Recommended Summer Reading

Summer Reading Suggestions

We encourage you to make reading a part of your family’s summer. A regular habit of reading promotes fluency. Good books offer far more. They cultivate a child’s affections, stir their imaginations, and instill a deep love of learning. A few suggestions to help with summer reading:

• Have a set time each day for reading.

• Choose “good” books and topics that stir the imagination.

• Ask thoughtful questions to spark discussions about the book.

• Have your child choose an interesting passage to read to the rest of the family.

• Read portions of the book with your child.

• Visit the library to explore books of interest.

• Read to your child books that have rich language.

Gladys Hunt in her book Honey for a Child’s Heart, provides a robust list of excellent children’s books. We have provided a link to that list for your perusal.

Incoming Kindergarten Students

• Read rhyming books with your child (example: Cat in the Hat Beginning Reader books).

• Begin reading classic nursery rhymes and fairy tales to your child (e.g., A Treasury of More than

  300 Classic Nursery Rhymes, and Mother Goose’s Nursery Rhymes by Robert Frederick).

• Any Cat in the Hat Beginning Reader book, written by Dr. Seuss and others, such as Green Eggs and Ham; Hop on Pop; Put Me in the Zoo; One Fish, Two Fish

• Books by A.A. Milne (e.g., Winnie the Pooh; When We Were Very Young)

• Books by Beatrix Potter (e.g., Peter Rabbit)

• Books by Robert McCloskey (e.g. Blueberries for Sal)

• Books by William Steig (e.g. Amos & Boris)

1st Grade

• Any Cat in the Hat Beginning Reader book, written by Dr. Seuss and others

• Books by Beatrix Potter (e.g., The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, The Tale of Tom Kitten, The Tale of

  Jemima Puddle-Duck)

• Books and poems by A.A. Milne, (e.g. Winnie the Pooh, Now We Are Six, and When We

  Were Very Young)

• Books by Syd Hoff

• The Frog and Toad series by Arnold Lobel

• Curious George books by H.A. Rey

• Amelia Bedelia books by Peggy Parish

• Corduroy by Don Freeman

• Mother Goose and Other Traditional Poems/Stories and American Folk Legends (e.g., “Johnny

  Appleseed”) [*use classical editions, not modern adaptations]

• Aesop’s Fables (e.g., “The Tortoise and The Hare,” “The Ant the Grasshopper,” “The Boy Who

  Cried Wolf”)

• Stories and fairy tales (e.g., “Little Red Riding Hood,” “The Three Little Pigs,” “Goldilocks,” “The Ugly Duckling,” “Cinderella,” etc.)

• Books by Virginia Lee Burton

• Encyclopedia Brown series by Donald J. Sobol

• Paddington series by Michael Bond

• The Sword in the Tree by Clyde Robert Bulla

• Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney

2nd Grade

• Roxaboxen by Barbra Cooney

• Dinosaurs Before Dark (Magic Tree House) by Mary Pope Osborne

• Traditional fairy tales, tall tales, folk tales of your choice (e.g., “Hansel and Gretel,” “Jack and

  the Beanstalk,” “The Pied Piper,” “Pinocchio,” “The Princess and the Pea,” “Puss in Boots,”

  “Rapunzel,” “Rumpelstiltskin,” “Sleeping Beauty”)

• Stories by Hans Christian Andersen (e.g., “Little Mermaid,” “Thumbelina”)

• DK Eyewitness Books: Ancient Greece by Anne Pearson

• Books by Tomie de Paola

• Magic School Bus books about weather, magnets, tools, the body, insects, animals, plants

• Books by Roald Dahl

• The 13 Clocks by James Thurbur

• Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan

3rd Grade

• Dinosaurs Before Dark (Magic Tree House) by Mary Pope Osborne

• Greek myths (e.g., Prometheus, Pandora, Theseus and the Minotaur, Swift-footed Atalanta,

  Hercules)

• Traditional fairy tales, tall tales, folk tales of your choice (e.g., Paul Bunyan, John Henry, Pecos

  Bill)

• Stories by Hans Christian Andersen (e.g., “Little Mermaid,” “Thumbelina”)

• DK Eyewitness Books: Ancient Rome by Simon James

• Magic School Bus books about weather, magnets, tools, the body, insects, animals, plants

• Books from the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder

• The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White

• The Thirteen Clocks by James Thurber

• The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo

4th Grade

• Required reading for all rising fourth graders: Carry on Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham

• Guns for General Washington by Seymour Reit

• Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter

• The Narnia series by C. S. Lewis

• Can’t You Make Them Behave, King George? by Jean Fritz

• The Reluctant Dragon by Kenneth Graheme

• The Sword in the Tree by Clyde Robert Bulla

• Tales from The Arabian Nights (especially “Aladdin” and “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”)

• Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder

• Calico Captive by Elizabeth George Speare

• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

• Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry

• The Black Stallion by Walter Farley

• Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawles

• Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin by Marguerite Henry

• The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli

5th Grade

• The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

• The Shakespeare Stealer by Gary Blackwood

• The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

• The Narnia series by C. S. Lewis

• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (try the original version, but may need adapted)

• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

• “Paul Revere’s Ride” by Longfellow

• Legends of King Arthur

• The Reluctant Dragon by Kenneth Grahame

• Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor

• Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett

• Emily of New Moon series by L.M. Montgomery

• Old Yeller by Fred Gipson

• Heidi by Johanna Spyri

• The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson

Special thanks to Seven Oaks Classical School for providing excellent recommended reading