A Book List: Grades 5 to 8

My friend Greta was asking me the other day which books I thought she should be certain her daughters read.

I started making a list right there in my head for her.

At first it was a girls only kind of list, since we were at our Girls Book Club and all.   And I guess you can still call this A Book List For Girls if you want.  But I think most books that are great for girls to read around middle school can often be great for boys to read around that same age.  And I think lots of novels that I want my middle school sons to read, I also want my middle school daughters to read too.  Sometimes I am drawn to books that appeal to a certain gender and, of course, through years of teaching, I have noticed novels that boys tend to gravitate toward more than girls and vice versa.  But mostly I am drawn to books with good characters who have depth and trouble and obstacles.  Characters who overcome and rise above and are often the same age as the readers I am recommending the book to.  Therefore, I think the story is good for any coming-of-age human.  (And still good for those of us who came-to-age ages ago.)

I recommend these books for grades five to eight, but you know your child.  If your third and fourth grader can handle certain topics, feel free to let them read on.  If your sixth grader is very sensitive about certain topics, hold off on a few of these.  (Plus, I had to pick a place to start and stop so I picked these grades.  I think I’ll make it a goal to create another list for high school soon.)

I think there is incredible value in reading books more than once, at various stages of maturity and experience in our lives.  I think there is a wonderful abundance of fabulous novels out there and if one particular story line offends you, just pick another one.  Even as a committed English nerd, I remain unconvinced that not reading one particular story in life will render you uneducated.

I do believe, however, on the opposite end, that it is possible to present a novel too early to a student and ruin them forever on that particular author.  Which is why I tend to delay some classic authors such as Charles Dickens and Jane Austen.  I’d rather wait a few years and give Charlotte Bronte a real shot at success than tossing her casually into the hands of a junior high student who might instantly be turned off at the old fashioned language and long run-on sentences that some of these authors employ.

So, finally, Greta – here is your book list.

(I am certain there are other great books out there for this age group.  These are the books that I have read with my kids or required them to read on their own or am about to assign.)

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Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan

Ralph Moody’s Little Britches series

Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Sounder by William Howard Armstrong

Old Yeller by Fred Gipson

Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo

Watership Down by Richard Adams

Anne of Green Gables series by L.M. Montgomery

Because of Winn Dixie by Kate DiCamillo

Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Robin Hood by Howard Pyle

The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald

The Giver by Lois Lowry

The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor

True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi

My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George

Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbit

Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli

The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles by Julie Edwards

Homesick: My Own Journey by Jean Fritz

Through Gates of Splendor by Elisabeth Elliot

The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Narnia series by C.S. Lewis

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Banks

Children of the New Forest by Captain Marryat

The Little Duke by Charlotte Yonge

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

The Lemony Snicket series by Lemony Snicket

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott  (and the others following this one)

Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis

Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

The Tale of Desperaux by Kate DiCamillo

The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe