Younger Readers (K-2nd) | Intermediate Readers (3rd-4th) | Older Readers (5th & Up)
| Elephants Can Paint Too! Learn about elephants and how they can paint just like human children in this true story of how Katya Arnold teaches painting to kids in Brooklyn and elephants in Thailand. |
Arnold, Katya |
| I Ain't Gonna Paint No More A little girl promises she won't make a mess with her paints, but it's a hard promise to keep! |
Beaumont, Karen |
| Tap-Dance Fever Annabelle Applegate can't keep her feet from tap dancing. |
Brisson, Pat |
| The Dancing Tiger A tiger and a girl dance through the woods. |
Doyle, Malachy |
| What Charlie Heard Tells the story of American composer Charles Ives, who wrote music which expressed all the sounds he heard in the world, but which was not well received during his lifetime. |
Gerstein, Mordicai |
| Iris and Walter: The School Play Iris is devastated when she has to miss being in her first school play because she is sick. |
Guest, Elissa Haden |
| Horace and Morris Join the Chorus (But What About Dolores?) Dolores is upset when her friends are chosen to sing in the chorus, but she finds a way to become part of the performance. |
Howe, James |
| Geraldine the Music Mouse After nibbling an enormous piece of parmesan cheese into the shape of a giant mouse holding a flute, Geraldine hears music for the first time. |
Lionni, Leo |
| Micawber Micawber, a squirrel fascinated by art, leaves a museum with an art student and secretly uses her supplies to make his own paintings. |
Lithgow, John |
| The Remarkable Farkle McBride The musical prodigy Farkle McBride tries a number of instruments before discovering that conducting the orchestra makes him happy. |
Lithgow, John |
| Katie’s Sunday Afternoon On a hot day, Katie and her grandmother visit the art museum, where Katie climbs into the paintings of pointillist artists Seurat, Pisarro, and Signac. |
Mayhew, James |
| Gus and Grandpa and the Piano Lesson (series) Gus would rather play outside than practice music. When he does not perform well at his piano recital, his grandfather shows him how music can be fun. |
Mills, Claudia |
| Purple is Best Sue's blue paint and Fred's red paint get mixed together and create purple, the best color of all. |
Rau, Dana Meachen |
| Ish Ramon loses confidence in his ability to draw, but his sister gives him a new perspective on things. |
Reynolds, Peter |
| Seen Art? While looking for his friend Art, a boy wanders through the Museum of Modern Art and is amazed by what he discovers there. |
Scieszka, Jon and Lane Smith |
| Doris’s Dinosaur When Mrs. Jenkins proposes the class paint dinosaurs, Doris's unusual artistic talent is not recognized until the class visits a modern art museum. |
Wells, Rosemary |
Intermediate Readers (3rd-4th)
| Me Tarzan When Dorothy gets the part of Tarzan in the class play, her tremendous yell attracts the attention of increasingly larger and wilder animals. |
Byars, Betsy |
| Klimt and His Cat Klimt's favorite cat tells us about the artist's life and work. |
Capatti, Berenice |
| Give My Regrets to Broadway (Chet Gecko series) Chet and his partner, Natalie Attired, take on a case involving an actor gone missing from the school musical. |
Hale, Bruce |
| A Mouse Called Wolf A mouse with an unusual name shares his musical gift with a widowed concert pianist. |
King-Smith, Dick |
| First Painter Following the death of her mother, the new shaman must find a way to help her prehistoric tribe during a drought. |
Lasky, Kathryn |
| Something Queer at the Scary Movie Gwen must try to figure out who wants to prevent her from completing the scary movie she and Jill are making during summer vacation. |
Levy, Elizabeth |
| Beethoven Lives Upstairs Ten-year-old Christoph and his uncle exchange letters about Mr. Beethoven, the eccentric boarder that shares his house. |
Nichol, Barbara |
| Stage Fright on a Summer Night (Magic Tree House series) Jack and Annie travel in their magic tree house to Elizabethan London, where they become actors in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream and try to rescue a tame bear. |
Osborne, Mary Pope |
| Circle Unbroken A grandmother tells the tale of Gullahs and their beautiful sweetgrass baskets that keep their African heritage alive. |
Raven, Margot Theis |
| Marguerite Makes a Book See what it's like to make a book by hand in Paris in the 1400s. |
Robertson, Bruce |
| Kamishibai Man After many years of retirement, an old Japanese street performer who tells stories and sells candies, decides to make his rounds once more. |
Say, Allen |
| Da Wild, Da Crazy, Da Vinci (Time Warp Trio series) Fred, Joe, and Sam da Brooklyn meet Leonardo da Vinci and try to avoid becoming toilet scrubbers in a 16th-century Italian army. |
Sczieszka, Jon |
| Secrets of the Stone While chasing Jackrabbit, Coyote and Badger come upon a cave filled with wondrous drawings. |
Taylor, Harriet Peck |
| The Great Googlestein Museum Mystery Three adventurous mice escape from their home at Macy's department store and spend an exciting week in the Guggenheim Museum, creating a sensation in the art world. |
Van Leeuwen, Jean |
| Chasing Vermeer When strange and seemingly unrelated events start to happen and a precious Vermeer painting disappears, eleven-year-olds Petra and Calder combine their talents to solve an international art scandal. |
Balliett, Blue |
| The Shakespeare Stealer (series) A young orphan boy is ordered by his master to infiltrate Shakespeare's acting troupe in order to steal the script of Hamlet but he discovers instead the meaning of friendship and loyalty. |
Blackwood, Gary L. |
| The Last Holiday Concert Life is usually easy for popular fifth grader Hart Evans, but when his music teacher puts him in charge of the holiday concert, Hart must use all of his leadership skills to unite the other students. |
Clements, Andrew |
| The King of Shadows While in London as part of an all-boy acting company preparing to perform in a replica of the famous Globe Theatre, Nat Field suddenly finds himself transported back to 1599 and performing in the original theater under the tutelage of Shakespeare himself. |
Cooper, Susan |
| Black Canary The child of two musicians, twelve-year-old James has no interest in music himself until he discovers a portal to seventeenth-century London in his uncle's basement, and finds himself in a situation where his beautiful voice and the fact that he is biracial might serve him well. |
Curry, Jane Louise |
| Yolonda’s Genius After moving from Chicago to Grand River, Michigan, fifth grader Yolonda, big and strong for her age, determines to prove that her younger brother is not a slow learner but a true musical genius. |
Fenner, Carol |
| Kokopelli’s Flute Thirteen-year-old Tepary discovers an old flute in a cliff dwelling in New Mexico, and through its power he learns about ancient Native American magic. |
Hobbs, Will |
| No More Dead Dogs 8th-grade football hero Wallace Wallace is sentenced to detention by having to go to rehearsals of the school play. In spite of himself, he enjoys himself and begins to suggest changes that improve not only the play but his life as well. |
Korman, Gordon |
| Dave at Night When orphaned Dave is sent to the Hebrew Home for Boys where he is treated cruelly, he sneaks out at night and is welcomed into the music- and culture-filled world of the Harlem Renaissance. |
Levine, Gail Carson |
| Saffy’s Angel After learning that she was adopted, 13-year-old Saffron's relationship with her eccentric, artistic family changes, until they help her go back to Italy to find a special memento of her past. |
McKay, Hilary |
| Adam Canfield of the Slash While serving as co-editors of their school newspaper, middle-schoolers Adam and Jennifer uncover fraud and corruption in their school and in the city's government. |
Winerip, Michael |
| The Mozart Season Allegra spends her twelfth summer practicing a Mozart concerto for a violin competition and finding many significant connections in her world. |
Wolff, Virginia Euwer |