5 Middle Grade Novels Featuring Deceased or Absent Parents

Middle school is a time of such immense change, and if it happens to compounded by a traumatic experience—say, a parent dying or abandoning a child—the pain can be heavy and enormous. In my own life, my daughter experienced her father’s abandonment, and she’s still dealing with this grief and loss. It takes a very sensitive author to deal with these depths of anger and sadness. Here are five middle grade novels that address how a range of middle schoolers cope with losing a parent.

Everything is going wrong for 11-year-old David Greenberg. He’s about to start at Harman Middle School when his best friend Elliott befriends the kid who has always bullied them both. In the meantime, David’s mother left the family two years ago to work on an organic beet farm, where she has no phone, no TV, and no electricity.

The only way David can stay in touch with his mom is by writing letters. But David finds comfort in his own talk show, modeled after his idol Jon Stewart and The Daily Show, and eventually David and his older sister learn to unite in the grief over their absent mother. 

To make matters more complicated, her father often forgets to purchase food and neglects his daughter emotionally. Fortunately, the caring adults in the community empower Gaby to find her voice, and she finds some hope and self-confidence in a project at the local Furry Friends animal shelter. This is a poignant story about what happens when deportation separates families.

Maria does her best to find her place lives in a basement apartment in the barrio, where she writes letters to her mother, and keeps a journal describing her life in Puerto Rico before she moved. A mix of poetry and spare prose, this is a hopeful story about being caught between two worlds and finding yourself in a new place far from home.

When she’s nine, Sol’s father returns to the Philippines for a funeral and he never returns. Now she’s 12, and Sol and her little sister Ming are living with their abusive stepmother, Vea. Sol makes up stories for Ming, attempting to remember the tales her mother used to tell her.

In this story about persevering and finding hope in the most unbearable circumstances, the sisters rely on their imaginations to survive.

Reza’s mother has become a loyal supporter of Ayatollah Khomeini and the war, and she hopes that Reza will become a martyr like his father. But Reza doesn’t want to die like his father, until best friend joins the fight, and Reza realizes his mother will never be happy until her son has also enlisted.

Perhaps this is Reza’s way of grieving his dead father: by trying to follow his father’s footsteps through a dangerous battle. This is a heartbreaking and compelling story about what it’s like to lose a parent during a war and do your best to survive.

What middle grade books that tackle absent parents would you recommend?