Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion book recommendations for "free reading" at school

What about George's secret key to the universe (and sequels) they are half fiction half nonfiction by Lucy and her dad Stephen Hawking

This might be too exciting, too -- DD7 just brought home this book from the school library and is enthralled by it:

100 Deadliest Things on the Planet

She says the librarian told her it wasn't a second grade book, it was a fifth grade book, but let her check it out anyway. Aren't we lucky?

I see that it is part of a series, including Dangerous things, Disgusting things, and so on. I'm sure she'll have to have all of those, too.

One of my sons, DS6, loves the Basher series of science books.

http://www.amazon.com/Simon-Basher/e/B0034Q44MM/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1

My DD was all over the map at that age here are some that I think a boy might like too:-

Geronimo Stilton
Harry Potter
The Hobbit
The Wind in the willows
Anything about dinosaurs
Anything about Ancient Egypt
Anything about Pirates
Anything about mythology
Narnia
Redwall
Rick Riordan
Anything about birds, reptiles or polar bears
Tomfoolery
Jokes especially puns and knock-knock
Anything teaching Conjuring tricks and number tricks

Not sure about non fiction. My kids tend to like national geographic books about space or animals. They have good pictures to go with the text. For fiction my son just read Matilda and is now reading The Invention of Hugo Cabret. He liked Romona too. Oh I know how about some of the "Who Was ...?" Books. They have those for all different people.

Forgot to add - both of my 6 year old twins love the "National Geographic for Kids fact books and their "Weird but True" books, as well as their children's almanacs. They are very good for reading in spurts, as well, due to the subject matter and the size of the books.

The Bargain sections in Barnes and Noble (in the adult section and the kids' section) actually had some good looking non-fiction books for kids last time I checked.

My ds 6 has enjoyed Dahl, the chocolate touch, and Mr. Poppers Penguins. He LOVES Wayside school books!
(I am reading The Series of Unfortuneate Events to ds. He enjoys that. It has some good vocabulary. I've also heard it is quite good as an audiobook.)

When my son was in K he was a very advanced reader but didn't really care for fiction. Fiction at his reading level wasn't really of "age" interest to him either.

I took him and another advanced reader to the library for the teacher, and what worked best was they read every single Magic School Bus book that existed. (They were in their reading program.) I also bought or took from the library non fiction science books, on all subjects.

Fiction that did work, was stuff in more short story format. Encyclopedia Brown books turned out the be a huge hit in 1st grade. He also really liked the Geronimo Stilton (we called them the cheese books) series, and Captain Underwear. Potty humor at it's best, but very age appropriate.

Another big hit for this age was Joke books.

Edited to add.. what about puzzle books like Kids Sudoku, mazes. (Just not word searches.. IMO word searches are a waste of time.)
National Geographic Kids magazine. (Maybe you can find past issues in the library)

Don't forgot picture books. There are quite a number that have quite a high reading level because they are designed to be read to children by adults. I helped my son's teachers with tagging their libraries when my son was in K-3rd.

"How Droofus the Dragon Lost His Head" by Bill Pete. Or really ANYTHING by Bill Pete. It's a K-3rd grade level, but a high lexile measure and 48 pages with lots of text per page. He wrote dozens of books, all silly fun.

While I LOVE The Harry Potter Books & The Hobbit. I personally suggest you wait till he is a bit older. They do make excellent read out loud books. Something I had to learn a bit myself through experience was that as adults we can be in such a rush to introduce literature when we realized we have such a gifted reader. We forget to sometimes slow down a bit and wait till a kid is more age appropriate to enjoy the nuances book.

The Harry Potter books were designed to "grow" with the young teens and after book 3 they really are TEEN books. I honestly think they are better appreciated by children 8+, no mater their reading level. My experience is bright kids can actually be more sensitive to the violence and dying but not mature enough to really handle it.