Capability:Mom gave me her summer camp newsletter because there is a boy there who all the kids go to when they need a good book recommendation. The kids think he is a kind of genius boy wonder that knows pretty much everything on the planet. I believe he is in middle school. He was kind enough to write up his book recommendations for the newsletter and I have retyped it for you. I love peer to peer book recommendations. Who better to know what you will like than your friend?!
In 1999, the National Education Association created this list of 100 books selected by teachers for children and teens. It’s a great list for summer reading!
If your elementary school is like my elementary school, kids entering grades 3-5 need to read 5 or so books during the summer (and do a book project on one of the books). It’s not normally a struggle to get my kids to read 5 books during the summer except for the selection of the books because the summertime reading has to be especially engaging to compete for their time! These 10 books should do the trick. And if your child reads 5 books and fills out a form from Borders Bookstore, she or he can get one of ten selected books for free.
The Children’s Choice Book Awards is the only national children’s book awards program where winning titles are selected by young readers of all ages. The good news here is that there is a very high probability that your child will like these books too! The children (and teens) have spoken! These are their favorite books for 2011!
These books are from a Mom Blogger friend at CoffeeShopBloggers whose daughter is a sports fanatic and these were her favorite baseball books. These books are all appropriate for grades 3-5th. The “…and Me” novels, also known as, the Baseball Card Adventures are fun because the child in the story travels back in time to meet a baseball legend. I suspect that any little leaguer who might not love to read otherwise will enjoy these books!
My favorite KidLit book in the whole world, Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo, was a very successful and fun 3rd grade girls’ book club. The activity was to make lollipops which was a sneaky education in the science of cooking and to bake dog biscuits.
This list can also be seen as a testament to authors who create characters so real, deep, and nuanced that we fall in love with them, if not for ourselves, then for our children. And I can safely say that no one else is consumed with creating this kind of list!