Advanced Reading Level for Younger Readers
Looking for a more challenging reading level with content appropriate for early elementary? These are developmentally appropriate reads for younger readers reading at an advanced level. (Updated April 2025)
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Lasagna Means I Love You
When 11-year-old foster kid Mo finds a handmade cookbook filled with someone else's family recipes, she builds a website to share them, secretly hoping a long-lost relative will find her.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Stuntboy, In-between Time
Superhero Portico Reeves is tired of living between the two separate floors of the apartment building where his parents live since the divorce. Things take a turn when he and his friends find an empty apartment, unlocked, and start making it a hideout and hangout all their own.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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15 Secrets to Survival
Forced to participate in an extra credit project in the middle of nowhere, four classmates must survive the wilderness with only a survival handbook and each other after their instructor goes missing.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Barely Floating
People often underestimate Nat’s swimming skills when they see her stomach rolls, but she knows better than to worry about what people think. Not even her parents can stop her from joining the L.A. Mermaids synchronized swim team.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Big Tree
In order to set down roots and become big trees, sycamore seed siblings Merwin and Louise must use their wits to navigate a mysterious and often dangerous world filled with talking plants, monsters and meteors.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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The Last Mapmaker
In this adventure set in a Thai-inspired fantasy world, 12-year-old Sai seizes the chance to join an expedition to chart the southern seas – but she isn't the only one aboard with secrets.?
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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My Extremely Normal Fairy-tale Life
Seventh-grader Nell lives an ordinary life in the magical town of Gumbling, but yearns to land her dream apprenticeship and become an artist.
Format: Graphic Novel
Availability: Available
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Control Freaks
As soon as Principal Yee announces the epic competition for the golden B-B trophy, seventh-grader Frederick Douglass Zezzmer knows two things: He has to win, and it won’t be easy. It doesn't just include STEM subjects. It also has arts and sports. Not Doug's best subjects...?
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Safe Harbor
Moving from India to the U.S. is difficult for Geetha, but things start to get better when she and a new friend help rescue a stranded seal.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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How Do You Spell Unfair?
The true story of eighth grade African American spelling champion MacNolia Cox, who left Akron, Ohio in 1936 to compete in the prestigious National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., in the face of prejudice and discrimination.
Format: Book
Availability: Available