Dayton Metro Library - Kids Info4U

Fifteen poems explore the sights and sounds of life in a big city. READING LEVEL: 3.9

The Tuck family is confronted with an agonizing situation when they discover that a ten-year-old girl and a malicious stranger now share their secret about a spring whose water prevents one from ever growing any older. READING LEVEL: 5

When his best friend drowns while they are both swimming in a treacherous river that they had promised never to go near, Joel is devasted and terrified at having to tell both sets of parents the terrible consequences of their disobedience. READING LEVEL: 4.7

Three lonely foster children learn to care about themselves and each other. READING LEVEL: 3.8

In the Great Smoky Mountains region, a fourteen-year-old girl struggles to keep her family together after their father dies. READING LEVEL: 5.2

A free thirteen-year-old black girl in Connecticut is caught up in the horror of the Revolutionary War and the danger of being returned to slavery when her patriot father is killed by the British and her mother disappears. READING LEVEL: 4.9

Having fled to a family friend's hillside trailer after his mother's boyfriend tried to throw his baby sister against a wall, nine-year-old Jamie finds himself living an existence full of uncertainty and fear. READING LEVEL: 5.4

Although thirteen-year-old Willa Jo and her Aunt Patty seem to be constantly at odds, staying with her and Uncle Hob helps Willa Jo and her younger sister come to terms with the death of their family's baby. READING LEVEL: 5.1

Thirteen-year-old Zinnia Taylor uncovers family secrets and self truths while clearing a mysterious settler trail that begins on her family's farm in Kentucky. READING LEVEL: 5

Kidsnatched from her orphange by a BFG (Big Friendly Giant), who spends his life blowing happy dreams to children, Sophie concocts with him a plan to save the world from nine other man-gobbling cannybull giants. READING LEVEL: 4.8

Each of five children lucky enough to discover an entry ticket into Mr. Willy Wonka's mysterious chocolate factory takes advantage of the situation in his own way. READING LEVEL: 4.8

Ten-year-old India Opal Buloni describes her first summer in the town of Naomi, Florida, and all the good things that happen to her because of her big ugly dog Winn-Dixie. READING LEVEL: 4

Morning Girl, who loves the day, and her younger brother Star Boy, who loves the night, take turns describing their life on an island in pre-Columbian America; in Morning Girl's last narrative, she witnesses the arrival of the first Europeans to her world. READING LEVEL: 4.9

A shy, lonely six-year-old wanders into the Canadian prairie and spends a summer under the protection of a badger. READING LEVEL: 7.2

When the sixteen-year-old boy whom she tutors in reading is accused of attempting to murder a white man, Francie gets herself in serious trouble for her efforts at friendship. READING LEVEL: 4.2

Omakayas, a seven-year-old Native American girl of the Ojibwa tribe, lives through the joys of summer and the perils of winter on an island in Lake Superior in 1847. READING LEVEL: 6

After moving from Chicago to Grand River, Michigan, fifth grader Yolonda, big and strong for her age, determines to prove that her younger brother is not a slow learner but a true musical genius. READING LEVEL: 4.8

Lying at the end of her life in the room where she was born in 1851, Georgina remembers what it was like to grow up on the Ohio frontier. READING LEVEL: 5

Joey, who is still taking medication to keep him from getting too wired, goes to spend the summer with the hard-drinking father he has never known and tries to help the baseball team he coaches win the championship. READING LEVEL: 6

During a summer spent at Rockaway Beach in 1944, Lily's friendship with a young Hungarian refugee causes her to see the war and her own world differently. READING LEVEL: 4.6

Eleven-year-old Beth thinks that Philip Hall likes her, but their on-again, off-again relationship sometimes makes her wonder. READING LEVEL: 5

Retold Afro-American folktales of animals, fantasy, the supernatural, and desire for freedom, born of the sorrow of the slaves, but passed on in hope. READING LEVEL: 4

Obi escapes from slavery during the Civil War, joins a black Union regiment, and soon becomes involved in the bloody fighting at Fort Pillow, Tennessee. READING LEVEL: 4.5

When news of the discovery of gold in Canada's Yukon Territory in 1897 reaches fifteen-year-old Jason, he embarks on a 10,000-mile journey to strike it rich. READING LEVEL: 5.5

Although Bobby's father thinks that he might be expelled just like his older brother, with the encouragement of a new fifth-grade teacher, Bobby tries to channel his penchant for humor into a learning experience. READING LEVEL: 4

Four English schoolchildren find their way through the back of a wardrobe into the magic land of Narnia and assist Aslan, the golden lion, to triumph over the White Witch, who has cursed the land with eternal winter. READING LEVEL: 5.7

A collection of ghost stories with African American themes, designed to be told during the Dark Thirty--the half hour before sunset--when ghosts seem all too believable. READING LEVEL: 4.6

In 1859 twelve-year-old Clotee, a house slave who must conceal the fact that she can read and write, records in her diary her experiences and her struggle to decide whether to escape to freedom. READING LEVEL: 4.6

A biography of the former slave who became well-known as an abolitionist and advocate of women's rights. READING LEVEL: 7

Afraid of getting maimed for making fun of Brick, the husky new kid in his fifth-grade class, Nick decides that even his baseball collection will not protect him so he signs up for karate class, despite his little brother's reassurances that Brick is not a bully. READING LEVEL: 3

Separated from their mother by the harsh social and economic conditions prevalent among blacks in South Africa, thirteen-year-old Naledi and her younger brother make a journey of over 300 kilometers to find her in Johannesburg. READING LEVEL: 4.6

Eleven-year-old, motherless Alice decides she needs a gorgeous role model who does everything right; and when placed in homely Mrs. Plotkins's class she is greatly disappointed until she discovers it's what people are inside that counts. READING LEVEL: 5.3

The life of a ten-year-old boy in rural Virginia expands when he becomes friends with a newcomer who subsequently meets an untimely death trying to reach their hideaway, Terabithia, during a storm. READING LEVEL: 4.6

A young boy growing up on a northern Minnesota farm describes the scenes around him and recounts his old Norwegian uncle's tales of an almost mythological logging past. READING LEVEL: 5

A boy recounts his annual summer trips to rural Illinois with his sister during the Great Depression to visit their larger-than-life grandmother. READING LEVEL: 5

Tells the stories of ten African-American women freedom fighters. READING LEVEL: 4

Left alone to guard the family's wilderness home in eighteenth-century Maine, a boy is hard-pressed to survive until local Indians teach him their skills. READING LEVEL: 4.9

As Palmer comes of age, he must either accept the violence of being a wringer at his town's annual Pigeon Day or find the courage to oppose it. READING LEVEL: 4.5

When the freighter on which they are traveling is torpedoed by a German submarine during World War II, a twelve-year-old white boy, blinded by a blow on the head, and an old Negro are stranded on a small desert island in the Caribbean where the boy acquires a new kind of vision, courage, and love from his old companion. READING LEVEL: 6

When Woodrow's mother suddenly disappears, he moves to his grandparents' home in a small Virginia town where he befriends his cousin and together they find the strength to face the terrible losses and fears in their lives. READING LEVEL: 4.4

Angry and humiliated when his sharecropper father is jailed for stealing food for his family, a young black boy grows in courage and understanding by learning to read and with the help of the devoted dog Sounder. READING LEVEL: 5.3

The adventures of an eleven-year-old tomboy growing up on the Wisconsin frontier in the mid-nineteenth century. READING LEVEL: 6

In his letters to his favorite author, ten-year-old Leigh reveals his problems in coping with his parents' divorce, being the new boy in school, and generally finding his own place in the world. READING LEVEL: 4.9

The ordinary interactions and everyday routines of the Watsons, an African American family living in Flint, Michigan, are drastically changed after they go to visit Grandma in Alabama in the summer of 1963. READING LEVEL: 5

As she grows through the first years of her life in the Catskill Mountains of New York, a peregrine falcon called Frightful interacts with various humans, including the boy who raised her, a falconer who rescues her, and several unscrupulous poachers, as well as with many animals that are part of the area's ecological balance. READING LEVEL: 4.7

A Texas pioneer family in the 1860's and the big yellow stray dog that profoundly affects their lives. READING LEVEL: 5

A black family of five moves into an enormous house once used as a hiding place for runaway slaves. Mysterious sounds and events as well as the discovery of secret passageways make the family believe they are in grave danger. READING LEVEL: 4.8

In a series of poems, fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of living on her family's wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years of the Depression. READING LEVEL: 5.3

Having runaway with her younger brother to live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, twelve-year-old Claudia strives to keep things in order in their new home and to become a changed person and a heroine to herself. READING LEVEL: 4.7

Having no one to help her with her problems, a widowed mouse visits the rats whose former imprisonment in a laboratory made them wise and long lived. READING LEVEL: 5.1

Left alone on a beautiful but isolated island off the coast of California, a young Indian girl spends eighteen years, not only merely surviving through her enormous courage and self-reliance, but also finding a measure of happiness in her solitary life. READING LEVEL: 5.4

During the recession of 1937, fifteen-year-old Mary Alice is sent to live with her feisty, larger-than-life grandmother in rural Illinois and comes to a better understanding of this fearsome woman. READING LEVEL: 6

After the death of the beloved aunt who has raised her, twelve-year-old Summer and her uncle Ob leave their West Virginia trailer in search of the strength to go on living. READING LEVEL: 5.3

After his parents die, Jeffrey Lionel Magee's life becomes legendary, as he accomplishes athletic and other feats which awe his contemporaries. READING LEVEL: 4.7

Recommended Books for Fifth Grade