The document provides summaries of 10 books that are options for a Battle of the Books competition. It summarizes The Candy Shop War as involving children doing tasks for a candy shop owner, including potentially stealing. It summarizes Diary of a Wimpy Kid as the comedic journal of a boy navigating middle school. It summarizes Elijah of Buxton as about an 11-year-old boy in Canada trying to help recover money to buy his family's freedom.
3. When fifth-graders Nate, Summer, Trevor, and Pigeon meet the owner of the new candy store in town they are excited when she lets them try her secret candy. When they eat her Moon Rocks, they can jump so high they seem to float! Soon, though, she asks them to do strange tasks for her--maybe even wrong things, like stealing. Then another magician comes to town who wants them to work for him! WHAT IS GOING ON???
4. DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: Greg Heffley’s Journal by Jeff Kinney
5. Greg's journal-- not diary--is the day-to-day stories of his middle-school life. He has to sit between two freaks with lots of piercings, he is bullied by middle school boys who have to shave, his mom is his substitute teacher, and then he has to wrestle in gym with a weird classmate. On Halloween, he and his best friend Rowley hide at his grandmother's house from some high schoolers who want to "teach them a lesson." The big kids throw toilet paper all over her house. What will happen to Greg next?
7. Eleven-year-old Elijah Freeman is the first of his family to be born free in Buxton, Canada. He is only a kid, but he decides to try to help Mr. Leroy get back the money he saved to buy his family's freedom. Elijah walks across the border looking for the thief known as "The Preacher." It is too late for The Preacher, but Elijah meets runaway slaves being held in chains, and finds that there is one thing he can do.
9. Although her parents and brother are magicians, 12-year-old Igraine longs to become a brave knight. She is thrilled with the special suit of armor they give her for her birthday, but her parents make a mistake in their spell-casting, and turn themselves into pigs. Only Igraine can stop the treacherous neighbor from stealing her family's magic singing books before her parents are restored.
11. A boy lives alone in a train station, taking care of the big clocks as his late father did, so no one will know that his father is dead. His father was working on a mechanical man that was about to write a secret message. But the father had not finished repairing and restoring the mechanical man, or automaton. The boy needs the help of a toy shop owner, a girl, and another boy to solve the mystery.
13. When Jenny and John, a young married couple, decided they wanted a puppy, they answered an ad and wound up with a puppy whose price was reduced. They soon found out why! Marley was hard to control. He was full of fun and love, but really hard to train. Neverthless Jenny and John, and--later-- their children loved Marley. Would you and your family have kept Marley?
15. Two New York City children decide to run away from home and live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. While there, they discover that one of the museum's statues might be a lost work by Michelangelo. They decide they must find out the truth. They use their last money to take a bus to the home of the wealthy widow who gave the statue to the museum. But does she really know who the artist is?
17. An unusual ad appears in the newspaper, and dozens of children enroll to take a strangely challenging test. But before they can even get in the door, each of four children encounters a dark girl with green hair who loses her only pencil. Each one in turn solves her problem in a different way and is selected for the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened. In this school with no rules, they are being trained for a secret mission that will require both brains and courage. What is it they must do?
19. Inspired by Mohatma Gandhi's practice of not speaking for one day a week, Dave Packer tries not talking at school, upsetting Lynsey Burgess, his report partner. Out of their disagreement comes a boys versus girls contest to see who is the best at not talking. This contest gets them into a little trouble at school. In the end, however, everyone learns from the experience, even___________.
20. THREE CUPS of TEA, Young Reader's Edition by Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin adapted by Sarah Thomson
21. In 1993 Greg Mortenson tried to climb a very high mountain in Pakistan. But a member of his team got sick and they had to turn around. When Greg got lost in Pakistan, kind villagers took him in and Greg saw children learning arithmetic by scratching problems in the dirt. He knew he had to do something about that, and promised to build them a school-- even though he had little money. Trying keep that promise, he received death threats and was kidnapped. Did he succeed?