Realistic Fiction, stories of contemporary times and characters with normal human powers, are set in the real world. Realistic fiction contains characters who behave in ways that cause readers to say, “She /He acts just like I do.” Imaginative writers weave stories about characters who could live next door to the reader, but who become interesting because the reader becomes involved in their cares and concerns.  Scroll down to see the Booklist for this genre.

Criteria for selecting titles in the realistic fiction collection began with believability of characters, settings, and events. Readers must be able to accept  the characters as real people and events as real places when reading realistic stories; they must be credible. The reader must be able to imagine a boy like Jesse and a girl like Leslie as they race across the field in A Bridge to Terabithia. They must accept as possible Claudia and Jamie’s trip to the Metropolitan Museum, where they took up residence for a week in The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

The language of high-quality realistic fiction accurately portrays the characters the author describes. Dialogue is sometimes more informal and conversational than other genre since it deals with contemporary times and people. In realistic stories, ordinary people behave and speak in ordinary ways. Regional dialects ring in the ear when M. C. Higgins, the Great speaks about his Appalachian Mountain home. The reader hears a mixture of Spanish and English as Nicholosa Mohr’s Felita speaks about living in Puerto Rico and New York.

Recommended Placement Level:  The following chart lists the titles by our level designations.  A column is provided for you to indicate placement  or grade level based on your student population and your class for a given year.  You can print this page and work with your school librarian, the reading coordinator to identify books that are challenging for your students, easy for your students, or right on grade level.  We also suggest that you have several books available and let your students select a book based on their interest and/or favorite genre.  Oftentimes, your students will stretch to the level of the book because their interest is so high.  To confirm the selection, you might choose to have your student(s) read a page aloud.

Ethnic Group:  Books with ethnic themes provide numerous opportunities for your students to learn more about themselves as well as children from other ethnic groups. Many of the titles were chosen because they reflect both the cultural traditions and contemporary experiences of the ethnic groups in our multicultural society. These titles are indicated as follows: As-A for Asian American; Af-A for African American; Hi-A for Hispanic American; Je-A for Jewish American; Na-A for Native American.