Fun Summer Reads for Fifth and Sixth Graders
Harry Potter & The Sorcerer’s Stone
Send your kid to Hogwarts for the summer! Late elementary- or early middle-school is a great time for your child to embark on this much-adored series full of magical potions and endearing characters. The writing is so good you might want to read along if you haven’t already.
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Tuck Everlasting
This book explores the thought-provoking, conversation-starting theme: What if you could live forever?
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Wonder
This blockbuster book, which sparked the “Choose Kind” movement in schools, centers on Auggie, a fifth-grader with a facial deformity who is going to a mainstream school for the first time. Most kids will relate to the broader theme of the book—choosing kindness as a way to combat bullying.
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The School for Good and Evil
If your child likes fantasy books, this three-part series, about best friends who are seemingly placed in the wrong schools, is packed with plot twists.
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Chomp
Even though it has quirky characters and situations (a reality-TV show is part of the plot), this book tackles social and ecological issues.
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Series of Unfortunate Events
This series of 13 books follows the lives of three endearing children after their parents’ death in a fire. Hope and kindness are among the key messages.
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The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Encourage your child to study the pictures—more than 250 pages of drawings are interspersed about the same amount of prose in this clever format.
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Smile
In this popular graphic novel, sixth-grader Raina falls after a Girl Scout trip, hurting her two front teeth. Between that, an earthquake, and boy confusion, there’s plenty of middle-school drama going on. If your child likes this book, read Sisters by the same author.
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Inside Out and Back Again
Written in narrative poetry, this account of a spirited 10-year-old fleeing Vietnam is a great book to read with your kids because you’ll enjoy it as much as they will.
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The Jumbies
For children who like supernatural books, this spellbinding adaptation of a Haitian folktale is just scary enough.