Some of our favorite stories about animals for school-age children.
Younger Elementary
After Fletcher, a salami-loving basset hound, is wrongly accused of eating a pet rabbit, he and his sidekick, Jasper the flea, must find the true culprit before Fletcher is sent back to the dog pound.
Akimbo series: book 2
When Akimbo and his park ranger father unintentionally capture a lion cub near an African game park, Akimbo wants to keep the cub.
Four budding artists, a tap dancer, a poet, a singer, and an acrobat, who just happen to be pigs, live out their dreams and avoid becoming bacon.
Mercy Watson: book 2
Mr. Watson's usual Saturday drive in his Cadillac with his favorite pig, Mercy, turns into an adventure when Mercy finds herself behind the wheel.
Ten-year-old Abbie, bullied at school for being small, wants to get a big black dog, but two months of living with a little Yorkshire terrier changes his mind about a number of things.
A panel of three judges has to decide which dog out of eight finalists deserves to win the title of My Hero.
An illustrated collection of seven stories about various animals, including a frog with magnificent legs, a hungry brontosaurus, and a mouse who gets married.
Older Elementary
Nine-year-old Julie loves animals. So much it seems that she's assembling a zoo in her room. But, what she really wants is a dog.
Castaway on an uninhabited island, Abel, a very civilized mouse, finds his resourcefulness and endurance tested to the limit as he struggles to survive and return to his home.
Ten-year-old India Opal Buloni describes her first summer in the town of Naomi, Florida, and all the good things that happen to her because of her big ugly dog Winn-Dixie.
Though scoffed at by Harold the dog, Chester the cat tries to warn his human family that their foundling baby bunny must be a vampire.Look for more Bunnicula titles.
Four young cats with wings leave the city slums in search of a safe place to live, finally meeting two children with kind hands. Look for more Catwings titles.
When Emmy discovers that she and her formerly loving parents are being drugged by their evil nanny with rodent potions that can change people in frightening ways, she and some new friends must try everything possible to return things to normal. Look for more Emmy and the Rat titles.
As she grows through the first years of her life in the Catskill Mountains of New York, a peregrine falcon called Frightful interacts with various humans, including the boy who raised her, a falconer who rescues her, and several unscrupulous poachers.
Freddy, a remarkably intelligent golden hamster, learns how to read and how to write on a computer and escapes captivity to become an independent and civilized creature. (First in The Golden Hamster Saga.)
A young student, who comes to love poetry through a personal understanding of what different famous poems mean to him, surprises himself by writing his own inspired poem.
Paul and his sister Maureen's determination to own a pony from the herd on Chincoteague Island, Virginia, is greatly increased when the Phantom and her colt are among the ponies rounded up for the yearly auction.
Graphic novel adventures of three mice, Saxon, Kenzie and Lieam patrol borders, and strive to make safeways to keep the mouse territories free from predators. Look for more Mouse Guard titles.
Captain Mousebeard is a feared mousehunting pirate. He seeks out the rarest and most precious breeds of mice to collect and trade. Emeline, a mousekeeper, wants the bounty her master puts on Mousebeard's head. So she heads off to adventure to capture the pirate. Look for more titles in the Mousehunter trilogy.
Having no one to help her with her problems, a widowed mouse visits the rats whose former imprisonment in a laboratory made them wise and long lived.
Poppy the deer mouse urges her family to move next to a field of corn big enough to feed them all forever, but Mr. Ocax, a terrifying owl, has other ideas.
Runt, the smallest wolf cub in the litter, seeks to prove himself to his father King and the rest of the pack and to earn a new name.
While spending a month on an island off the coast of Washington helping in her Uncle Sanjay's veterinary clinic, eleven-year-old Poppy Ray soon questions her decision to follow in her uncle's footsteps.
When he finds a lost beagle in the hills behind his West Virginia home, Marty tries to hide it from his family and the dog's real owner, a man known to shoot deer out of season and to mistreat his dogs. Look for more titles in the Shiloh trilogy.
When a newborn bat named Shade but sometimes called "Runt" becomes separated from his colony during migration, he grows in ways that prepare him for even greater journeys. Look for more Silverwing saga titles.
Buck, a dog, is abducted from his home and thrust into the merciless world of the Arctic North.
Guardians of Ga'Hoole: book 1
Pushed from his nest, an owlet is captured by agents of the mysterious and ill-intentioned St. Aegolius Academy, where orphaned owls are brainwashed and enlisted in an evil attempt to take over the owl world.
A cat, a bull terrier, and a Labrador retriever travel 250 miles through the wilderness to find their family.
During the annual crow migration, young Kyp leads a Mob on a revenge attack against a local cat. The disaster that follows splits the flock and sends them into forbidden worlds. (First in the Blood and Bone trilogy.)
A reckless young mouse named Ralph makes friends with a boy in room 215 of the Mountain View Inn and discovers the joys of motorcycling. Look for Ralph the Mouse titles.
Mistmantle chronicles: book 1
A group of animals, led by an orphaned squirrel, learns about friendship and loyalty when they band together to defend their island kingdom against evil forces. (First in the Mistmantle Chronicles.)
Convinced that Mud is responsible for the disappearance of the school hamster that he was taking care of for the weekend, Junior Blossom is determined that the dog should be tried for his "crime."
A taut and suspenseful tale of survival about a band of wild rabbits who leave their ancestral home to build a more humane society.