16 Middle Grade Books for 5th Graders
These page-turning middle grade books for 5th graders are the perfect book pile to keep on hand for summer vacation reading this year.
My Peanut graduated from 5th grade on Thursday, where did the time go?? I can't believe we're already moving on to middle school this fall.
The 5th graders ended their classes a day before the rest of the school.
So, to help us not spiral down into tears and sentimentality, we distracted ourselves after the graduation ceremony in the best way possible . . . by having a mommy-daughter date to Barnes & Noble on a school day afternoon.
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While Little Pea was finishing up 2nd grade, the Peanut and I were busy scouring the shelves of the children's book section for awesome picks for a summer reading list for you and your kids.
Our finds are so good, I wanted to fill my own To Read list with them!
Some of these recommendations come directly from her just-finished reading shelf: books she has loved so much she'll come into our bedroom late at night because she just has to tell us all about what she just read.
Some of these are books we found together and thought looked interesting.
Motivate Kids for Summer Reading
If you really want your kids to read this summer, consider signing up for one of these great summer reading programs.
You could even start a summertime book club for kids! And don't forget, YES listening to audiobooks together totally counts as reading.
16 Books for 5th Graders to Read This Summer
This list of summer reading books for 5th graders was put together by a mom and daughter duo. Great books for both boys and girls to enjoy during summer vacation.
The Peanut's whole class fought over the limited copies of this book at the school book fair. She finished it in just a few days and couldn't stop talking about it.
SUMMARY:
Chase's memory just went out the window. Chase doesn't remember falling off the roof. He doesn't remember hitting his head. He doesn't, in fact, remember anything. He wakes up in a hospital room and suddenly has to learn his whole life all over again . . . starting with his own name. He knows he's Chase. But who is Chase?
When he gets back to school, he sees that different kids have very different reactions to his return. Some kids treat him like a hero. Some kids are clearly afraid of him. One girl in particular is so angry with him that she pours her frozen yogurt on his head the first chance she gets.
Pretty soon, it's not only a question of who Chase is--it's a question of who he was . . . and who he's going to be.
From the #1 bestselling author of Swindle and Slacker, Restart is the spectacular story of a kid with a messy past who has to figure out what it means to get a clean start.
She spotted this in my Kindle "Finished" folder and was curious enough to read it she finally asked to read it on my old Kindle Paperwhite.
She read it in just a couple nights and begged to get the sequel on hold from the library.
SUMMARY:
Thirteen is when a Beaumont’s savvy hits—and with one brother who causes hurricanes and another who creates electricity, Mibs Beaumont is eager to see what she gets. But just before the big day, Poppa is in a terrible accident. And now all Mibs wants is a savvy that will save him.
In fact, Mibs is so sure she’ll get a powerful savvy that she sneaks a ride to the hospital on a rickety bus with her sibling and the preacher’s kids in tow. After this extraordinary adventure—full of talking tattoos and a kidnapping—not a soul on board will ever be the same.
My husband and I are both huge fans of this book so we were thrilled when she showed interest. This is a perfect Read the Book, Watch the Movie.
It would make for a great family read aloud and movie night, too.
SUMMARY:
Stanley Yelnats is under a curse. A curse that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather and has since followed generations of Yelnatses. Now Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys’ detention center, Camp Green Lake, where the boys build character by spending all day, every day digging holes exactly five feet wide and five feet deep. There is no lake at Camp Green Lake. But there are an awful lot of holes.
Other classes had to read this book for school and the Peanut got curious. She read it on her own and flew through it very quickly. We just discovered they made a movie of it, so we're adding that to our summer watchlist.
SUMMARY:
Everybody loves Mother Paula's pancakes. Everybody, that is, except the colony of cute but endangered owls that live on the building site of the new restaurant. Can the awkward new kid and his feral friend prank the pancake people out of town? Or is the owls' fate cemented in pancake batter?
This was one of two options for summer reading homework from the middle school. The Peanut chose to do it over spring break to get it done. She loved the book and ended up enjoying the homework more than she expected.
SUMMARY:
“Everybody is smart in different ways. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its life believing it is stupid.”
Ally has been smart enough to fool a lot of smart people. Every time she lands in a new school, she is able to hide her inability to read by creating clever yet disruptive distractions. She is afraid to ask for help; after all, how can you cure dumb?
However, her newest teacher Mr. Daniels sees the bright, creative kid underneath the trouble maker. With his help, Ally learns not to be so hard on herself and that dyslexia is nothing to be ashamed of. As her confidence grows, Ally feels free to be herself and the world starts opening up with possibilities. She discovers that there’s a lot more to her—and to everyone—than a label, and that great minds don’t always think alike.
We were excited to find this book that has also been turned into a movie staring Alfre Woodard, Jessica Collins, John Heard, Jacinda Barett, Cloris Leachman, and Talitha Bateman.
SUMMARY:
From acclaimed author Sarah Weeks comes a touching coming-of-age story about a young girl who goes on a cross-country journey to discover the truth about her parents, which the New York Times called "a remarkable novel." Perfect for fans of Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me and Ali Benjamin's The Thing About Jellyfish.
She doesn't know when her birthday is or who her father is. In fact, everything about Heidi and her mentally disabled mother's past is a mystery. When a strange word in her mother's vocabulary begins to haunt her, Heidi sets out on a cross-country journey in search of the secrets of her past.
By the author of The Secret Benedict Society (which we also loved), this looks like a great kids' mystery.
SUMMARY:
When Reuben discovers an extraordinary antique watch with a secret power, his life takes an intriguing turn. As one secret leads to another, Reuben finds himself torn between his honest nature and the lure to be a hero.
Now he is on a dangerous adventure--full of curious characters, treacherous traps, and hairsbreadth escapes--as he races to solve the mystery before it is too late. With fearless Penny, mighty Jack, and the wise Mrs. Genevieve on his side, can Reuben outwit a sly villain called The Smoke and save the city from a terrible fate?
The Peanut gravitated to this book and didn't want to leave it behind at the store. She talked about it the whole way home, so I grabbed the Kindle version when it went on sale. Great for kids who have loved Mr. Lemoncello's Library.
SUMMARY:
For twelve-year-old Emily, the best thing about moving to San Francisco is that it's the home city of her literary idol: Garrison Griswold, book publisher and creator of the online sensation Book Scavenger (a game where books are hidden in cities all over the country and clues to find them are revealed through puzzles).
Upon her arrival, however, Emily learns that Griswold has been attacked and is now in a coma, and no one knows anything about the epic new game he had been poised to launch. Then Emily and her new friend James discover an odd book, which they come to believe is from Griswold himself, and might contain the only copy of his mysterious new game.
This was one of the reward books you could get from the Barnes & Noble summer reading program. A great way to incentivize kids to read!
SUMMARY:
It’s wintertime at Greenglass House. The creaky smuggler’s inn is always quiet during this season, and twelve-year-old Milo, the innkeepers’ adopted son, plans to spend his holidays relaxing.
But on the first icy night of vacation, out of nowhere, the guest bell rings. Then rings again. And again...
Soon Milo’s home is bursting with odd, secretive guests, each one bearing a strange story that is somehow connected to the rambling old house. As objects go missing and tempers flare, Milo and Meddy, the cook’s daughter, must decipher clues and untangle the web of deepening mysteries to discover the truth about Greenglass House—and themselves.
This made the North Carolina state book awards list. The illustrations are great and the chapters are super short. It will make for a quick read for kids who struggle with longer chapters.
SUMMARY:
Can a robot survive in the wilderness?When robot Roz opens her eyes for the first time, she discovers that she is all alone on a remote, wild island. She has no idea how she got there or what her purpose is--but she knows she needs to survive.
After battling a violent storm and escaping a vicious bear attack, she realizes that her only hope for survival is to adapt to her surroundings and learn from the island's unwelcoming animal inhabitants.
As Roz slowly befriends the animals, the island starts to feel like home--until, one day, the robot's mysterious past comes back to haunt her.
The Peanut was intrigued by this one, I remember loving the movie. I think it might fall on the older range of our reading range here but would be great for kids and parents to read together, too.
SUMMARY:
The city of Ember was built as a last refuge for the human race. Two hundred years later, the great lamps that light the city are beginning to flicker. When Lina finds part of an ancient message, she’s sure it holds a secret that will save the city. She and her friend Doon must race to figure out the clues before the lights go out on Ember forever!
A kids survival adventure book, I gave it to the Peanut when she was too young and she couldn't get past the scene in the beginning where the children become orphaned. I suggested she try it again now that she's older.
SUMMARY:
Maya Nelson isn't your typical thirteen-year-old. She's spent her whole life living on the sea with her marine biologist parents, her younger brother, Simon, and baby sister, Penny. Maya used to love living on a sailboat, but lately, everything feels terribly claustrophobic. Maya longs to go to school on land. To make friends. To lead a normal life. But when a violent storm hits and Maya's parents are washed overboard, life becomes anything but normal. The children manage to steer the boat toward a mysterious island, to a place that doesn't exist on a map.
I bought this on Kindle when the price dropped but now I see it everywhere I go. If you enjoyed Wrinkle in Time, this sounds like a winner. It's won a ton of awards and has excellent reviews.
SUMMARY:
Shortly after a fall-out with her best friend, sixth grader Miranda starts receiving mysterious notes, and she doesn’t know what to do. The notes tell her that she must write a letter—a true story, and that she can’t share her mission with anyone.
It would be easy to ignore the strange messages, except that whoever is leaving them has an uncanny ability to predict the future. If that is the case, then Miranda has a big problem—because the notes tell her that someone is going to die, and she might be too late to stop it.
"Fahrenheit 451 meets The Giver for middle grade readers!" Another more advanced book, I think it sounds like a great one to read with the kids and discuss it as you go.
SUMMARY:
What if you were only allowed to speak 500 words?
The city of Ark is the last safe place on Earth: the polar ice caps have melted and flooded everything, leaving few survivors. To make sure humans do not make the same mistakes, Ark's leader John Noa decrees everyone in Ark must speak List, a language of only 500 words. Language is to blame for mankind's destruction, John Noa says, as politicians and governments hid the disastrous effects of global warming and environmental damage until it was too late.
Everyone must speak List … except Letta.
The sequel to one of our summer books from last year, I LOVED the first one. I might read this on my own!
SUMMARY:
It has been a few months since the nationwide New Candy Contest, and Logan, Miles, Philip, and Daisy have returned to their regular lives. But when the winning candy bar comes down the conveyor belt at the Life is Sweet candy factory, Logan realizes something's very wrong....
With the new Little Women mini series on PBS, I am desperate to share my favorite childhood book with my girls. I spotted this cute fiction book about a mom daughter book club that reads Little Women together and I thought maybe that would be a better place to start than with the actual classic itself.
SUMMARY:
Even if Megan would rather be at the mall, Cassidy is late for hockey practice, Emma's already read every book in existence, and Jess is missing her mother too much to care, the new book club is scheduled to meet every month.But what begins as a mom-imposed ritual of reading Little Women soon helps four unlikely friends navigate the drama of middle school. From stolen journals, to secret crushes, to a fashion-fiasco first dance, the girls are up to their Wellie boots in drama. They can't help but wonder: What would Jo March do?
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