with 20 books for each grade level (you can see them all here).
I’ve pretty much finished the elementary school levels and am now starting middle school (I currently have a seventh grade!)
It’s great fun finding books that are a good mix of classics and newer titles and a wide range of genres, some easier to read and others that will challenge readers a bit.
Here are the 20 books I would choose for seventh graders (about 2 per month during the school year)!
20 BOOKS SEVEN GRADE STUDENTS DON’T WANT TO PUT DOWN
Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
Stargirl arrives at Micah High and charms everyone with her weird and wonderful personality, especially the narrator, Leo. But when she starts cheering for both the home and opposing teams, the school turns against her. And Leo, desperately in love with her, pushes her to conform. I read it during my master’s degree in library science and loved it. (Full review here)
New Kid by Jerry Craft
I picked this up in 2019 while my children’s literature book club was reading it and I flipped through it in one day! Such a wonderful and warm story of a middle school student who attends a wealthy private school as one of the few people of color. It’s smart and funny and I loved every page. (See full review here)
Refugee by Alan Gratz
If you have a reader who also enjoys a bit of historical fiction, Alan Gratz has some great middle grade historical fiction books, including this one. This one in particular follows three different children all seeking refuge: a Jewish boy in 1930s Nazi Germany, a Cuban girl in 1994, and a Syrian boy in 2015.
Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan
This is one of the books where I feel deeply sorry for anyone who read this book on paper instead of listening to it. It is so tremendously well done with the musical accompaniment really bringing the magic of this book to life.
The Giver by Lois Lowry
This Newbery Winner is a classic (which makes me feel old because I remember when it came out) and is included on many school reading lists. I didn’t read it until I was in college and then I liked it so much that I read it aloud to Bart a few years later. If you haven’t read the middle grade dystopian novel, it’s definitely worth a listen.
Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt
I love Gary D. Schmidt’s books and this is my favorite of his! I LOVE this middle school lesson about a boy who suffers during his seventh grade year. The Vietnam War rages and his family life is complicated by his ambitious father and teenage sister, but the worst part is that every Wednesday one in two students goes to religious education and he has to stay in class and study Shakespeare with his teacher. This book is 100% funny, smart, and awesome. I have recommended it hundreds and hundreds of times. The companion novel, Ok for nowit’s just as good. (Full review here)
Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
This book is just SO GOOD. I was afraid my girls wouldn’t be interested (it’s about a little boy from the Ozarks and his hunting dogs), but they were so into it. I cried my eyes out at the end, which is always a sign of the best books. Also, don’t miss his other lesser-known book, The summer of the monkeys, about a boy who discovers a tree full of monkeys.
Glitch by Laura Martin
We loved this time travel novel! It switches back and forth between the girl’s point of view and the main boy’s point of view (there are two different narrators for the audio version) and it’s fast-paced with lots of fun story moments interwoven. In fact, I loved it so much that it earned a spot in last year’s Summer Reading Guide!
Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World: The Extraordinary True Story of Shackleton and Jennifer Armstrong’s Endurance
I first learned about Shackleton in college when a friend wrote an article about him and I was fascinated by this incredible story of Ernest Shackleton and his 27 men who became trapped in the ice while trying to cross Antarctica and then spent five months camping on the ice floes, eventually sailing 800 miles of open ocean in a small boat to find a rescue vessel. I can’t stop thinking about this!
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi
This was one of my favorites growing up, about a young girl who sets off alone on a ship to rejoin her family in America and finds herself in the middle of a mutiny and then tried for murder. I had read it aloud to my older girls – I hadn’t read it since the 90s! It’s so fun to revisit these beloved books from my childhood and I’m glad I forced myself not to reread them for the past decade so that they were new and fresh to me when I read them aloud! We were all SUPER taken with this book.
The Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell
I loved this book as a child, and it was a pleasure to watch my daughter pick up this beloved historical fiction novel about a 12-year-old girl who finds herself alone on a Pacific island after jumping from a rescue ship and spends eighteen years struggling to survive on her own.
The Outsiders by SE Hinton
I loved this book! It’s a true classic. Ponyboy has his life already planned: stay with his brothers, trust his greaser friends, and watch out for rich Soc kids looking for trouble. But when a fight goes too far one night, everything she thought she knew about loyalty, friendship and survival is shattered.
Drums, Girls and Dangerous Cake by Jordan Sonnenblick
This book represents the best of Young Adult. I can’t say enough good things about this novel about a teenager whose younger brother is diagnosed with cancer (Full review here).
Elizabeth George Speare’s Bronze Bow
When I was really trying to make progress through the Newbery Prize winners several years ago, I was ready to suffer through this taking place in first century Israel. And then I LOVED every second of it.
Skyward series by Brandon Sanderson
My husband and now my two oldest daughters are HUGE fans of Brandon Sanderson and this was the first book I read by him! This is set in a future where pilots are the heroes of the human race and Spensa dreams of becoming one like his father. But it seems that the actions taken by her father years ago will prevent her from realizing her dream.
Eternal Tuck by Natalie Babbitt
Winnie Foster is shocked to discover that the spring on her family’s property is magical and grants immortality to those who drink it, and even more shocked to encounter a family who have drunk from the spring and will now continue to live forever.
Blood in the Water by Tiffany D. Jackson
This middle grade murder mystery got rave reviews and I was hooked almost immediately. It was a quick read with a twist I didn’t see coming!
No purchase necessary by Maria Marianayagam
This is a book club pick for 2026 and I often enjoy reading them aloud to my kids during the summer. This one is about a boy who is forced to steal a candy bar and then when the boy who told him to do so rejects it, he opens it and discovers that it is a million dollar prize winning candy bar.
And if you’d like a printable copy of this list to take to your library or a screenshot on your phone for easy access, enter your email address below and it will come straight to your inbox!
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I’ve collected some of my favorite books for a seventh grader to read. Enter your email address below and I’ll send this printable book list straight to your inbox! During this school year, I have been working on book lists by class with 20 books for each grade level (you can see them all here).…