Upper Grade Books

Grades 7–9

Every book here has comprehension questions for each chapter, with answers and page numbers, so you can talk about the story with confidence, even if you haven’t read it yourself. Find your child’s book below or search for it, then ask two or three questions after each reading session.

Build a reading skill

Each collection gathers books whose questions practice one skill.

Inference & Text Evidence Reading between the lines, then finding the page that proves it.
Character Development How characters grow and change, and what causes it.
Main Idea & Theme What the story is really about, and the lesson it leaves.
Point of View Who is telling the story, and how that shapes what we see.
Compare & Contrast Noticing how characters, places and events are alike and different.
Vocabulary & Writing Prompts Word lists and writing ideas to go with the book.

Popular novels

Favorite stand-alone books for grades 7–9. Tap a cover or title to see the book.

Esperanza Rising

by Pam Munoz Ryan

Living life like a princess, Esperanza is a young girl in Mexico. She's forced to leave her country with her mother and everything she's known and tries to figure out life and how to survive as an immigrant in American society.

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Hatchet

by Gary Paulsen

Brian's on his way to visit his father in Canada when the pilot of the small airplane he's in has a heart attack. Brian spends 54 days out in the Canadian wilderness learning how to survive. His mother gave him a hatchet before he left…

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Holes

by Louis Sachar

Stanley Yelnats is under a curse. A curse that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing great-great-grandfather and has since followed generations of Yelnats. Now Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys' detention center, Camp Green Lake, where the boys build character by spending all day, every…

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Restart

by Gordon Korman

Chase Ambrose forgets everything after falling off a roof and losing consciousness. He forgets his name & his parents. He forgets what he was doing on that roof. And he forgets he's the biggest bully at Hiawassee Middle School. Book has violence.

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Stargirl

by Jerry Spinelli

There's a new girl in tenth grade and says her name is Stargirl. The entire school's not sure what to think of her and the kind things she does. Leo realizes that he's in love with her, but has a difficult time accepting that she's…

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The Girl Who Drank the Moon

by Kelly Barnhill

A witch, a swamp monster, and a perfectly tiny dragon raise a young girl named Luna, who must unlock the powerful magic buried deep inside her to save the people of the Protectorate.

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The Giver

by Lois Lowry

The Giver Quartet Book 1

*Mature. Content may be deemed inappropriate for younger readers.

While training to be the Receiver of Memory, Jonas experiences joy and sadness for the first time. He becomes convinced his society has given up too much, and he can no longer accept the sameness.

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The Outsiders

by S.E. Hinton

Rivalry between rich and poor gangs in 1960s Oklahoma leads to the deaths of three teenagers and intense soul-searching for one of the kids involved, a sensitive 14-year-old writer named Ponyboy. The plot contains profanity, violence, and alcohol use.

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The Westing Game

by Ellen Raskin

Sixteen game players, heirs to Sam Westing's fabulous fortune, are all suspected of his murder. This book is part mystery story, part play-along game, and part do-it-yourself puzzle.

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