Last week during my World Read-Aloud Day (WRAD) Skype visits with 4th-6th grade classrooms in New York, Illinois, Texas, Iowa, and Minnesota, I asked the students for reading recommendations. What books have they read and loved lately? Which books are their all-time faves? (I only wish we had more than 20 minutes to chat so I could have been able to hear why they loved these particular books.)
The answers were a mix of books that I too have loved, books I’m familiar with, and some that had completely escaped my radar. Uh-oh, TBR pile….
Here’s what they had to say:
- Alex Rider / Stormbreaker series by Anthony Horowitz
- The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis
- The Butterfly Clues by Kate Ellison
- ReStart by Gordon Korman *multiple recommendations
- The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate
- The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
- Ida B…and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (Possibly) Save the World by Katherine Hannigan
- Big Nate series by Lincoln Peirce *multiple recommendations
- Amulet by Kazu Kibuishi
- Wonder by R.J. Palacio *multiple recommendations
- Ruby Lee & Me by Shannon Hitchcock
- Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse
- Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
- Ungifted by Gordon Korman
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kinney *multiple recommendations
- Pennies from Heaven by Jennifer L. Holm
- The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
- Matilda by Roald Dahl
- The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
- Deep, Dark, and Dangerous by Mary Downing Hahn
- Paper Towns by John Green
- The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen
- The Maze Runner series by James Dashner *multiple recommendations
- Deep Blue by Jennifer Donnelly
- Belly Up by Stuart Gibbs
- Took by Mary Downing Hahn
- The Shadow Children series by Margaret Peterson Haddix
- The Lightning Thief by Percy Jackson *multiple recommendations
- Heart and Soul by Kadir Nelson
- I Survive series
- Baby-Sitters Club series
- The Unwanteds by Lisa McMann
- Harry Potter series
- It by Stephen King (there’s always at least one kid who’s reading way up and proud of it!)
- The Kid Who Ran for President by Dan Gutman
- A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
- The Imaginary by A.F. Harrold
- A Series of Unfortunate Events books by Lemony Snicket
- Children of Eden by Joey Graceffa
- Fever, 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson
- Funny Girl, ed. Betsy Bird
- Wishtree by Katherine Applegate
- Dogman by Dav Pilkey
- The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
- The Wild Robot by Peter Brown
- Some Kind of Courage by Dan Gemeinhart
- Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
- Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper
- The Trials of Apollo by Rick Riordan
