Just read The Family Fletcher Take Rock Island

And that book is just as good as the first. I really have to run to pick up the CSA, but I'm saying this to anybody who might find themselves in need of a good piece of realistic middle-grade fiction - Family Fletcher. Good, solid "family" story, of the classic sort we don't see too much of right now.

(If you like a little more magical realism in your solid middle grade books, then I'd go with Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer, but as an independent read and not a read-aloud. It's epistolary fiction, so... yeah.)