MOOKs - Book Help rising 3rd grader

[ssmjlm]

I know we've had some threads on this, but reaching out again.

Are there any longer chapter books out there for the 3-5th grade crowd?  

She can blow through a couple hundred pages easily.  Not quite HP length, but something that's maybe boxcar kids length or longer?  Or a good series for us to try.

A lot of books I find are very middle school focused and we're not there yet.  She loves the Rainbow Magic fairies, magic tree house (all series), Heidi Heckelbeck, Unicorn Princess, Never Girls off the top of my head.

I have 1 local library, the other is closed due to construction.  I'm going to look into the neighboring county we can join for free.  Our selection isn't great and with 1 branch, I know it will be slim.

[pooh8402]

My favorites at that age were Hank the Cowdog, Nancy Drew, and Babysitter's Club. For newer options, Diary of a Wimpy Kid? Percy Jackson?

[mainelyfoolish]

Emily Windsnap series
Geronimo Stilton/Thea Stilton series
The Endling series
Heroes in Training series
Fairy Bell Sisters series
Upside Down Magic series

[abs]

Wayside Stories books
Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing
Because of Winn Dixie
Whatever After books
Cupcake Diaries
Babysitters Club

Some involve middle school kids but have good themes. These are all books my kid devoured in 3rd grade.

[nellgirl]

Warriors series (about cats)

[nicolewi]

Not necessarily much longer, but possible choices:
Upside Down Magic series
Beverly Cleary books
Coo
Humphrey Hamster series
American Girl books

[pittpurple]

mainelyfoolish , thanks! That Emily Windsnap series looks ideal for my 8 year old.

[jaycee]

I've had good success finding books by looking up a book I know my son likes on amazon and then scrolling down to the recommended books or people that bought this also bought section.

I also recommend books by Roald Dahl for her.  They're long but some have a few illustrations and they tell the most fantastic stories.  Charlie and the chocolate factory, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, The BFG

[AdaraMarie]

My niece is getting into Cam Jansen and A-Z mysteries. Also shorter, but series.

[ilikedonuts]

E loves The Book Wanderer series. I just got her the 3rd one.

Also Mr Limoncello’s library and the sequel.

Wild robot and the sequel

[ilikedonuts]

Jun 3, 2021 10:36:07 GMT -5 jaycee said:

I've had good success finding books by looking up a book I know my son likes on amazon and then scrolling down to the recommended books or people that bought this also bought section.

I also recommend books by Roald Dahl for her.  They're long but some have a few illustrations and they tell the most fantastic stories.  Charlie and the chocolate factory, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, The BFG

Ditto Roald Dahl! We got the set from Costco.

[hermione]

Standard Roald Dahl note because he always comes up in these threads: he was a horrible anti-Semite.

Some longer books (series) she may like:

39 Clues
The Land of Stories
A Series of Unfortunate Events
Pages & Co.
Dyamonde Daniels


It's a good age for some of the Judy Blume books
The American Girl Books are an option
Charlotte's Web
Stuart Little
The Ramona Books

Also, see if your library can interlibrary loan titles from other libraries in the state. It usually only takes about a week for them to arrive.

[aspentosh]

DD is SUPER into Thea Stilton right now.

She has also liked:
Ramona books (not all, but most)
Spirit Animals
A to Z Mysteries (though she read one of these a night... speaking of which, I need to post them, lol)
Wayside Stories
American Girl books
Boxcar Children
Rescue Princesses

She is just starting to read some Nancy Drew.

[ssmjlm]

Uh, yeah, I thought we had covered Roald Dahl?

hermione , that's a good idea too. I've been doing some heavy hold requests recently and then doing a big pick-up on Saturdays.

I don't want to delve into the MS topics yet. Not that the same mean girl crap isn't happening already, but I think I need to wait a bit on even the Baby Sitter's Club.

[ilikedonuts]

Jun 3, 2021 12:05:13 GMT -5 ssmjlm said:

I don't want to delve into the MS topics yet. Not that the same mean girl crap isn't happening already, but I think I need to wait a bit on even the Baby Sitter's Club.

We’ve also been avoiding series like Babysitter’s club and Dork Diaries just because I’ve been avoiding too much MS stuff as well.

Does your daughter have any friends that read a lot that you can swap books with if you run into issues getting books from libraries? We’ve started swapping books with swim friends which has helped and they’ve introduced us to some new books we haven’t heard of.

I asked E for more suggestions for you and she said to tell you to try the A Boy called Bat series. They read the first 1 in 3rd grade this past year and the whole class enjoyed it.

[186momx]

Charlotte's Web
City of Ember
Usborne has a number books and series that DD loved but I can't find them at our library so if you can swap books with a friend it might be worth adding to your personal library. Alfie Onion was hilarious.
Pony Pals and Big Apple Barn DD enjoyed and both series are about horses and have characters who are in elementary school.

[tarajane]

Who Was books
Capital Mysteries (shorter)
Doyle and Fossey, Science Detectives
Choose Your Own Adventures

[pooh8402]

Jun 3, 2021 10:53:30 GMT -5 hermione said:

Standard Roald Dahl note because he always comes up in these threads: he was a horrible anti-Semite.

Some longer books (series) she may like:

39 Clues
The Land of Stories
A Series of Unfortunate Events
Pages & Co.
Dyamonde Daniels


It's a good age for some of the Judy Blume books
The American Girl Books are an option
Charlotte's Web
Stuart Little
The Ramona Books

Also, see if your library can interlibrary loan titles from other libraries in the state. It usually only takes about a week for them to arrive.

oh man, Land of Stories! I love that series, even as an adult.

[iknowthismuchistrue]

The Land of Stories!!!! They are 400-500 pages in length but it feels like the reading level is a bit lower the HP. My current 2nd grader is obsessed with the series and it’s so much better than Heidi Heckelbeck (which she LOVED last year!) because it takes her longer to get them. Heidi book was finished in 30 minutes and land of stories is taking weeks.

[orval]

I remember loving all of the Laura Ingalls Wilder -- Little House on the Prarie series-- books around that age.

[stephm0188]

Elementary school librarian here.

The Wild Robot and The Wild Robot Escape by Peter Brown
The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall (it's a series)
The Land of Stories by Chris Colfer
Wings of Fire is insanely popular and I can't keep it on the shelves.
The Vanderbeekers of 141 Street (another series)
Front Desk and Three Keys by Kelly Yang
Stand Up, Yumi Chung! by Jessica Kim
The Parker Inheritance by Varian Johnson
Escape From Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Chris Grabenstein.
Any bookby Kate DiCamillo. She's amazing.
Wishtree by Katherine Applegate
Blended by Sharon Draper


I could keep going.

And I'm not going to recommend Roald Dahl. I'm going to do the opposite. I think we as adults tend to feel nostalgia associated with his work, but there are too many awesome books out there written by a slew of talented people with diverse backgrounds and experiences about characters with diverse backgrounds and experiences to waste time recommending him.

[ellipses84]

We’ve been struggling to find new books for my 4th grade son. He loved Harry Potter so we’ve been exploring other mystery series’ and got a list from another group and our summer library reading program recs. He loved the first Stuart Gibbs book and read it all the first day we brought it home from the library. Once you find an author she likes, it’s easy to find their other books and other similar author / genre recs. Some may be too mature like “solve a murder” and not worse than HP IMO, but others are less so, like “solve the case of a missing zoo animal.”

When I was her age I loved historical narration books, like about a girl during pioneer times or a kid’s experiences during WWII. I think there are better modern books on those topics than the whitewashed books I read in the 80s.

Here’s some of his library holds (and he’s only read the last two).

[Patsy Baloney]

Re: the Babysitter’s Club

Little Sisters Babysitter’s Club is great and not as MS-oriented as BSC. It follows Karen Brewer, Kristy’s younger step-sister. They’ve started being converted into graphic novels, but they’re just fun. Karen is really imaginative, a sometimes-butthead, and has conflicts more appropriate to the younger reader.

[notsopicky]

Keeper of the Lost Cities, Messenger. There are 8 or 9 books, and they are all long. My kid devoured them.

Another vote for Land of Stories, I think there are 7 or so.

Definitely Erin Hunter's Warriors (cats), Seekers (bears), Survivors (dogs), and Bravelands (elephant, gorilla, lion). There are like a million of them. And Wings of Fire is by one of the Erin Hunter authors (dragons), there are 14 or so of those.

I just introduced my 10 year old to Charlie Bone, I think there are 5 or 6? Don't know much about it, except that the people in pictures talk (so fascinating!).

[formerlyak]

Battle of the Books has good lists for kids that age.

www.battleofthebooks.org/book-list/

[kylerules]

Roald Dahl's books

Recommend by my son who is 9 now but has always been an avid reader- reads 2-3 hours easily each day.

[tacokick]

Jun 3, 2021 8:42:24 GMT -5 ssmjlm said:

I know we've had some threads on this, but reaching out again.

Are there any longer chapter books out there for the 3-5th grade crowd?  

She can blow through a couple hundred pages easily.  Not quite HP length, but something that's maybe boxcar kids length or longer?  Or a good series for us to try.

A lot of books I find are very middle school focused and we're not there yet.  She loves the Rainbow Magic fairies, magic tree house (all series), Heidi Heckelbeck, Unicorn Princess, Never Girls off the top of my head.

I have 1 local library, the other is closed due to construction.  I'm going to look into the neighboring county we can join for free.  Our selection isn't great and with 1 branch, I know it will be slim.

Your library should be able to request books from other counties for you. I get books from other counties (and even states!) all the time.

It’s worth looking into anyway!

At that age I read a lot of Nancy Drew, Agatha Christie stories then novels, Beverly Cleary, and Judy Bloom. Maybe the American Girl books? Misty of Chincoteague and the other related books were popular.

Carl Hiaasen books were a big hit when I taught that age range.

[DarcyLongfellow]

The Ranger in Time series is great

A bit easier reads, but very age appropriate --
The Puppy Place series
My Weird School series
A to Z Mysteries
The Purrmaids series


Will she read ebooks? My older DD had a summer where she was reading a chapter book or two a night (because she was in that same in between stage so the chapter books were shorter). I got her to read ebooks from the library, which made life a lot easier.

[mae0111]

My kids loved the Clementine series - similar to Ramona in that she’s mischievous and often in trouble, but never mean. There are subtle messages about people thinking and learning differently, which I loved. There are 5 books I think? After that, the Waylon series kind of continues along the theme. All are by Sara Pennypacker.

And I second anything by Kate DiCamillo. DD2 is a rising 3rd grader and she has loved everything that she’s read.

[ssmjlm]

Jun 6, 2021 13:35:49 GMT -5 DarcyLongfellow said:

The Ranger in Time series is great

A bit easier reads, but very age appropriate --
The Puppy Place series
My Weird School series
A to Z Mysteries
The Purrmaids series


Will she read ebooks? My older DD had a summer where she was reading a chapter book or two a night (because she was in that same in between stage so the chapter books were shorter). I got her to read ebooks from the library, which made life a lot easier.

She might, we did them during virtual school so she could follow along as the teacher read on video.

But I would have to get her a paper white. We’re pretty no tablets before bed and that’s when she reads the most.

We aim for a solid hour of screen free before her “bedtime” on school nights.