A friend has been asking me about our reading lists. I told her I would scour my computer to try and find them, but I wasn't too hopeful that I would actually find them. I typed "reading" into the search box and crossed my fingers. I almost jumped out of my seat when Elijah's 6th grade list popped up! I had one!
So, I've decided to share it here in case someone else also wants a peek into what a voracious reader read in 6th grade (in 2013-14). I am sure I have missed some of his selections because it is impossible for me to keep up with him (3-4+ books each week!), but most of these were on his required list.
Please don't use this list to compare your non-book-devouring child to mine. We don't use much curriculum because he chooses to read so, so much.
Elijah’s 6th Grade Reading List
Biography and Nonfiction
George Mueller: The Guardian of Bristol’s Orphans by Geoff and Janet Benge
Francis Scott Key by David Collins
Noah Webster by David Collins
The Wright Brothers by Charles Ludwig
If the World Were a Village by David J Smith
Material World: A Global Family Portrait by Peter Menzel
Titanic Tragedy by Vincent McDonnell
Poetry
Hailstones and Halibut Bones by Mary O’Neill
Realistic Fiction
In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord
The Silver Pencil by Alice Dalgliesh*
The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate*
Shadow of a Bull by Maia Wojciechowska*
Holes by Louis Sachar*
Adventure
Summer of the Monkeys by Wilson Rawls
The Good Master by Kate Seredy*
The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy*
The Great and Terrible Quest by Margaret Lovett
Mystery
The Candymakers by Wendy Mass
The Mysterious Benedict Society Series by Trenton Lee Stewart
Folk and Fairy Tales
The Castle Corona by Sharon Creech
King Arthur: Tales from the Round Table by Andrew Lang
Fantasy & Science Fiction
Hitty, Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field*
The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander
The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander*
The Castle of Llyr by Lloyd Alexander
Taran Wanderer by Lloyd Alexander
The High King by Lloyd Alexander*
The Phoneix and the Carpet by E. Nesbit
Masterminds by Gordon Korman
Masterminds: Criminal Destiny by Gordon Korman
Humor
Paddington Abroad by Michael Bond
Paddington Helps Out by Michael Bond
More About Paddington by Michael Bond
Paddington at Large by Michael Bond
Historical Fiction
Hittite Warrior by Joanne Williamson
God King by Joanne Williamson
The Ides of April by Mary Ray
The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare*
Moccasin Trail by Eloise Jarvis McGraw*
Riders of the Pony Express by Ralph Moody
The Golden Goblet by Elizabeth George Speare*
The Hidden Treasure of Glaston by Eleanore M. Jewett*
A House of Tailors by Patricia Reilly Giff
Dragonwings by Laurence Yep*
Swift Rivers by Cornelia Meigs*
Calico Bush by Rachel Field*
Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray*
The House of Sixty Fathers by Meindert DeJong*
The White Stag by Kate Seredy*
Classics
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Big Wave by Pearl Buck
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
*Newbery Award or Honor Book
Happy Reading!
If you are looking for more lists for kids who love to read, please check out my Reading Lists for Voracious Readers page.
Do you have him “do anything” with the books he reads? Oral or written narration? Drawing? I have a 6th grader who would read that much if i let him but i am concerned about retention.
Hi Nicole,
My boys have done a ton of narration over the years. We talk about the books as they have questions about what they are reading, or they narrate a summary to me while we are driving/walking in the woods, etc.
When my older son started high school, I decided to give him some quizzes just to see if he was really comprehending everything he read (at such a fast rate). He did amazing on the quizzes, so I stopped giving them to him and just let him go back to narration (and later, in American Literature, journal writing).