Reading List: Intergeneration Month

Families come in all shapes and sizes, and they do not always include parents and their biological children. Sometimes, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and even great-grandparents are included in the mix, creating a canvas of experience that shapes children’s lives. The books included in this list are selected to celebrate families that include intergenerational relationships in honor of September, which is Intergeneration Month. Ideally suited to readers ages 8-12, these stories can be shared within families to recognize shared experience or understand more about the lives of others.
Contributed by: Mary Lanni

	As Brave As You By: Jason Reynolds When two brothers decide to prove how brave they are, everything backfires—literally.
	Bob By: Wendy Mass and Rebecca Stead Illustrated by: Nicholas Gannon Visiting her grandmother in Australia, Livy is reminded of the promise she made five years before to Bob, a strange, green creature who cannot recall who or what he is.
	Caterpillar Summer By: Gillian McDunn Since her father’s death, Cat has taken care of her brother, Chicken, for their hard-working mother. But, while spending time with grandparents they never knew, Cat has the chance to be a child again.
	Circus Mirandus By: Cassie Beasley Even though his awful Great-Aunt Gertrudis doesn’t approve, Micah believes in the stories his dying Grandpa Ephraim tells him of the magical Circus Mirandus: the invisible tiger guarding the gates, the beautiful flying bird woman, and the magician more powerful than any other—the Man Who Bends Light. Finally, Grandpa Ephraim offers proof. The Circus is real. And the Lightbender owes Ephraim a miracle. With his friend Jenny Mendoza in tow, Micah sets out to find the Circus and the man he believes will save his grandfather. The only problem is, the Lightbender doesn’t want to keep his promise. And now it’s up to Micah to get the miracle he came for.
	Freaky Fast Frankie Joe By: Lutricia Clifton Twelve-year-old Frankie Joe Huckaby, forced to live with the father he never knew, a stepmother, and four half-brothers in Illinois, starts a delivery service to finance his escape back to his mother in Texas, not realizing he is making a better life for himself than he ever had with her.
	The Graveyard Book By: Neil Gaiman Illustrated by: Dave McKean After the grisly murder of his entire family, a toddler wanders into a graveyard where the ghosts and other supernatural residents agree to raise him as one of their own.
	How to Win the Science Fair When You’re Dead By: Paul Noth To battle giant robots and stop his evil grandmother from destroying Earth, Hap Conklin, Jr. will need the help of his family, friends, and some very unlikely allies.
	The Parker Inheritance By: Varian Johnson Twelve-year-old Candice Miller is spending the summer in Lambert, South Carolina, in the old house that belonged to her grandmother, who died after being dismissed as city manager for having the city tennis courts dug up looking for buried treasure. But, when she finds the letter that sent her grandmother on the treasure hunt, Candice finds herself caught up in the mystery and, with the help of her new friend and fellow book-worm, Brandon, she sets out to find the inheritance, exonerate her grandmother, and expose an injustice once committed against an African American family in Lambert.
	Roll with It By: Jamie Sumner Twelve-year-old Ellie, who has cerebral palsy, finds her life transformed when she moves with her mother to small-town Oklahoma to help care for her grandfather, who has Alzheimer’s Disease.
	Walk Two Moons By: Sharon Creech After her mother leaves home suddenly, thirteen-year-old Sal and her grandparents take a car trip retracing her mother’s route. Along the way, Sal recounts the story of her friend Phoebe, whose mother also left.
	War Stories By: Gordon Korman Twelve-year-old Trevor Firestone loves playing war-based video games, and he idolizes his great-grandfather Jacob who came home from World War II a celebrated hero. Jacob, now ninety-three, wants to retrace his journey in memory and reality and return to the small French village that his unit liberated, and Trevor is going with him. Not everyone in the town wants Jacob to come, however, and Trevor is going to learn an important lesson: real war is not a video game, and valor and heroism can be very murky.
	Wish By: Barbara O’Connor Charlie Reese is sent to live with a family she barely knows, but with the help of a skinny stray dog who captures her heart and a neighbor boy named Howard, she learns what the real meaning of family may be.