Third Grader Reading at a Sixth Grade Level

Respond­ing to a par­ent request for books that would inter­est her third-grad­er-read­ing-at-a-sixth-grade-lev­el, we crowd-sourced a list. Big thanks to Sara Alcott, Lin­da Baie, Les­ley Man­dros Bell, Karen Cramer, Caren Creech, Melin­da Fant, Ellen Klar­re­ich, Vick­ie LoP­ic­co­lo, Ellen McEvoy, Lau­ra Moe, Tunie Mun­son-Ben­son, Vic­ki Palmquist, Car­rie Shay, Faythe Dyrud Thureen, Cindy Walk­er, and Sharon J. Wilson.

Unlike our usu­al anno­tat­ed book­lists, we are pre­sent­ing this one in alpha­bet­i­cal order by book title due to the length of the list. We hope you find books here that lead you to read more books by these authors. Of course, there are many more just-right books to sug­gest for this type of read­er – we’ve includ­ed only books sug­gest­ed by our “crowd.”

bk_alcaponeshirtsAdam Can­field of the Slash, Michael Winerip

Adven­tures of Sir Lancelot the Great (Knights Tales series), Ger­ald Morris

Al Capone Does My Shirts (series of 3 books), Gen­nifer Choldenko

Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery

Bet­sy-Tacy Trea­sury (series, Bet­sy and friends get old­er in the books), Maud Hart Lovelace

BFG, Roald Dahl

Birch­bark House, Louis Erdrich

Black Stal­lion (series), Wal­ter Farley

Bog­gart, Susan Cooper

Catherine, Called BirdyBook of Three (Pry­dain series of 5 books), Lloyd Alexander

Bor­row­ers, Mary Norton

Bud, Not Bud­dy, Christo­pher Paul Curtis

Catch You Lat­er, Trai­tor, Avi

Cather­ine, Called Birdy, Karen Cushman

Chas­ing Ver­meer, Blue Balliet

Chil­dren of Green Knowe (series), Lucy M. Boston

D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths, Ingri d’Aulaire and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire

Dark is Ris­ing (series of 5 books), Susan Cooper

Drag­ons in the Waters, Madeleine L’Engle

Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking RatEmmy and the Incred­i­ble Shrink­ing Rat, Lynne Jonell

Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library, Chris Grabenstein

Fabled Fourth Graders of Aesop Ele­men­tary School, Can­dace Fleming

False Prince (series of 3 books), Jen­nifer A. Nielsen

Flo­ra & Ulysses, Kate DiCamillo

Frindle, Andrew Clements

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweil­er, E.L. Konigsberg

Girls Think of Every­thing, Cather­ine Thimmesh

Green­glass House, Kate Milford

Half Mag­ic, Edward Eager

HatchetHar­ri­et the Spy, Louise Fitzhugh

Har­ry Pot­ter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (series of 7 books), J.K. Rowling

Hatch­et, Gary Paulsen

Holes, Louis Sachar

Home of the Brave, Kather­ine Applegate

How to Steal a Dog, Bar­bara O’Connor

How to Train Your Drag­on (series), Cres­si­da Crow­ell, “It’s fun­ny, sophis­ti­cat­ed, appeal­ing, and has 12 volumes.”

Indi­an Shoes, Cyn­thia Leitich Smith

I Sur­vived the Sink­ing of the Titan­ic, 1912 (series), Lau­ren Tarshis

Invention of Hugo CabretInven­tion of Hugo Cabret, Bri­an Selznick

Jen­nifer, Hecate, Mac­beth, William McKin­ley and Me, Eliz­a­beth, E.L. Konigsberg

Julie of the Wolves, Jean Craig­head George

King of the Wind, Mar­guerite Henry

Light­ning Thief (many books in this series and oth­er series), Rick Riordan

Lin­coln and His Boys, Rose­mary Wells

Long Walk to Water, Lin­da Sue Park

Mak­ing Friends with Bil­ly Wong, Augus­ta Scattergood

Mani­ac Magee, Jer­ry Spinelli

Old WolfMoth­er-Daugh­ter Book Club (series of 7 books), Heather Vogel Frederick

Mozart Sea­son, Vir­ginia Euw­er Wolff

Mrs. Fris­by and the Rats of NIMH, Robert C. O’Brien

Nation, Ter­ry Pratch­ett. “A bit mature for the aver­age third grad­er, but this does­n’t sound like an aver­age kid. Make it a point of discussion.”

Old Wolf, Avi

On My Hon­or, Mar­i­on Dane Bauer

One and Only Ivan, Kather­ine Applegate

One Crazy Sum­mer, Rita Williams-Garcia

Owls in the Fam­i­ly, Far­ley Mowat

People Could FlyPeo­ple Could Fly, Vir­ginia Hamilton

Peter Nim­ble and the Fan­tas­tic Eyes, Jonathan Auxier

Push­cart War, Jean Merrill

Ran­doms, David Liss

Savvy, Ingrid Law

Scary Sto­ries to Tell in the Dark (espe­cial­ly around Hal­loween), Alvin Schwartz (these are scary, so please know your child’s abil­i­ty to han­dle this book)

Scoot­er, Vera B. Williams’

Stella by StarlightSin­gle Shard, Lin­da Sue Park

Some Writer! The Sto­ry of E.B. White, Melis­sa Sweet

Stel­la by Starlight, Sharon M. Draper

Swal­lows and Ama­zons, Arthur Ransome

Tales from the Odyssey, Mary Pope Osborne

Tales of a Fourth Grade Noth­ing (Fudge series), Judy Blume

Tom’s Mid­night Gar­den, Philip­pa Pearce

True Con­fes­sions of Char­lotte Doyle, Avi

Tuck Ever­last­ing, Natal­ie Babbitt

Uncer­tain Glo­ry, Lea Wait

Untamed: the Wild Life of Jane GoodallUntamed: the Wild Life of Jane Goodall, Ani­ta Silvey

Walk Two Moons, Sharon Creech

West­ing Game, Ellen Raskin

Whales on Stilts! M.T. Anderson

When You Reach Me, Rebec­ca Stead

Where the Moun­tain Meets the Moon, Grace Lin

Witch of Black­bird Pond, Eliz­a­beth Speare

Won­der, R.J. Palacio

Wrin­kle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle

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lindabaie
lindabaie
7 years ago

Wow, what a won­der of a list! I will share with my for­mer col­leagues. I pre­vi­ous­ly taught at a school for gift­ed stu­dents and this was always a search for the young, but advanced readers!

Merrilee Hindman
Merrilee Hindman
7 years ago

You need to add Max­i’s Secrets by Lynn Plourde. Actu­al­ly it is a book for all ages!

robe0255
7 years ago

Thank you so much for help­ing with this! Per­fect before Christmas : )