s/o MOOK reading: non-fiction recs

[pbandj]

Have you tried the "Who is..." series? My daughter really liked them - our library has them. She has read the ones for Frida Kahlo, Amelia Earhart, Martin Luther King Jr., and a bunch of others

We also have the highlights subscription. Ranger Rick and Zoobooks are also magazines my kids love to get in the mail. Sometimes you can find them on groupon or living social.

[jeaniebueller]

Ken Jennings has a series of books that are pretty cool. I bought DS this one:

play.google.com/store/books/details?id=MYMyAQAAQBAJ&source=productsearch&utm_source=HA_Desktop_US&utm_medium=SEM&utm_campaign=PLA&pcampaignid=MKTAD0930BO1&gl=US&gclid=COLR-eGXgM8CFUdOMgod8owOUw&gclsrc=ds

[lindsaymg]

Thank you for posting this, I needed these recommendations too!

[imojoebunny]

Does she like the internet? My DS (7) loves to read about things on the internet. It requires a bit of assistance on my part, but we will google something he is interested in, then he reads it himself, and then we go on to the next thing. I swear he became fluent at reading only because he likes to read amazon reviews and play mindcraft (he will read all the mindcraft books). DD likes American Girl Magazine, graphic novels, and all the American girl books. They have some great ones about growing up, making friends, ect, in addition to the stories. The Guinness book of records and true or false facts, as well as, the DK EyeWitness books are also hits.

[somersault72]

My 8 year old likes the "who is . . ." series as well. Also, these are technically fiction, but the events they are about are factual, DS loves the "I survived" series. I don't recommend it if your child has a lot of anxiety because some of the content is the bombing of Pearl Harbor, earthquakes, floods, etc. They are really well done though and I know several kids that enjoy reading them.

[schrodinger]

SD1 loves the "I Survived . . . " books. She especially likes the disasters and nature attacks ones. They are a bit dark, but she's always been more attracted to stories like that.

[darnkatz]

Smithsonian Early Adventures
Smithsonian Endless Explorations
National Geographic Kids Almanac 2016
National Geographic Super Readers
National Geographic Weird But True Facts
National Geographic Animal Encyclopedia
Egyptology: Search for the Tomb of Osiris 
Nocturne: Creatures of the Night
Eye to Eye: How Animals See the World
Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker
Viva Frida
Winnie: The True Story of the Bear Who Inspired Winnie the Pooh
If You Lived Here: Houses of the World
A Butterfly is Patient
Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature
Rachel: The True Story of Rachel Carson
On a Beam of Light: A Story of Albert einstein
An Egg is Quiet
A Rock is Lively
My Librarian is a Camel: How Books are Brought to Children Around the World
The Beetle Book
A Seed is Sleepy
Pablo Neruda: Poet of the People
Mama Miti: Wangari Maathai and the Trees of Kenya
Infinity and Me
Maps
Henry's Freedom Box: A True Story From the Underground Railroad
The Noisy Paint Box
Let It Shine: Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters
The Book Itch: Truth, Freedom, and Harlem's Greatest Bookstore
True Book series
Scholastic True or False
Books by Gale Gibbons 
Books by Simon Seymore (science facts)



TIME has a bunch of great books for kids. X-Why-Z, Big Book of Who, Big Book of What, All Access, That's Strange But True, etc. The Magic Treehouse series has nonfiction companions, so she may like that too. Look into graphic novels - DD1 is crazy about them, loves Pokemon, El Deafo, Monster on the  Hill, Sidekicks. Geronimo Stilton is great too.

You should also look into magazines. DD1 has had subscriptions to National Geographic Kids, Ask, Cricket, Ranger Rick, and Highlights. 

[cjeanette]

The "I survived" series is very popular at our school. Not non-fiction but close.

[CheeringCharm]

Our kids like The Magic Tree House Fact Tracker series. I think they may like them better than the fiction series. I like them better too because the vocabulary is a little more advanced (probably because a lot of the content is new) so I feel like it is pushing them a little bit more.

[lauralala]

I think most of my suggestions have been mentioned, but if you have a used bookstore near you, you might be able to find a lot of non-fiction for kids that isn't mentioned. Our local Half Price Books has a non-fiction kids section, and DS loves picking out random books that I would have never thought to chose for him.

I will be coming back to this post later for ideas, too. I just ordered a Who Would Win book for $2 - hope DS likes it!

[stephm0188]

The Who Was/Who is books are a 4th grade reading level, around GRL R-S or so.

I like the Magic Tree House fact trackers, but they're also around Q-S.

The Fly Guy Presents series is a little closer to that J-M target.

There's always Magic School Bus. There's a MSB chapter book series as well.

[SpartanGirl]

I'm not sure what where J-M falls for grade level (we use a different leveling system), but Barnes and Noble carries Training Wheels books that our school uses. The nonfiction books are pretty good. They can be repetitive (predictable text) but have good facts and great pictures. I'm not sure how the color levels relate to what your school uses, but in general Yellow is K level, Green is K/1st, Blue is 1st grade, and Red is 2nd grade. I can snap some pictures of the text on different color level pages if you're interested in seeing how difficult they are.

Here's a link: www.barnesandnoble.com/s/training+wheels?_requestid=134135

[auntie]

A couple of random thoughts from the parent of a kid with a history of reading issues who is now a college senior.

1. Depending where you live, "on grade level" could be a couple of years behind the average kid in the classroom.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/04/29/upshot/money-race-and-success-how-your-school-district-compares.html?_r=0

Ideally you want her to enjoy the same books as her peers so they can talk about books together. When DS was in 3rd ad 4th and his peers were devouring Harry Potter, I read them aloud so he could be part of the excitement around the new books and also so he could improve is comprehension around literary devices.

2. Good readers are good writers, you want to make sure she's exposed to both fiction with strong plots and character development for comprehension and writing skills as she approaches the intermediate grades.

3. DS much preferred non-fiction. He really liked Eye Witness Guides, the Guinness World Book and some biographies.

[dr.girlfriend]

I don't know much about the reading letter-levels, but DS is going into 2nd grade and loves his National Geographic Animal Encyclopedia, as well as his many Star Wars / Minecraft / Avengers encyclopedias. The Animal one is good too because it has smaller blurbs for each animal, so we can alternate reading if he's feeling less motivated. He also has a Human Body Encyclopedia that he really likes (it talks about pregnancy and stuff but skims over actual gender anatomy, so he also has It's Not the Stork for sex- and gender-specific education, lol). They have some tougher words but the overall reading level is probably good for 3rd grade.

smile.amazon.com/National-Geographic-Animal-Encyclopedia-Animals/dp/1426310226/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473443814&sr=1-1&keywords=national+geographic+animal+encyclopedia

smile.amazon.com/First-Human-Body-Encyclopedia-Reference/dp/0756609976/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473443841&sr=1-1&keywords=body+book+kids

He also loves reading online wikis -- for example, he'll go through the Godzilla wiki a monster at a time, etc.  The reading level of those jump around more but he's highly motivated to puzzle it out.