A List of Suggested Reading to Expand the Mind of Your 5th Grader

Every parent would love an easy guide to what their 5th grade child should be reading to enhance their mind. I see my own children, nieces, and nephews trudging through this particular grade with no real creative reading destination ahead. Most are checking out books from the school library that are well below their reading levels, just to keep their teachers happy during their weekly trip to the library. As an informed parent, you can suggest a book at a time to your children from the following compiled list, and lead them into a world of reading that they had no clue existed!

I love to read, and encourage each of my children to do so. But the school system is allowing them to be close minded about what they are reading, and aren't prodding them to explore something either on, or beyond, their grade ready reading level. Consider printing the following list out, and posting it in a spot where you and your child can peruse it and decide together which book they might like to check out during their next trip to the library. Cross them offf as your child completes them, have your child express their views on the book, and move on to the next. Before you know it, this list will be finished and you will be searching the Internet, yet again, for a new compilation!

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

The Light Princess by George McDonald

Baseball In April and Other Stories by Gary Soto

Chasing Redbird by Sharon Creech

Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Clearly

My Brother Sam is Dead by James Collier

The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

A Pilgrim At Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

Roll Of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor

The Canning Season by Polly Horvath

Frindle by Andrew Clements

Have Spacesuit, Will Travel by Robert Heinlein

What Would Joey Do? by Jack Gantos

From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg

The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury

Roald Dahl's Even More Revolting Recipes by Felicity Dahl & Roald Dahl

Holes by Louis Sachar

A Canticle For Liebowitz by Walter Miller

Wait Till Helen Comes, A Ghost Story by Mary Downing Hahn

Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli