Books My Son Read in 4th Grade

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Warriors For a list of books in this series click here. Check other series by Erin Hunter. The Warriors series has many sub-series, see them here. My son is in love with these books and reads one after another.
into the wild

Both my kids loved The Land of Stories and were excited a new one came out this summer.
The Land of Stories: Worlds Collide For a list of books in this series, click here.
worlds collide

Matous loved the series Wings of Fire and couldn’t wait to read the last installment.
Darkness of Dragons For a list of books in this series click here.
darkness of dragons

The 39 Clues (#3) For a list of books in this series click here.
the maze of bones

Fablehaven Grip of the Shadow Plague (#3). We listened to the first 2 book a long time ago and Matous picked up the third book now. For a list of books in this series click here.
fablehaven

The Lightning Thief  For a list of books in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series click here.
the lighting thief

Star Wars: Jedi Academy For a list of books in this series click here.
jedi academy

The Last Kids on Earth For a list of books in this series click here.
The Last Kids on Earth

Mr. Lemoncello’s Library Olympics The second book in Mr Lemoncello’s Library series.
Olympics

Mr. Lemoncello’s Great Library Race The third book in Mr Lemoncello’s Library series.
mr lemoncellos library race

Refugee He did not finish this book because he said it was too sad (he read about 3/4). My daughter who is two years older finished it.
refugee

Comet in Moominland My son fell in love with the Moomins. He read one book after another from this series. For a list of them click here.
comet in moominland

Book Scavenger For a list of books in this series click here.
book scavenger

The War I finally Won This is a sequel to a book we read together The War That Saved My Life.
the war I finally won

Masterminds For a list of books in this series click here. He loved the series as did my daughter a few years ago.
masterminds

Galactic Hot Dogs For a list of books in this series click here.
galactic hot dogs

Slacker
slacker

Hatchet Click here for other books in the Brian’s saga (they have really great reviews too)
hatchet

Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard For a list of books in this series click here.
Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard

The Girl Who Drank the Moon
The Girl Who Drank the Moon

Wonder
wonder

The Fire Within This is a series but some people mentioned that it gets darker as you read the other books so be aware of that. For a list of books in this series, click here.
the fire within

Capture the Flag
capture the flag

Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy
ophelia and the marvelous boy

The Magic Thief For a list of books in this series click here.
the magic thief

Furthermore
Furthermore

Holes
holes

The Ruins of Gorlan For a list of books in The Ranger’s Apprentice series click here. My son read all of them and there are many. 🙂
the ruins of gorlan

The Red Pyramid For a list of books in The Kane Chronicles series, click here.
the red pyramid

The Journal of Scott Pendleton Collins: A World War II Soldier Normandy France, 1944
the journal of scott

10 True Tales: World War II Heroes
Ten true tales

The Blackthorn Key For a list of books in this series, click here.
The Blackthorn Key

York: The Shadow Cipher
york

Books we Listened to or Read Together

One Crazy Summer
one crazy summer

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate
the evolution of calpurnia

Wolf Hollow
Wolf Hollow

Howl’s Moving Castle
howls moving castle

Freak the Mighty
freak the mighty

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
the true confessions

Esperanza Rising
esperanza rising

The Boy on the Wooden Box
the boy on the wooden box

A Night Divided
A Night Divided

Pax
Pax

Al Capone Does My Shirts
al capone

A Long Walk to Water: Based on a True Story
a long walk to water

The Westing Game
westing game

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making For a list of books in the Fairyland series click here.
the girl who circumnavigated

Breaking Stalin’s Nose
breaking stalins nose

Bud, not Buddy
bud not buddy

Tuck Everlasting
tuck everlasting

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Books My Daughter read in 6th Grade

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As always, I advise you to refer to the previous years categories because many books are great for kids of different ages. Check good reads for 5th graders and 6th graders, what my daughter read last year, etc.

Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief For a list of boos in this series click here. She is reading one after another.
Sammy Keyes

Both my kids loved The Land of Stories and were excited a new one came out this summer.
The Land of Stories: Worlds Collide For a list of books in this series, click here.
worlds collide

Under the Egg
under the egg

Sahara Special
sahara special

The War I Finally Won  A sequel to a book we all loved The War That saved My Life.
the war I finally won

Brave
Brave

Swing It, Sunny
swing it sunny

Ghostopolis
ghostopolis

Refugee
refugee

Doll Bones
doll bones

Mr. Lemoncello’s Great Library Race The third book in Mr Lemoncello’s Library series.
mr lemoncellos library race

Slacker
slacker

The Wednesday Wars
the wednesday wars

When You Reach Me
when you reach me

Running Out of Time
running out of time

Frazzled
frazzled

Real Friends
real friends

Invisible Emmie
invisible emmie

Beautiful
beautiful

Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie For a list of books in this series click here.
drums girls

Page by Paige
page by paige

Liar & Spy
liar and spy

Ghost For a list of books in the Track series click here.
Ghost

Chasing Vermeer  You can find sequels here.
chasing vermeer

The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet
the total tragedy

The Giver
the giver

All’s Faire in Middle School
alls faire in middle school

Hatchet Click here for other books in the Brian’s saga (they have really great reviews too)
hatchet

Runaway
runaway

So B. It
So B It

Al Capone Shines My Shoes and Al Capone Does My Homework
al capone shines my shoes

Double Identity
double identity

The Thief For a list of books in The Queen’s Thief series click here.
the thief

Trickster’s Choice Click here for the second book in the Daughter of the Lioness series.
tricksters choice 

Princess of the Midnight Ball For a list of books in this series click here.
princess of the midnight ball

 The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street
vanderbeekers

Paperboy
paperboy

Fish Girl
fish girl

Artemis Fowl Click here for a list of books in this series.
artemis fowl

Inside Out and Back Again
inside out and back again

Princess Academy For a list of books in this series click here.
princess academy

Milkweed
milkweed

The Goose Girl  For a list of books in this series click here. She read all of them I think.
the goose girl

Wishtree
wishtree

Anya’s Ghost
anyas ghost

The Red Pyramid For a list of books in The Kane Chronicles series, click here.
the red pyramid

The Journal of Scott Pendleton Collins: A World War II Soldier Normandy France, 1944
the journal of scott

The Blackthorn Key For a list of books in this series, click here.
The Blackthorn Key

York: The Shadow Cipher
york

The Diary of a Young Girl
Ann Frank

A Crooked Kind of Perfect
a crooked kind of perfect

Caddie Woodlawn
caddie woodlawn

Becoming Naomi León
becoming naomi leon

 

Books we Listened to or Read Together

One Crazy Summer
one crazy summer

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate
the evolution of calpurnia

Wolf Hollow
Wolf Hollow

Howl’s Moving Castle
howls moving castle

Freak the Mighty
freak the mighty

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
the true confessions

Esperanza Rising
esperanza rising

The Boy on the Wooden Box
the boy on the wooden box

A Night Divided
A Night Divided

Pax
Pax

Al Capone Does My Shirts
al capone

A Long Walk to Water: Based on a True Story
a long walk to water

The Westing Game
westing game

Breaking Stalin’s Nose
breaking stalins nose

Bud, not Buddy
bud not buddy

Tuck Everlasting
tuck everlasting

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How Books Are Grouped

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Please read this post before you start browsing the books section so that you are better able to navigate my recommendations.

Every child is unique and it is very difficult to choose books that all children will love. We have read many books my son loved but my daughter didn’t care for much (and vice versa). On this website, I grouped the books based on what MY children read. I suggest you take my recommendations with a grain of salt and make sure to read about the books more in detail on Amazon before you decide if’s something for your own kids.

My daughter has been an independent reader for a bit more than two years (she turned 8 in April, 2014) and is reading the 6th Harry Potter book right now.  My son realized two months ago that the Magic Tree House and Dinosaur Cove series are not as long and difficult as he thought they’d be (he turned 6 in February 2014). They have both listened to audiobooks for two or three years, mainly in the car. (I am writing this in October 2014)

I’ve been thinking about how to categorize my book recommendations but as the listening level is always higher than what children can read on their own, I am afraid that you would miss a good read for your 8-year-old if I post it in the section for 6-year-olds because my kids loved it as an audiobook. Thus I created a section Listening 5 and up. There you can find books that would be great for a 7-or 8-year-old for independent reading but a 6-year-old would enjoy listening to. If you are looking for good books for your kids to read, browse the categories first to get an idea because it is hard to categorize books in age groups. Your 7-year-old may enjoy a book my daughter read when she turned 8 (but I would not place it into a 7 and up category because what if it is one of those books that would have been difficult for her if she had read it sooner).

I am a huge advocate of audiobooks and reading aloud to kids, no matter what age they are. When picking a book to read aloud, I take my children’s interest into consideration but sometimes I also try to choose a nice story that I know my daughter would not be willing to read on her own. She is not too keen on animals as characters so it is hard to persuade her to try such a book (a picture of a mouse on the cover is all it takes for her to lose interest). However, when she finally gives in and starts reading one or when I read it aloud, she usually likes it.

I think that my son would have been deprived of great stories if we had read only picture books to him until he was old enough to start reading on his own. This past summer (at 6 and 1/2) he LOVED The Hobbit. We read it in Czech but regardless of the language he could not possibly understand every sentence. Nevertheless, he enjoyed it tremendously and when asked about his favorite book, he names The Hobbit all the time. I am sure he will reread it in a few years and will appreciate it even more.

There is one problem with choosing good reads for my daughter. She now likes books that are in the age range 8 – 12 on Amazon. Now, as you can imagine, the difference in maturity and reading level between and 8-year-old and 12-year-old is huge. I try to make the best guess but sometimes I get a book that she does not enjoy because it is either too complicated, she is not mature enough for it, or the vocabulary is difficult. In that case, I just move the book from one list to another and try it  again in a few months or a year. I suggest you do the same.

I am not a librarian and have not read the books myself (except for those we read aloud together) so I can only rely on my kids’ feedback or on recommendations from other parents. I have browsed discussion forums about good reads, scanned reviews on Amazon, and placed the books in my lists based on that. Regarding the lists for kids older than 8, I’ll be moving the titles around over the next months and years as my kids get old enough to read those books. As I try to place the books in an age group at which the book could be read at the earliest, I suggest you browse categories for younger kids as well. Many books are for a wide age range; kids just need to be mature enough to understand the topic. If you have a 10-year-old, you can find great ideas in the 8 and up category as well.

When looking for a book to read for your child, always check the preceding age categories to see if there are titles s/he hasn’t read yet. Many books have a wide age range and I tried to place them in the lowest possible age category (i.e. in the age group when I thought kids could read the book on their own, not listen to it.)

!!! Everywhere I share a list of the books my kids actually read, these books are not included anywhere else. As soon as one of my children reads a book from the general list, I move it to ‘their’ list. So make sure to check out both lists – the general list and my kids’ list.

Category 5 or 6 and up is divided into 5 groups:

  1. Books my son or daughter listened to at this age
  2. Beginning readers (books that we either read or are recommended for beginning readers)
  3. Books my daughter read in 1st grade
  4. Books my son has read in 1st read so far
  5. Other books for kids in 1st grade (if some are too hard we will try them a few months later again—that is what I did with my daughter and it worked well)

Category 7 and up is divided into 3 groups:

  1. Books my daughter read mostly in 2nd grade
  2. Other books for second graders (including books for boys because my son will probably read different books than my daughter did)
  3. Books that I listed at the end of 1st grade for advanced readers but are great for second graders.

As for listening, I am not sure if it makes sense to create a separate group of books to read aloud or listen to. At this age, my daughter listened to audiobooks geared toward age 8-12, the same books she was able to read on her own, and sometimes books she’d be able to read in a year or two. If you are looking for a book to read aloud that would be at a higher reading level, I suggest you simply select a book from a higher age group to read with your child together.

Category 8 and up is divided into 2 groups:

  1. Books my daughter read mostly in 3rd grade
  2. Other great reads for this age category

Categories 9 and up, 10 and up, 11 and up, 12 and up and Young Adult are work in progress. I am adding to them constantly as I research books online. They will contain more titles in a few months.

 

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The Case for Reading Aloud and Audiobooks

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We Love Reading Aloud

When I was teaching high school in Prague, I knew that many students did drugs, drank alcohol and got into all sorts of trouble. I know it was a part of their experience of growing up and I often thought about what I would do and how I would react when I become a parent and have my own children. I always came to the same conclusion: It’s too late to do anything when they are 14. I need to bond with them as much as possible for as long as I can and teach them to make good choices when they are on their own.

Reading aloud has become a hugely important component of this parenting “strategy”. It is like killing two birds with one stone. Snuggling over stories that expand imagination, inspire, teach about the world, and touch hearts creates a beautiful connection and provides a means to convey meaningful messages.

I have surrounded my children with books since very early on. First we read only in Czech but as I realized they were not exposed to English at home and needed to catch up with their peers on vocabulary, I started looking for great children’s books in English. I wish someone had given me some tips how to steer my kids toward good books so that I wouldn’t have to spend hours and days researching.

If I had only been aware of The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease three years ago! It is full of research, advice, and anecdotes, and also contains a long list of suggested titles for parents to read to their children. I must say that I was almost proud of myself when I went through the book and realized that we have already read a lot of Jim Trelease’s recommendations or they are on our lists to read.

I cannot resist to share a few excerpts:

As the demands for higher scores are pressed on superintendent, principal, and teacher, the curriculum narrows to only what will be on the standardized test. Since the tests include only IQ subjects, there remains little or no time for HQ subjects—the “heart quotient.” Who has time for teachable moment when the class hamster dies but you’ve got test-prep to cover? Who bothers to discuss the ethical thing to do if there are no ethics questions on the state standards exam?

… “There is no shortage of smart people. We’ve got lots of those. The real shortage is in better people.” And you make better people by educating children’s brains and hearts.

… So how do we educate the heart? There are really only two ways: life experience and stories about life experience, which is called literature.

Trealease provides specific information on the effects of reading aloud and includes lots of supporting research. Some of you might have already heard about the following study but I think it’s worth mentioning here as well:

The researchers began by identifying forty-two normal families representing three socioeconomic groups: welfare, working class, and professional. The project held some surprises: regardless of socioeconomic level, all forty-two families said and did the same thing with their children. In other words, the basic instincts of good parenting are there for most people, rich or poor.

Then the researchers received the data printout and saw the ‘meaningful differences’ among the forty-two families. When the daily number of words for each group of children is projected across four years, the four-year-old child from the professional family will have heard 45 million words, the working-class child 26 million, and the welfare child only 13 million. All three children will show up for kindergarten on the same day, but one will have heard 32 million fewer words. If No Child Left Behind expects the teacher to get this child caught up, she’ll have to speak 10 words a second for nine hundred hours to reach the 32-million mark by year’s end. I hope they have life support ready for her.

The word gap among those children has nothing to do with how much their parents love them. They all love their children and want the best for them, but some parents have a better idea of what needs to be said and done to reach that “best.” They know the child needs to hear words repeatedly in meaningful sentences and questions, and they know that plunking a two-year-old down in front of television set for three hours at a time as more harmful than meaningful.

 

We Love Audiobooks 

There were two reasons why we replaced our portable DVD player in the car with audio books as soon as our kids were able to enjoy them. First, we felt that books do such a better job than TV at boosting children’s imagination and arousing their curiosity; second, while regular conversation (which is what you hear on TV) takes care of the basic vocabulary, kids encounter many more words while they read; words that help most in school. We like to travel and go on trips so our kids often spend anywhere from one to six hours in the car. Since they get car-sick when they read, audiobooks work great for us. Not to mention that I can’t remember when we last heard “Are we there yet?” Sometimes we listen to a book as a family but most of the time they each have an iPod with earphones and listen to a story of their choice while my husband and I can have a conversation or listen to our audiobook (as we did on our 18-hour car trip to Disney World).

As Jim Trelease points out, kids’ reading ability is lower than their intellectual capacity:

… According to experts, it is a reasonable assertion that reading and listening skills begin to converge at about eighth grade. Until then, kids usually listen on a higher level than that on which they read. Therefore, children can hear and understand stories that are more complicated and more interesting than anything they could read on their own—which has to be one of God’s greatest blessings for first-graders. …

 … Now that I’ve established the idea on your mind that there is a significant difference between listening level and reading level, you can better understand why one should continue to read aloud to children as they grow older. Beyond the emotional bond that is established between parent and child (or teacher and class), you’re feeding those higher vocabulary words through the ear; eventually they’ll reach the brain and register in the child-reader’s eyes.

When you are too busy to sit down with your child to read, you can borrow books together with a CD from the library and let your kids listen to them while you are doing something else. The page-turn signals on the CDs make it really easy for them even when they have no idea how to read. Our kids were able to move on to longer audiobooks without the book around age 5. Our son is 6 ½ and happily listened to an eight-hour long novel during our summer vacation. In fact, he didn’t want to stop listening even when I told him he could go play outside with his cousin (his favorite activity).

You may be already doing it but if you are not, give it some thought and try some audiobooks. It will benefit your children and give you some peace and quiet in the car, which I am sure you will appreciate.

To get some ideas for books our kids listened to at the age 5 and 6, check out my section Listening (5 – 6 and up).

Here is a website with tons of free audiobooks.

To read more interesting excerpts from The Read-Aloud Handbook, visit Jim Trelease’s website. Find his brochures with the most important information here (also see Jim Trelease’s book lists  and brochure booklists) or listen to two excerpts from his film and CD (at the bottom of the page).

Here is another post about the importance of reading aloud to older kids:
Why You Should Read Aloud to Older Kids

 

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My Quest for Best Books

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A love of reading is one of the most precious gifts that we can give children. It nurtures their imagination and creativity, lets them explore other worlds, and opens their minds to new truths and knowledge in appealing, inspiring ways.  (Books Children Love: A Guide to the Best Children’s Literature by Elizabeth Laraway Wilson)

When my daughter was little I had all the time in the world. I would go to the library, pull out books to see if they were worth checking out, put some back, walk over to another shelf—you get the picture. I have never been happy with just any book. I’ve always tried to surround my children with books that would capture their attention so they would learn to love reading better than watching TV.

But when she turned 5 and I also had my 3-year-old son in the tow, it was a different story. I suddenly felt overwhelmed by the amount of books. How could I sort through thousands of children’s books to discover the really worthwhile ones without scanning and flipping through them? I didn’t grow up in America so I couldn’t draw from my knowledge of favorite children’s books from my childhood. I had to start from scratch.

That’s when I began to research books online. I’d look up different “Best Books” lists and read contributions about good reads from other parents on different discussion forums. Then I’d scan the reviews of those books on Amazon. If a book has a larger number of 5 start reviews, it is probably a good one. The next step was going on our library’s website, writing down the books’ locations, and of course, heading to the library with my list. It took me considerably less time at the library this way and I have discovered many nice books that I might have just overlooked if I had only scanned the shelves.

We are also lucky because we live in an area with a network of libraries, whose system allows us to request items from other locations if our home library doesn’t own the title. It basically means that we can get our hands on most of the books you find online.

By the way, did you ever ask what the limit is on your library card? Or if your kids can have their own card even if they are only 4? I figured it out pretty soon so with our 3 library cards combined, we’d often have over 100 items from the library at home. We have a shelf just for library books in the living room. Once when we came back from a longer vacation and there were only a few books from the library on the shelf, the first remark my son made after stepping into the house was: “We have no books to read!!” Both my kids feel their choices are pretty limited if there are only ten books on the shelf. While if you have a nice selection of forty at home, your kids won’t feel like you chose for them. They can still take their pick and read a variety of books, instead of reading the same ten books every day for a week. I remember we’d go through five to ten every night (mostly picture books, of course).

I thought hard about the books we’ve read and liked. My lists contain titles I was able to recall. As my children will grow and mature, I will add more titles and create new categories. I hope the links and lists posted here will help you sift out the exceptional books from the unremarkable.

 

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