William Allen White 3rd-5th Grade Master List 2024-2025
It’s a new school year, which means a new William Allen White booklist! Scroll down to see this year’s titles and put them on hold.
3rd-5th Grade Master List
Odder / Katherine Applegate
Odder spends her days off the coast of central California, practicing her underwater acrobatics and spinning the quirky stories for which she’s known. She’s a fearless daredevil, curious to a fault. But when Odder comes face-to-face with a hungry great white shark, her life takes a dramatic turn, one that will challenge everything she believes about herself–and about the humans who hope to save her
Book/ Large Print / eBook / eAudio
Anybody here seen Frenchie? / Leslie Connor
Eleven-year-old Aurora Petrequin’s best friend has never spoken a word to her. In fact, Frenchie Livernois doesn’t talk. Aurora is bouncy, loud and impulsive. Making friends has never come easily. When Frenchie, who is autistic, silently chose Aurora as his person back in third grade, she chose him back. They make a good team, sharing their love of the natural world in coastal Maine. In the woods, Aurora and Frenchie encounter a piebald deer, a rare creature with a coat like a patchwork quilt. Whenever it appears, Aurora feels compelled to follow. At school, Aurora looks out for Frenchie, who has been her classmate until this year. One morning, Frenchie doesn’t make it to his classroom. Aurora feels she’s to blame. The entire town begins to search, and everyone wonders: how is it possible that nobody has seen Frenchie?
Book/ Large Print / Audio / eBook / eAudio
Invisible / Christina Diaz Gonzalez
Can five overlooked kids make one big difference? There’s George: the brain Sara: the loner Dayara: the tough kid Nico: the rich kid And Miguel: the athlete And they’re stuck together when they’re forced to complete their school’s community service hours. Although they’re sure they have nothing in common with one another, some people see them as all the same… just five Spanish-speaking kids. Then they meet someone who truly needs their help, and they must decide whether they are each willing to expose their own secrets to help… or if remaining invisible is the only way to survive middle school.
Manatee summer / Evan Griffith
Peter and his best friend, Tommy, have a goal for their last summer before middle school: finish their Discovery Journal, a catalog of the wildlife around their Florida town. When they spot a manatee in a canal, Peter knows they’ve found something special–and when the manatee is injured by a boat, something to protect! As Peter joins the fight to save Florida manatees, he also finds himself taking care of his ailing grandfather and facing an unwelcome surprise that jeopardizes his friendship with Tommy. Soon Peter is adrift, navigating shifting tides and realizing that he has as much to discover about himself as he does about the world around him.
Wildoak / by C.C. Harrington
Twelve-year-old Maggie’s stutter causes her much heartache and only her menagerie of pets, whom she can speak with fluidly, provide her comfort, but when she finds Rumpus, an abandoned snow leopard, in a forest in Cornwall, their chance encounter will change their lives forever.
Book/ Large Print / eBook / eAudio
Choosing brave : how Mamie Till-Mobley and Emmett Till sparked the civil rights movement / Angela Joy
A Caldecott-honor winning picture book biography of the mother of Emmett Till, and how she channeled grief over her son’s death into a call to action for the civil rights movement. Mamie Till-Mobley is the mother of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old boy who was brutally murdered while visiting the South in 1955. His death became a rallying point for the civil rights movement, but few know that it was his mother who was the catalyst for bringing his name to the forefront of history. In Choosing Brave, Angela Joy and Janelle Washington offer a testament to the power of love, the bond of motherhood, and one woman’s unwavering advocacy for justice. It is a poised, moving work about a woman who refocused her unimaginable grief into action for the greater good. Mamie fearlessly refused to allow America to turn away from what happened to her only child. She turned pain into change that ensured her son’s life mattered. Timely, powerful, and beautifully told, this thorough and moving story has been masterfully crafted to be both comprehensive and suitable for younger readers.
Hummingbird / 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. She is thrilled when she finally convinces her parents to let her attend Macklemore Elementary. Unfotunately, 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. If she can find the bird and prove herself worthy, the creature will make her most desperate, secret wish come true.
Book/ Large Print / Audio / eBook / eAudio
The sweetest scoop : Ben & Jerry’s ice cream revolution / Lisa Robinson
Chunky Monkey. Cherry Garcia. Phish Food. Truffle Kerfuffle. Chubby Hubby. Legendary ice cream makers Ben & Jerry are behind some of the wackiest, tastiest flavors we all know and love. It all began in 1965 when two groovy guys, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, met when they were twelve years old. Ben liked art, Jerry liked science, and they both loved food… especially ice cream! They eventually started a business together, and with no idea how to actually make ice cream, they kicked it off with teamwork, determination, and an appetite for fun and experimentation. When the doors of Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream finally opened in Burlington, Vermont, crowds flocked. But the pair would still have a rocky road ahead-and ambitious, activist goals to fulfill. Chock-full of facts and humor, this entertaining biography about two hardworking partners living their Americone Dream gives readers plenty to chew on. Through their inventiveness, passion, and activism, Ben & Jerry dreamed of making the world a better, more delicious place-one scoop at a time.
Books Coming to Screens: August 2024
Harold and the purple crayon / Crockett Johnson
Inside of his book, adventurous Harold can make anything come to life simply by drawing it. After he grows up and draws himself off the book’s pages and into the physical world, Harold finds he has a lot to learn about real life.
August 2nd/ Theaters/ Put on hold
The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace / Jeff Hobbs
The story of an inner-city Newark kid who attends Yale yet ultimately succumbs to harsh economic realities and the demons of his past.
August 2nd/ Theaters/ Put on hold
True beauty / Yaongyi
Tired of being looked down upon for her unattractive appearance, middle schooler Lim Jugyeong turns to the transformative powers of makeup. First, she experiments with BB cream, lip tint, and eyeliner; then she begins using mascara, double eyelid glue, and colored contacts. Before she knows it, Jugyeong goes from being a girl who is bullied for her ugliness to being praised as a high-class beauty. Constantly surrounded by those who adore her goddess-like appearance, Jugyeong can now live a more than comfortable life at school—she simply has to keep her bare face a secret.
However, everything changes when the new transfer student, Lee Suho, enters her life. Not only does the handsome Suho become immediately popular among their peers, but in a chance encounter, he also becomes the only classmate of Jugyeong’s to see her face beneath the makeup. With her reputation on the line, Jugyeong must do whatever it takes to hide the truth about her appearance from the rest of her classmates. But the more time she spends with Suho, the more Jugyeong finds herself questioning whether one’s true beauty lies solely in their looks.
August 7th/ Crunchyroll/ Put on hold
It Ends With Us / Colleen Hoover
August 9th/ Theaters/ Put on hold
Bad monkey / Carl Hiaasen
Pachinko / Min Jin Lee
(Season Two)
The Crow/ James O’Barr
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
Epic drama set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings’ follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth.
August 29th/ Amazon/ Put on hold
The crusader / Paul Kengor
(Reagan)
August 30th/ Theaters/ Put on hold