Fifth Grade books: Challenging Reading

Provided are books appropriate for fifth-grade students at an advanced reading level.

Challenging Reading

Reading Level: Grade 6 (Interest Level: Grade 5)

Christian, Mary Blount. Sebastian (Super Sleuth) and the Copycat Crime. Macmillan, 1993, 62 pp. Although a dog, Sebastian is a super sleuth and helps his master, who is a detective, solve crimes. While his master is giving a talk at a conference for detective writers, Sebastian uses his superior reasoning and smelling abilities to solve the mystery of the stolen manuscripts. Part of Sebastian (Super Sleuth) series. Reinforces comprehension: provides opportunities for making inferences and predictions.

Hall, Elizabeth. Child of the Wolves. Houghton Mifflin, 1996, 160 pp. Bred to be a sled dog, Granite, a Siberian husky, escapes from the kennel, and is raised by Snowdrift, a mother wolf, whose pups have been killed. Because he is slower and less skilled at hunting, Granite is treated as an inferior at first, but later is accepted as a full-fledged member of the pack.

Issacs, Anne. Treehouse Tales. Dutton, 1997, 85 pp. A treehouse plays a role in the lives of three siblings growing up in the 1880s. Believing the treehouse is on fire, Tom douses it with water, but finds that he has extinguished the pipe that the hired hand was smoking. From the treehouse, Emily spots a robber who has come to burglarize her family's house while everyone but Emily is in town. As a way of getting attention from his father, Natty chops down a tall maple, which falls the wrong way and lands on the tree house. Provides history tie-in: life in the 1880s.

Lewis, C. S. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. HarperCollins, 1950, 189 pp. Four English schoolchildren discover that the back of an old wardrobe is the entrance to a magical land known as Narnia. While in Narnia they help AsIan, the Great Lion, defeat the White Witch, who has cast a spell over Narnia so that it is always winter, but Christmas never comes. Part of Narnia series.

Wallace, Barbara Brooks. The Twin in the Tavern. Aladdin, 1993, 177 pp. Raised by an aunt and uncle after his parents supposedly perished in a train accident, Tadd learns that he has a twin somewhere and that if his true identity is discovered, he may be in mortal danger. After his aunt and uncle die, thieves kidnap him and force him to work as a delivery boy and a servant. His work as a servant leads to the discovery of his true identity.

Weitzman, David. Old Ironsides: Americans Build a Fighting Ship. Houghton Mifflin, 1997, 32 pp. Through the eyes of the son of one of the ship's carpenters, the reader learns in this fictionalized account, how the Constitution, nicknamed "Old Ironsides" was built, from the cutting of timbers for the ship to its launching on October 21, 1797. Provides history tie-in: building of warship Constitution.