Fourth-Grade Books, Easy Reading

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Average fourth-grade books may have 100 pages or more, and have a fairly high proportion of multisyllabic words. An increasing number of words may not be in the students' listening vocabularies, and there is also likely to be some unfamiliar concepts introduced. Easy fourth-grade books include those written on a first-, second-, and third-grade level. Challenging books are written on a fifth- or sixth-grade level.

Fiction

Easy Reading

Reading Level: Grade 1 (Interest Level: Grade 4)

Schwartz, Alvin. In a Dark, Dark Room. HarperCollins, 1984, 62 pp. In this collection of seven frightening tales, ghosts and other scary creatures appear. In one tale, a man drives a boy home and loans him a sweater, but later finds out that the boy has been dead for a year. Although easy to read, this book would not be appropriate for children under age 10.

Reading Level: Grade 2 (Interest Level: Grade 4)

*Bulla, Clyde Robert. Shoeshine Girl. Crowell, 1975, 84 pp. Because of her troublesome ways, an angry 10-year-old Sarah is sent to live with her kindly but wise Aunt Ida during the summer. Wanting money, she finds a job as a shoeshine girl and develops into a brave, caring young person.

Reading Level: Grade 3 (Interest Level: Grade 4)

Abbott, Tony. Danger Guys. HarperCollins, 1994, 69 pp. When Zeek and Noodles attend the grand opening of a new adventure store, they wander into the back of a tractor trailer and are whisked away to an underground kingdom where thieves are attempting to steal valuable artifacts. Using brawn and brains, the two manage to make a series of escapes from danger. Part of Danger Guys series.

*Avi. Manfrom the Sky. Knopf, 1980, 117pp. When Jamie, who has a reputation as being a dreamer, reports that a man from the sky kiddnapped his friend Gillian, people don't believe him at first.

*Berends, Polly Berrien. The Case of the Elevator Duck. Random House, 1973, 60 pp. Gilbert, an ll-year-old detective, tries to locate the owner of a pet duck that was left on the elevator in his housing project. Gilbert takes the duck to his apartment, but is under considerable pressure to find the owner, because tenants caught with animals in their apartment face eviction.

Bulla, Clyde Robert. Pirate's Promise. HarperCollins, 1994, 87 pp. After their father died, Tom and his sister were sent to live with an aunt and uncle, but the uncle sold Tom into bondage. While Tom was aboard a ship bound for America, pirates captured the ship and took Tom aboard their vessel and set sail for their hideout. After his pirate master dies in an attempt to save Tom from another pirate, Tom, with the help of a slave, flees to America, where he finds a home for himself and his sister with the good pirate's family. Provides history tie-in: colonial times.

Bunting, Eve. Train to Somewhere. Houghton Mifflin, 1996, 32 pp. Sent west on a train full of children from New York needing homes, Marianne hopes that her mother will appear at one of the stations and reclaim her. But her mother doesn't show up and no one shows any interest in adopting her until the train reaches its last stop. Based on the existence of orphan trains which took homeless children west from the 1850s into the 1920s.