Battle of the Books 2027: 5th Grade Booklist

Max Lightning has finally qualified for Gamerville, a championship where players compete to be top dog in the multiplayer video game Lone Wolf of Calamity Bay. But his dreams of domination are quickly dashed when his parents send him to Camp Reset, a tech-free summer camp, instead. Long nights of energy drinks and screen time have been replaced with fresh air and group activities under the hot sun–a shock to the system for a lone wolf like Max. Can Max escape Camp Reset and level up at Gamerville, or has he finally played his last match?”

A juvenile biography of the first Latin American player to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and who paved the way for generations of Latinx athletes.

Home is where the sinister lives. Rory Parker knows not to step a foot in, on, or around the house next door. He’s seen things creeping in the shadows, has had encounters with spirits, and lost a best friend to the house’s malevolence. But when his new neighbors, Jack and his lovable family, move into the house next door, Rory makes it his duty to protect them at all costs. But the vicious forces lying within the house are plotting something evil, something that puts Jack’s little sister in extreme danger. Soon, Rory understands he’ll need the help of his new friend and some friendly ghosts in order to stand a chance at defeating whatever lurks within its walls for good. But what exactly lives in the house next door, and will Rory and Jack find out in time to save the day, or can its evil never be evicted?

In 1963, Cooper Dale navigates the challenges of fifth grade as a Black girl in a predominantly white community near Pittsburgh.

Ten-year-old Anang wants to make a ribbon skirt, a piece of clothing typically worn by women in the Anishinaabe tradition, for an upcoming powwow. Anang is two-spirit and nonbinary and doesn’t know what others will think of them wearing a ribbon skirt, but they’re determined to follow their heart’s desire. Anang sets off to gather the materials needed to make the skirt and turns to those around them–their family, their human and turtle friends, the crows, and even the lake itself–for help. And maybe they’ll even find a new confidence within themself along the way.

When his newfound friend, resourceful watch cat Chloe, begs him to turn her into a human girl, Unico finds his act of kindness having unforeseen consequence as he unwittingly awakens Venus and her minion, who want to destroy them both.