Realistic Fiction

Books in the realistic fiction genre are stories that aren't real, but could actually happen if it wasn't just a story.

These stories have realistic characters, real places, and real life issues.

  

 

A Sick Day for Amos McGee

Philip C. Stead

 Characters: Amos, zoo friends
Setting: The zoo, Amos’ house
Summary: Amos wakes up every day and goes to the zoo. He plays chess with the elephant, races the tortoise, sits with the shy penguin, gives the rhino tissues for his nose, and reads to the owl who is scared of the dark. When he does not arrive one day, the animals tire of waiting for him and take the bus to his house where they tend to him this time. They all go to sleep at Amos’ house that night, cuddled together as loving friends.
Theme: Being friendly, Taking care of others

 Axle Annie

Robin Pulver

Characters: Annie, Shifty, Hale, school kids

Setting: Town of Burskyville

Summary: Axle Annie is a school bus driver who all the kids love. Whenever it snows in the town, the superintendent of the school has Annie decide whether or not she can get up Tiger hill to pick up all her students. Annie always says she can, so the school never has a snow day. Shifty Rhodes, an angry bus driver, is always mad that he never gets a snow day. One night, at the Grump Club meeting he belongs to, a new member arrives named Hale Snow. Hale has a ski resort and is also mad at Annie because snow days mean more customers for him. The two guys work together to make a snow storm Annie must say no to. They decide to try and watch her get up the hill but while doing so they bump the snow machine which makes the entire hill be completely covered. Annie tries to get up the hill and almost can’t, but the town comes together to help her pick everyone up, even the two men. In the end, Shifty leaves town and Hale names a slope after Annie, which everyone loves to try and go down.

Theme: Perseverance, Working together

Bravo, Amelia Bedelia

Herman Parish

Summary: Amelia is late picking up the conductor for the orchestra, and says he was too heavy so she brought the train conductor. When the real one shows up, Amelia starts to count off to play music but she keeps talking, taps too much, and swats a bee which ruins the orchestra. She tries to play different instruments but the others don’t want her to play anything. Amelia sneaks off and finds a closet full of supplies that she makes into her own instrument. When she brings it on stage to play, she ruins the concert but all the kids watching it still love it! Amelia always takes things literally in her stories, which make them hilarious.

Theme: Be yourself, Try new things, It’s okay if things don’t go as planned

 

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Jeff Kinney 

Characters: Greg, Rodrick, Rowley, Parents

Setting: School, home

Summary: Greg’s mom gives him a diary, which he calls a journal. Greg is going into middle school and has an older brother Rodrick and a younger brother Manny. Rowley is Greg’s best friend but he pranks him all the time and is kind of a nerd. Greg writes and draws in his journal about his exciting and mundane parts of his life. The entries range from being grounded for listening to Rodrick’s music too loud, Rodrick getting in trouble for having almost-nude women in magazines he owns, and making haunted houses at Halloween to get money from the neighborhood kids. Halloween also brings them a night of being chased by older guys and losing all of their candy. Greg wrestles, is a tree in a play, and feels like he should have gotten more presents at Christmas. One day, Rowley injures his arm and the girls all flock to him, which eventually leads to him spending more time with another friend and Greg feeling jealous. He even tries to hang out with a geek named Fegley but he can’t handle his weirdness, all the while Rowley and Greg are officially ex-friends. Greg naturally becomes the cartoonist for the school paper. When they meet up again, they get chased by the same Halloween bullies but Greg outsmarts them. Greg wants to run for class clown but Rowley wins which makes him mad.

Theme: Friendship

 

I Can Be Anything

Jerry Spinelli

  Characters: Boy

Setting: Outside

Plot/Summary: Illustrated with a little boy, the book uses each page to detail things that you can be when you grow up, and they are all applicable to what kids can already be and do in their free time. Some of the things include dandelion blower, puppy-dog holder, puddle stomper, mixing-bowl licker, baby-sis soother, lemonade swigger, etc.

Theme: You can be anything, Enjoy the little things in life

 

If You Take a Mouse to the Movies

Laura Numeroff

Characters: Mouse, Boy

Setting: Winter

Summary: If you take a mouse to the movies, he will ask for popcorn. This leads to a chain of events such as making popcorn strings, hanging it on a tree, buying a tree, making a snowman, getting a carrot, building a fort, listening to carols, etc. In the end, the tree is decorated with many things, except the popcorn string is missing! They make a new one but the popcorn will make the mouse want to go to the movies again!

Theme: Series of events, Christmas, Friendship

Jessica

Kevin Henkes

Characters: Jessica, Ruthie, parents

Setting: Home and school

Summary: Ruthie has an imaginary friend named Jessica who she does everything with. She blames her for things and makes her come everywhere- even her first day of kindergarten. Ruthie only wants to play with her and doesn’t focus on making other friends until she meets a real girl named Jessica- who she loves even more!

Theme: Imagination, Making friends

 Joey Pigza Loses Control

Jack Gantos

Characters: Joey, Mom, Dad, Grandma

Setting: Pittsburgh

Summary: The story starts out with Joey and his Mom, with his dog Pablo, driving to Pittsburgh to meet his dad for the first time since he was little, and stay with him for 6 weeks. Joey notes that he is able to think clearly now after being in special ed classes and taking new medications. Mom thought it was a good idea to send Joey away with his dad because he had been driving her nuts at home, especially by throwing a dart through his dog’s ear. Grandma is introduced in the story as an old smoker who needs oxygen, and doesn’t like interruption in her own ways. Joey’s dad, Carter, has the same ADHD issue that Joey himself does, it seems. He coaches a little league baseball team in lieu of going to jail, and puts his son on it to find out that he is an awesome pitcher. Grandma tells Joey that his father can’t handle a girlfriend, a beer, or anything- he only thinks he can after his horrible past that he is trying to make better. One night Carter drinks a lot of beers after a baseball win and throws all of Joey’s medication patches in the toilet- triggering Joey to be very upset and scared that the ‘old Joey’ is going to come back but he also kind of wants to give himself another chance. After a few days of not being on his patch, Joey feels bad that he hasn’t told his mom all the things that his dad has done (Drinking, flushing patches, asking him to live with him permanently). Joey and Carter go bungee-jumping and that night is the semi-final game. Before they go play, Joey keeps scratching his head until it bleeds, and he realizes that he does need his medication- the baseball game that follows includes Joey stopping and starting for random reasons like wanting to talk and call his mom and to get batteries. The Grandma continually tricks Joey into buying her cigarettes with his emergency money- taking advantage of him while also trying to help him realize that his dad is not the best, which is does realize. Joey starts to worry that his mom can’t answer the phone or come get him and in a moment he decides that he needs to drive home so he gets in his dad’s car and tries to drive (just like dad had let him earlier) but then crashes it into the neighbor’s mailbox and runs back inside. His dad doesn’t think anything of it. During the championship game, Joey loses control and can’t handle his dad’s screaming so he just starts running away while his dad screams at him, even calling him ‘retard’. Joey runs to the mall and calls his mom who comes to pick him up in a few hours, and in the meantime his dad’s girlfriend Leezy hides him in her store. When mom comes, they go get Pablo and go back home without saying goodbye to the dad.

Theme: Mental health, Divorce, Self-control, Understanding yourself

Junie B. Jones, First Grader at Last!

Barbara Park

  Setting: school and home

Characters: Junie, her friends, her teacher, family

Summary: Junie B. Jones is going to first grade. Her friend Lucille ditched her for new friends but she still has Grace on the bus ride. She calls her teacher Mr. Scary and she does not like how the school year is going. Junie often goofs off, talks loudly, talks to her neighbor, and other trouble making things. During an assignment, she gets all of the words wrong and Mr. Scary brings her to the nurse for an eye check. She gets glasses and brings them in for show and tell and everybody makes fun of her. Her new friend Herbert who she is slowly growing to like tells every one that they are really cool purple glasses and they they start to agree. By the end of the book, Junie thinks she likes first grade.

Theme: Be yourself

 

Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale

Mo Willems

Characters: Trixie, Daddy, Mommy, Knuffle Bunny

Setting: The city

Summary: Trixie can’t yet talk, but her dad takes her to help him do the laundry. They walk through town and then she helps him put all the clothes in the washer and insert the money. As they walk home, Trixie realizes that she lost her Knuffle Bunny and starts to scream, yell, babble, go limp, etc. to get her dad’s attention. Instead he takes her home where mom asks where Knuffle Bunny is. They all run back through the city and to the washer to rummage through all the clothes to find Trixie’s bunny. When they find it, her first word is Knuffle Bunny!

Theme: Be careful with your things

 

 Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse 

Kevin Henkes

Characters: Lilly, Mr. Slinger, her parents

Setting: School and home

Summary: Lilly loves school and her teacher, Mr. Slinger. When she gets a new purse, new glasses, and some quarters one day, she brings them to school and cannot contain herself because she wants to share them so badly. Mr. Slinger asks her to wait, but she does not and interrupts the class. He takes her things away and Lilly writes a mean note to give to him. When he gives Lilly her purse back, she sees that he wrote her a nice letter saying that tomorrow will be better. Lilly feels horrible and brings him food and a very nice letter and drawing to apologize to him. Mr. Slinger forgives her and she gets to share her items the right way the next day in school.

Theme: Guilt, Be nice, Wait your turn

 

Molly’s Pilgrim

Barbara Cohen

Characters: Molly, her mom, classmates

Setting: School

Summary: Molly and her mother moved to America from Russia. Molly feels that she doesn’t belong and will never be accepted by her classmates because they make fun of her clothes, her customs, her accent, etc. During Thanksgiving time, her teacher gives the class an assignment to make a pilgrim based on what they’ve learned about Thanksgiving in class. Molly comes home and her mom helps her make a pilgrim- but her mom makes the pilgrim based on them, not the Thanksgiving-related ones. The class makes fun of her but their teacher tells them that Molly’s is a true example of what a pilgrim is in the current time and she puts it on her desk for everyone to see.

Theme: Tolerance, Immigration, Thanksgiving

Olivia

Ian Falconer

Characters: Olivia

Setting: Home, out and about

Summary: Olivia is crazy, has fun, plays dress up, moves her cat, goes to the beach, builds sandcastles, and gets sunburnt, but she will not take naps! She likes to go to the museum and sees paintings that she thinks she can do just as well. Olivia’s mom finds her painting on her wall one day and gets in trouble. Olivia still claims that she isn’t tired, even by dinnertime. Her mom says that she is worn out, but loves her even with all of her antics.

Theme: Have fun, Love

Owl Moon

Jane Yolen
Characters: Pa and his daughter

Setting: Outside in the winter

Plot/Summary: A father and daughter go owling on a winter night. It is the first time the girl has gone and she are very excited but she knows the rules. They have to be very quiet and the dad calls out hooting noises to attract an owl, and eventually they see one very closely, and then they go home.

Theme: Family traditions/bonding

 

Ramona Quimby, Age 8

Beverly Cleary

Characters: Ramona, Beezus, Mrs. and Mr. Quimby

Setting: School, Ramona’s house

  Summary: Ramona and Beezus are off to their first day of school for the new year- Beezus is going to junior high and Ramona into 3rd grade. Their dad is also going back to school to become a teacher, so when he gives them new erasers for luck, Ramona is excited because money was scarce. After school, Ramona goes to Howie’s house where his little sister Willa Jean is- she has gone all summer as well. When she and Howie get on the bus, a boy named Danny steals her eraser and throws it around. Ramona cannot decide if she likes her new teacher Mrs. Whaley. One week, the kids had a fad of bringing hard-boiled eggs for lunch, so when Ramona’s mom finally gave her one, she was excited for lunchtime. The kids all broke the shells different ways, so Ramona smacked it on her head, but to her dismay it broke all over her- it wasn’t boiled at all! While she was in the office getting cleaned up, she hears Mrs. Whaley calling her a show-off and a nuisance, which hurts and embarrasses her. The next morning, her dad’s car breaks down, and Ramona does not feel well. In the middle of class, she throws up, and Mrs. Whaley makes a big fuss of it, making Ramona feel even worse. After she stays home sick for a few days, she gives a book report to the class and makes it like a tv commercial- everyone laughs and loves it. Mrs. Whaley laughs too, and Ramona confronts her about what she said about her in the office earlier that year, and the teacher denies it and says that she meant it affectionately and that Ramona misinterpreted it. When the Quimby’s go out for dinner, even though they can’t afford it, they try to be happy after a day of everyone being cross, but soon they really do enjoy themselves. When it comes time for the check, the waitress tells them that an old man already paid for their dinners, because he misses his family and thought they reminded him of them. The family agrees that they are a nice family, even though they have their ups and downs.

Theme: Family pressures from a young girls perspective, Do your best, Be yourself, Love your family

 

Superfudge

Judy Blume

  Characters: Peter, Fudge, Mom, Dad, Grandma, Alex, Jimmy, pets

Setting: Peter’s house in NY and then NJ

Plot: Peter’s family moves to a new state, therefore igniting a series of changes including his home, his school, his friends, and his family with a new baby sister.

Summary: Peter’s parents start the book off by telling him that he is going to have another sibling soon, and he is mad because he already doesn’t like his little brother Fudge. He tries to run away but decides to stay. Tamara/Tootsie is born, and Fudge doesn’t take to liking her either- he tries to sell her, get rid of her, trade her, and hides her in closets. The mom decides to go back to school and their dad is going to take off work for awhile, in addition, they will be moving to Princeton, NJ from central NY. The new house is older and Peter doesn’t like being away form NY, but he does make a new friend named Alex. Alex invites him to sell worms to the neighbor with him, and they make jokes that she eats them. Peter and Fudge go to their first day of school, with Fudge starting Kindergarten. During that day, Peter is called to the principal’s office to help them deal with Fudge because he has climbed on cabinets in his classroom because he hates his teacher, so he gets transferred to a different classroom. Peter, despite trying to act cooler than his family, breaks character one night and dances with his Grandma and Tootsie. On Halloween, Peter thinks that costumes are for babies, but when Alex is wearing one, Peter is embarrassed  and grabs stuff out of Fudge’s closet to wear.  When Peter and his friends go to the movies, they see Joanne from school, who holds hands with Peter. Later, Joanne kisses Peter’s cheek under the mistletoe, and everyone got what they wanted for Christmas. In the last chapter, Fudge and Daniel go missing with their piggy banks busted open. Their parents frantically find them later at a bakery and punish them by taking their bikes away. The story ends with the family deciding to move back to New York because their year is over- Peter is happy to go back to his normal friends and normal life.

Theme: Changes, Love your family

 

The Tiny Seed

Eric Carle

Characters: Seeds

Setting: Outside

Summary: Flower seeds flow through autumn air and most of them land in oceans, deserts, or mouths of animals. The ones that lasted through the flow and the winter start to grow into plants during spring. One little seed does not grow as fast as the others, but as the others start to grow taller, they get stepped on, or picked, or ruined, and the tiny seed keeps growing. The seed is all alone after the other plants are gone, and it keeps growing and growing until it reaches the sky. In the fall, its petals fall and the seeds blow into the wind to make more seeds!

Theme: Love yourself, You can do anything

The Dot

Peter H. Reynolds

Characters: Vashti, teacher, boy

Setting: School

Summary: Vashti thinks she can’t draw well and is frustrated- she draws nothing. Her teacher asks her to just do anything to try and maybe just start with a dot, so she does. Then the teacher tells her to sign it, because that dot is still art. The next day, the dot is hanging in a frame as showcased art. Vashti thinks that she can make a better dot than that, and the following pages are of her different forms of dots. Soon, she has a whole art show just for her dot art and everybody loves it! A boy comes over to her and says he can’t draw either, so Vashti asks him to just draw a line, so he makes a squiggle. She tells him to sign it then, because even that is art.

Theme: You can do anything

 

The Snowy Day

Ezra Jack Keats

Characters: Peter

Setting: Outside on a snowy day

Summary: Peter plays outside in the snow during the day, he puts a snowball in his pocket, when he goes to sleep he dreams the snow melted, but then when he wakes up the snow is still coming down and he plays outside with his friend.

Theme: Playing in the snow

 

The Runaway Bunny

Margaret Wise Brown

Characters: A little bunny, his mother

Setting: Outside

Summary: The little bunny tells his mom that he wants to run away but his mother says she will come after him. The bunny then says he will become a fish to get away from her, but she says she will then have to just become a fisherman. This continues on- the bunny says he will join the circus, be a mountain, be a bird, etc, as the mother says she will be a tightrope walker, be a climber, be the tree he lives in. The bunny eventually gives up and says he will stay with her and just be her little bunny.

Theme: Don’t run away, Love your parents

 

When I Was Young in the Mountains

Cynthia Rylant

  Characters: Girl

Setting: The mountains, many years ago

Summary: A young girl details her life when she lived in the mountains- swimming in lakes, using outhouses, pumping well water, walking to church, etc.

Theme: Daily life

 

Yo! Yes?

Chris Raschka

Characters: 2 boys

Setting: n/a

Summary: This story is a very simple one. One black boy and one white boy say single words to eachother like “Yo!” “Yes?” and start conversation. The one boy asks the other what is up and he responds with nothing is up, because he has no friends. In shock, the boy points to himself and implies that they should be friends, and they walk away happily together shouting “Yow!”. Each page has one or two words on it.

Theme: Friendship