When meteors dropped eggs containing alien babies, Ava’s parents were called in to nurture them. The government funded a popular Alien Zoo for the extraterrestrial living beings (ELBs). But things are different now. A car accident claimed her mother; her despairing father left 13-year-old Ava and the Zoo in the care of his emotionally wounded brother. The alien babies stopped coming, and so did the public. And Harley, a new intern, arrived. Then, a storm changes everything again. The once-beloved ELBs are loose and being hunted. Ava’s uncle, MIA. All she has is this strange new boy to help her save everything.
One of the best ways to get kids into reading is to provide plenty of books that will appeal to their sense of fun and adventure. Sci-fi can be a brilliant option for this, particularly for school libraries. In addition to being action-packed, high-stakes adventures, middle grade sci-fi can explore deeper questions like what it means to be human, or the interaction between science and ethics. They can also link to the topics kids are covering in their school science lessons, and looking at these subjects through a fictional lens can sometimes help students gain an understanding that they didn’t before, or give them a new way of thinking about science.
These middle grade sci-fi books include a wide range of story hooks. There are alien invasions (some more benign than others), explorations into virtual worlds, robots threatening or saving humanity, budding new superpowers, and time travel. With a mix of prose, highly-illustrated stories, and graphic novels, there’s something for every kind of reader however they prefer to engage with stories.
School librarians — and parents or guardians — will find something on this list of middle grade sci-fi to appeal to every young reader, whether they’re a junior scientist, or they just love exciting stories. While many of these stories are new, I found while researching that, unfortunately, women and authors of colour are not as widely represented as they should be in very recent middle grade sci-fi, and so some of the texts I’ve included are slightly older. Hopefully, in the future, we’ll see more middle grade sci-fi from diverse authors being published.
We Do Not Welcome Our Ten-Year-Old Overlord by Garth Nix
Garth Nix’s latest middle grade novel is a chilling mixture of John Wyndham and Stranger Things. Set in 1970s Australia, it tells the story of Kim, an enthusiastic D&D player, and his younger sister, Eila, who is incredibly smart but undeniably reckless. When Eila picks up a strange orb that she finds in a lake, Kim is fearful, and his worry only grows as the orb, Asta, and Eila plan to ‘make the world better’ — whether the world wants it or not.
Little Badman and the Game of Nightmares by Humza Arshad and Henry White, illustrated by Aleksei Bitskoff
This funny, kid-friendly story plays on virtual reality games, taking the idea to wacky extremes. Main character, Humza, is trying to impress his crush by winning his school’s science fair, but his rival, Alan, traps Humza and his friends in a VR simulation so he can win the prize. Humza and his pals have to play their way out of the simulation before Alan triumphs.
The Time Travellers: Adventure Calling by Sufiya Ahmed, illustrated by Alessia Trunfio
First in an exciting new sci-fi series, The Time Travellers: Adventure Calling follows Suhana, Mia, and Ayaan, three friends who find themselves unexpectedly time-traveling to 1911. Disaster strikes when the friends are separated, and they have to find each other and get back home — without altering history.
Boy 2.0 by Tracey Baptiste
Boy 2.0 deals with serious themes such as foster care and racism, following Coal, a young street artist who, following a racist altercation, discovers that he has the ability to turn invisible. Coal soon finds that he’s not the only kid with superpowers, and that he might be in even more danger than he initially believed.
How to Be a Human by Karen McCombie
This sweet sci-fi story follows an alien known as the Star Boy, who crash-lands on Earth, a place that people on his planet have only learned about from a distance and never encountered. The Star Boy notices two humans, Wes and Kiki, and becomes drawn into their orbits as he starts to get involved in life on this new planet.
The Queen of Ocean Parkway by Sarvenaz Tash
Another story with time-travel themes, The Queen of Ocean Parkway is a fun mystery with a sci-fi twist. Roya is a budding podcaster who knows everything there is to know about the people in her apartment building. When one of the tenants goes missing, Roya realises that the disappearance may be connected to an old fortune-telling machine that has been linked to other missing people before.
The Curie Society by Heather Einhorn, Adam Staffaroni, Janet Harvey, and Sonia Liao
The Curie Society is a great action-adventure that may particularly appeal to science-loving girls. Simone, Taj, and Maya are friends who are also part of the ultra-secret Curie Society, a covert organisation that helps good scientists and foils the plans of supervillains. Young readers will love the team’s action-packed missions, and any budding scientists are bound to find that the story sparks their inspiration.
Final Form by Neill Cameron
The last book in Neill Cameron’s Mega Robo Bros series, Final Form, follows Alex and Freddy, super-advanced robot brothers who are also just a pair of ordinary kids. Freddy and Alex have spent the last few volumes trying to foil the plans of the sinister Robot 23, and Final Form begins in the wake of a catastrophe caused by the robotic overlord. Alex and Freddy have to use all they’ve learned to save the world or risk all humans and robots being threatened by Robot 23.
Looking for more middle grade sci-fi to add to your library? Try 11 Great Middle Grade Science Fiction Comics Set in Space, or Out of This World: New MG & YA Sci-Fi and Fantasy.