Suggested reading for 4th grader.

[Daisy]

Wow, I cannot even believe I'll have a fourth grader next year. :eek:

I'm trying to start compiling a reading list for her. Some info. She will be turning 9 in the fall. She is reading above grade level BUT is still very much in the grammar stage. She is still 8yo. I'm not real sure what to expect from her in the coming year as far as deeper thinking goes. Sometimes we blows me away but much of the time she is still very much a facts kinda gal. Oh, and she loves history.

Just a smidge of what she has read this year includes,

Kate DiCamillo books
Bobbsey Twins
Sarah, Plain and Tall (all of them)
Narnia series (half of them)
Bill Wallace books (all of them, I think)
The Whipping Boy
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (and the sequels)
Mary Poppins (and the sequels)
My Grandmother's Attic series
Justin Morgan Had a Horse (she only read the one so maybe she could read more of these)

She has a voracious appetite for books. So with all that in mind, do you have any suggestions for a 4th grade girl who still seems rather young and innocent? We are studying geography next year so it doesn't matter what we choose as far as history/literature goes.

[Alana in Canada]

My son isn't reading at quite that level yet, so these may or may not be suitable:

He loved "Owls in the Family" by Farley Mowart
Mr. Popper's Penquins
The Call of the Wild by Jack London.

I've been collecting lists titled "fourth grade" though. Here's one from a Canadian catalogue called the Tree of Life:

From Tree of Life:

Owls in the Family by Mowat
Little House in the Big Woods by Wilder
Charlotte’s Web by
Helen Keller’s Teacher
Homer Price by McClosky
Pippi Longsticking by Lindgren
The Door in the Wall by De Angeli
Winnie the Pooh by Milne
Baby Island by Carol Ryrie Brink
Black Beauty by Sewell

There's the Sonlight list for grades 3 to 5.

These are from the Highland's Latin school summer reading program:

The Magician’s Nephew, C.S. Lewis
(first of Narnia Chronicles)
Little House Books (9 book series), Laura Wilder
The Trumpet of the Swan, 272 p., E.B. White
Little Lord Fauntleroy, 176 p., Frances Hodgson Burnett
Pinocchio, 192 p., Carlo Collodi
Ginger Pye, 300 p.(7 book series about the Moffats and Pyes), by Eleanor Estes
The Black Stallion, 200 p. (18 book series), Walter Farley
Misty of Chincoteague, 176 p., Marguerite Henry
Peter Pan, 240 p., J. M. Barrie
Freddie the Pig Series, 270 p., Walter Brooks
The Little Colonel Series, 114 p., Annie Fellows Johnson
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, 162 p., E.L. Konigsburg
Dangerous Journey, The Story of Pilgrim’s Progress, 126 p., Oliver Hunkin
Seaman: The Dog Who Explored the West with Lewis and Clark, 184 p., Gail Karwoski

and then these:

From School of Abraham Good Book Lists:
Fourth Grade (17 Books )

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Little Men by Louisa May Alcott

Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott

Captain's Courageous by Rudyard Kipling

The Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle

Otto of the Silver Hand by Howard Pyle

Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne

The Boy Knight by G. A. Henty

Kidnapped by Robert Lois Stevenson

The John Carter Mars Collection by Edgar Rice Burroughs

The Knight of the White Cross by G. A. Henty

Story of a Bad Boy by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

The Cat of Bubastes by G. A. Henty

The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain

A Tale of the Western Plains by G. A. Henty

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Call of the Wild by Jack London

Don't forget this list (http://www.classical-homeschooling.org/celoop/1000.html)from Classical Christian Education.
and Ambelside On-line. (http://www.amblesideonline.org/04bks.shtml)

hth

[VaKim]

My 9yo dd is currently working her way through the Boxcar Children books and all the Thornton Burgess books the library has. :)

[Lori D.]

REAL LIFE
- Mountain Born (Yates)
- The Hundred Dresses (Estes)
- Betsy-Tacy series
- Kildee House (Montgomery)
- The Toothpaste Millionaire (Merrill)
- Understood Betsy (Fisher)
- Plain Girl (Sorensen)


FANTASY
- Land of Oz; Ozma of Oz (Baum) -- lively sequels; skip Wizard of Oz (dull/long)
- Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle series (Betty MacDonald)
- Chronicles of Narnia (Lewis)
- My Father's Dragon (Gannett)
- Half Magic; Magic by the Lake, Knight's Castle; Time Garden (Eager)
- The Father Christmas Letters (Tolkien)
- The Ordinary Princess (Kaye) -- VERY fun and funny -- READ ALOUD
- The Borrowers (series) (Norton)
- Pippi Longstockings; Pippi in the South Seas (Astrid)


FUN TALL TALE
- The Bears on Hemlock Mountain (Dalgliesh)
- McBroom's Wonderful One-Acre Farm (Fleischman)
- By the Great Horn Spoon (Fleischman)
- Hitty, Her First Hundred Years (Field)


HISTORICAL FICTION - U.S.
- Skippack School (de Angeli) -- Colonial U.S.
- The Courage of Sarah Noble (Dalgliesh) -- Colonial US
- Sarah Whitcher's Story -- Colonial US
- Phoebe the Spy (Griffin) --American Revolution - true story
- Sarah Plain and Tall; Skylark; Caleb's Story (MacLachlan) -- US - pioneer times
- Caddie Woodlawn (Brink) -- pioneer times US


HISTORICAL FICTION - WORLD
- The Door in the Wall (de Angeli) -- Medieval England
- Twenty and Ten (Bishop) -- WWII French children hide Jewish children
- The Little Riders (Shemin) -- WWII occupied Europe
- Number the Stars (Lenski)-- WWII Dutch girl helps her Jewish friend


BIOGRAPHY
- The Story of Thomas Alva Edison (Davidson)
- Helen Keller (Davidson)
- Louis Braille (Davidson)
- Robert Fulton, Boy Craftsman (Henry) -- inventor of steam engine as a boy
- Naya Nuki: The Shoshone Girl Who Ran -- friend of Sacajewea
- Behind Rebel Lines (Reit) -- teen girl disguised as a boy / Union spy in Civil War
- Lincoln: A Photobiography -- beautiful photos / text telling Lincoln's life


ANIMALS (real)
- Chucaro: Wild Pony of the Pampa (Kalney)
- Daughter of the Mountains (Rankin)-- Tibetan girl tries to recover her dog
- Rascal (North)
- Shiloh (Naylor)
- Ginger Pye (Estes)


ANIMALS (talking)
- Charlotte's Web; Trumpet of the Swan (White)
- The Mouse and the Motorcycle (McCleary)
- Ben and I (Lawson)
- The Rescuers, Miss Bianca, Miss Bianca in the Orient (Sharpe)

[Narrow Gate Academy]

Some other books my oldest enjoys:

The Black Stallion series
Misty of Chincoteague and other horse books by this author
The Secret Garden
A Little Princess
The Wizard of Oz and its sequels
Five Children and It and others by this author

You could also try looking at the booklists on www.amblesideonline.com (http://www.amblesideonline.com). I'm trying to use these as a guide to help me plan a bit more scheduled reading and literature for next year.

HTH

[Daisy]

Okay, it's nuts but she has read the vast majority of those books. There are some sprinkled throughout that she hasn't read so I'm going to compile a list. Thank you so much. I just cannot keep up with this girl. She pretty much reads a 3rd/4th grade level chapter book every day!!! I need to get her to try more of the M. Henry Horse books and I hadn't started her on Pyle or Henty (guess I thought they were older). I have the following books but didn't know she could handle the themes in all of them. Can any of you give me a heads-up with these?

Esperanza Rising
Red Cap
Freedom Train (Harriet Tubman)
Amos Fortune
Bud, Not Buddy
Old Yeller


I have By the Great Horn Spoon and I have her reading it next week while we study CA. I just realized she hasn't read My Side of the Mountain yet. BTW, my DS 6yo just wants to look at Star Wars books all day, so my DD is the odd one. :D I also don't want her reading all these books and missing the deep stuff, KWIM? It is hard to find good stuff for her to read and she doesn't want to read a book more than once (she's just like me).

[Lori D.]

Wow, Daisy, she's reading at a much higher level than I realized! Okay, then how about the following, at a 5th-6th grade reading level (the previous list was at a 3rd-4th grade level):

REAL LIFE
- A Little Princess (Burnett)
- The Secret Garden (Burnett)
- Paddle-to-the-Sea, Tree in the Trail, Seabird, Minn of the Mississippi (Holling)
- Island of the Blue Dolphins(O'Dell)
- From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (Konigsburg)
- Family Under the Bridge (Carlson)
- The Wheel on the School (de Jong)
- In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson (Lord)
- Treasures of the Snow (St. John)
- Anne of Green Gables (Montgomery)
- Five on a Treasure Island (Blyton)


FANTASY
- The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (Aiken) -- Victorian-like setting
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll)
- Half Magic; Magic by the Lake, Knight's Castle; Time Garden; Seven Day Magic (Eager)
- Five Children and It; The Phoenix and the Carpet; The Amulet (Nesbit) -- READ ALOUD
- The Book of Dragons (Nesbit) -- 7 short stories; very fun and creative -- READ ALOUD
- The Ordinary Princess (Kaye)
- The Princess & the Goblins; The Princess & Curdie (MacDonald) -- READ ALOUD
- The Phantom Tollbooth (Juster) -- boy journeys through a mathematical land
- The Hobbit (Tolkien)


FUN TALL TALE
- The Great Turkey Walk (Karr)
- Hitty, Her First Hundred Years (Field)
- Holes (Sachar)
- The Twenty-One Balloons (DuBois) -- Jules Verne-like story, 1800s inventor


HISTORICAL FICTION - U.S.
- Diary of an Early American Boy (Sloane)
- The Journeyman (Caldwell) -- Colonial US
- Calico Bush (Field) -- Colonial US
- The Great Wheel (Lawson) -- building of the first Ferris Wheel in 1893


HISTORICAL FICTION - WORLD
- The Roman Mysteries series (Lawrence)
- Snow Treasure (McSwigan))-- WWII Norweigan children hide the country's gold
- Catherine Called Birdy; Midwife's Apprentice (Cushman) -- Medieval England
- Adam of the Road (Gray) -- Medieval England
- The Master Puppeteer (Paterson) - 1700s Japan
- Case of the Baker Street Irregular (Newman) -- 1890s boy helps Sherlock Holmes


BIOGRAPHY
- Indian Captive (Lenski)
- Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun (Blumberg)
- Born in the Year of Courage (Crofford)


ANIMALS (real)
- Rikki Tikki Tavi; The Jungle Book (Kipling)
- The Black Stallion, The Black Stallion Returns, Island Stallion (Farley)
- My Side of the Mountain (George)
- Where the Red Fern Grows (Rawls)



ANIMALS (fantasy)
- Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (O'Brien)
- The Reluctant Dragon (Grahame)

[BizyPenguin]

Book Adventures (http://www.bookadventure.com)and Simply Charlotte Mason (http://www.simplycharlottemason.com).