Sunshine State Readers Awards: Grades 6 - 8 Books
The Sunshine State Readers Award (SSYRA) books are here for the 2024-2025 school year for grades 6-8 in Middle School. Discover each book and check them out from our catalog.
Sunshine State Readers Award (SSYRA) Grades 6-8
Adrift
Tanya Guerrero
The resilience of two cousins is tested when one of them is lost at sea and washes up on a deserted island while the other remains at home, holding on to the belief that her beloved cousin is still alive. Cousins Coral and Isa grew up on the same small island. When Coral and her parents leave on a months-long sea voyage amid the islands of Indonesia, the two vow to write to each other no matter what. When Coral’s boat capsizes at sea, her parents and the rest of the crew vanish. Washed up on a deserted island, alone and wracked by grief, she must find the strength within to survive, and find her way back home. Meanwhile Isa is still on Pebble Island, the only one holding out hope that her beloved cousin is still alive.
Fake
Ele Fountain
Imagine a world where your only friends are virtual, and big tech companies control access to food, healthcare and leisure. This is Jess’s world. But when she turns fourteen, Jess can go to school with other children for the first time. Most of them hate the ‘real’ world, but Jess begins to question whether the digital world is ‘perfect’ after all. Back home, her sister Chloe’s life-saving medication is getting ever more expensive. Determined to help, Jess risks everything by using skills forbidden in the cyber-world, only to stumble on something explosive. Something that will turn her whole world upside down. It’s up to Jess to figure out exactly what is real, and what is fake – Chloe’s survival depends on it.
Falling short
Ernesto Cisneros
Best friends Isaac and Marco face various challenges in sixth grade, such as Isaac getting better grades, Marco winning a spot on the basketball team, and both seeing their efforts make a change in their respective family lives. They hope their friendship and support for one another will be enough to help them from falling short.
The girl in white
Lindsay Currie
Mallory hasn’t quite adapted to life in her new town of Eastport yet. Maybe it’s because everyone is obsessed with keeping the town’s reputation as the most cursed town in the US. And thanks to the nightmares she’s had since arriving, Mallory hardly sleeps. Combined with the unsettling sensation of being watched, she’s quickly becoming convinced there’s more to her town. Something darker. When Mallory has a terrifying encounter with the same old woman from her dreams, she knows she has to do something–but what? With Eastport gearing up to celebrate the anniversary of their first recorded legend Mallory is forced to investigate the one legend she’s always secretly been afraid of . . . Sweet Molly.
Hear me
Kerry O'Malley Cerra
One year after being diagnosed with hearing loss, Rayne’s hearing keeps getting worse, even with aids. Friendships and school are a struggle, surfing is now a wipeout, and she can’t understand her favorite singer’s lyrics. Rayne’s parents are pushing for her to get cochlear implants, a surgery Rayne’s not convinced is worth the risks and challenges. With the surgery looming, she sets off on a bus journey that forces her to face her own assumptions about what her hearing loss means and what kind of life she could have.
How to stay invisible
Maggie Rudd
When twelve-year-old Raymond and his pup Rosie are abandoned by his family, he uses his wilderness skills to survive in the woods, but as winter comes, he realizes his wits are not enough, and that perhaps it is time he starts trusting others with his secret.
Kelcie Murphy and the Academy for the Unbreakable Arts
Erika Lewis
The Otherworld is at war. The Academy for the Unbreakable Arts trains warriors. And Kelcie Murphy-a foster child raised in the human world-is dying to attend. A place at AUA means meeting Scaathach, the legendary trainer of Celtic heroes. It means learning to fight with a sword. It means harnessing her hidden powers and-most importantly-finding out who her parents are, and why they abandoned her in Boston Harbor eight years ago. When Kelcie tests into the school, she learns that she’s a Saiga, one of the most ancient beings in the Otherworld. Secretive, shunned, and possessed of imposing elemental powers, the Saiga are also kin to the Otherworld’s most infamous traitor. But Kelcie is a survivor, and she’ll do whatever it takes to find her parents and her place in their world. Even if that means making a few enemies.
The mystery of the Radcliffe riddle
Taryn Souders
When Grady and his dad learn that the town oddball, Eudora “Kooky” Klinch left something for them in her will, they can only imagine what it might be. When it turns out it’s an old scrap of 300-year-old tapestry, they are bitterly disappointed. But the cloth comes with a note saying, “This is no ordinary piece of needlework. It’s a treasure map. Riddles and Clues. To the victor go the riches.” Grady’s dad dismisses it, but Grady thinks this could be the chance of a lifetime. With the help of his friends Thad, Clemmie, and the town dog Ophelia, Grady is determined to crack the clues and find the treasure. But when someone tries to break into Grady’s house one night, and then the local antiques expert who examined the tapestry is found unconscious, Grady realizes that he’s not the only one who knows about the treasure map. There’s more at risk than he bargained for, and solving this mystery just got a lot more dangerous. You will love Grady and his adventures if you are looking.
New dragon city
Mari Mancusi
Five years after dragons decimated the world, a chance encounter with a young dragon leaves twelve-year-old Noah questioning everything he thought he knew.
Over and out
Jenni L. Walsh
Sophie has spent her entire life behind the Berlin Wall, guarded by land mines, towers, and attack dogs. A science lover, Sophie dreams of becoming an inventor … but that’s unlikely in East Berlin, where the Stasi, the secret police, are always watching. Though she tries to avoid their notice, when her beloved neighbor is arrested, Sophie is called to her principal’s office. There, a young Stasi officer asks Sophie if she’ll spy on her neighbor after she is released. Sophie doesn’t want to agree, but in reality has no choice: The Stasi threaten to bring her mother, who has a disability from post-polio syndrome, to an institution if Sophie does not comply. Sophie is backed into a corner, until she finds out, for the first time, that she has family on the other side of the Wall, in the West. This could be what she needs to attempt an escape with her mother to freedom — if she can invent her way out
Ride on
Faith Erin Hicks
Victoria has always loved horses. But riding in competitions is high stakes, high stress, and shockingly expensive. And even though Victoria’s best friend Taylor loves competing, Victoria has lost her taste for it. After a heartbreaking fight with Taylor, Victoria needs a new start–at a new stables. A place where she doesn’t have to worry about anything other than riding. No competition, no drama, no friends.
Roll for initiative
Jaime Formato
Twelve-year-old Riley steps out of her older brother’s protective shadow and behind the Dungeon Master’s screen, running D&D campaigns for her friends and learning to be independent and self-reliant.
The Ruby code
Jessica Khoury
While playing an old fantasy videogame, Ash encounters Ruby, who seems far more than a pre-programmed side character, and together they discover she’s a sentient AI originally designed as a weapon, trapping them both in deadly game that blurs the lines between real and virtual.
The superteacher project
Gordon Korman
A work in progress
Jarrett Lerner
Hiding himself in baggy jeans and oversized hoodies, Will resorts to increasingly drastic measures to transform his appearance in an effort to win over his crush, until he meets someone who helps him see his body and all it contains as an ever-evolving work in progress.