Fifth Grade Summer Reading (continued)

Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli (Scholastic Inc, 2002)

A larger-than-life hero confronts racism while living on the street. This story of a boy’s quest for family without a color line has amazing heart.

 A Drowned Maiden's Hair  by Laura Amy Schlitz (Candlewick, 2006)

Living as the daughter in a family of spinster spiritualists, Maud Flynn is being preened to play the part of a ghost child scheduled to appear in staged seances in order to bilk a bereaved millionairess of her money. Detailed, descriptive writing delivers the reader to this weird world; we can practically smell the antiquity of the room, see the dust mites floating in the light from the ragged damask curtains that shroud a place out of time, and feel the stormy turmoil of Maud's own awakening as a moral person.

 Best Shorts: Favorite Short Stories for Sharing by Avi and Carolyn Shute (Houghton Mifflin, 2006)

The collection is just brilliant, pulse-perfect and page-turning. It includes Louis Untemeyer's "Dog of Pompeii" about a pet who gives his all to save a blind boy during a volcanic eruption, "Rogue Wave" by Theodore Taylor which will leave readers as breathless as if they were watching any movie on the big screen, ghostly stories, classic stories, multicultural stories... It's one of those rare books that makes anyone who reads it a better person, and anyone who reads it aloud a better teacher.

The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene du Bois (Puffin Books, 2001)

Professor William Waterman Sherman plans to spend his retirement crossing the Pacific in his hot-air balloon, but instead comes down on a volcanic island inhabited by inventors and gourmets. A truly imaginative story that will have children’s senses of possibility flying high.

Princess Academy by Shannon Hale

Miri may live within the walls of a kingdom, but she's anything but royal. One day, news arrives of a prophesy stating the kingdom's new princess will come from her tiny village. All eligible girls are forced to leave for a new academy, to prepare for the prince's arrival. Full of rich details and strong female characters, this is the story of girls fighting to figure out who they are, in the face of incredible adversity. It also highlights the importance of something most kids of this age take for granted: the right to a decent education and the power of literacy.

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

In this children's classic, 12-year-old Claudia Kincaid decides to teach her parents a lesson by running away from home. After researching the matter thoroughly, she settles on the Metropolitan Museum of Art as the perfect hideaway, and drags her little brother Jamie along for the ride. What follows is an absorbing tale of their life within museum walls, as they blend in with tour groups by day, fish coins out of the fountain for lunch money, and sleep on Marie Antoinette's four-poster bed by night. This smart and unique story has endured for a reason: its blend of adventure, mystery, antiquity, and kid-power make it a must for every young reader's shelf.