5th Grade Summer Reading List Palmetto Elementary School

2012-2013 NOTE TO PARENTS: Please read this entire document with your child!

This summer all incoming fifth graders must read four books which span the following genres: fiction, non-fiction (2 books: 1 autobiography or biography, 1 “of interest”), and poetry. After reading your selected books, please complete the graphic organizers which serve as a simple map to help you identify and remember the important parts in each piece of text. These organizers (1 for each genre) will be collected on the first day of school in August and used in class during the school year. The four organizers are due on the first day of school! During our fifth grade year, you will also be asked to create a project based on your favorite Summer Reading book. Don't stress!!! Over the summer, just sit back, relax, and enjoy reading the four books you have chosen. Our hope is that you will develop the skills needed as an independent reader and a desire to read for pleasure in your spare time. The first genre of book that you will read this summer is fiction. Your fictional book can be mystery, historical, realistic/contemporary, fantasy, or science fiction. Look over the list of suggested books on one of the following pages, but don’t limit your choice to those listed. When you’ve finished your fictional selection, fill out the graphic organizer entitled “Story Map”.

Fiction

Suggestions for Fiction: These books have been suggested by

Ms. Post, Mr. Lee, Ms. Green, Mrs. Omotade, and 5th grade students:

Avi – Something Upstairs, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, “Who Was That Masked Man,

Anyway?”, Crispin, Ragweed, Nothing but the Truth, Poppy

Edward Bloor – Tangerine, Story Time, Crusader

Betsy Byars – Summer of the Swans, Death’s Door, Dead Letter, The Glory Girl, Disappearing Acts

Patrick Carman – any “Land of Elyon” books

Matt Christopher – Tight End, Football Fugitive, Red Hot Hightops, Spike It, Body Check, Dirt Bike

Runaway

Andrew Clements - The Landry News, Frindle, Lunch Money, The Janitor’s Boy, The School Story

Audrey Couloumbis – Getting Near to Baby, Say Yes, Summer’s End

Sharon Creech –Absolutely Normal Chaos, Pleasing the Ghost, Bloomability, Granny Torrelli Makes Soup Christopher Paul Curtis – The Watson’s Go to Birmingham – 1963, Elijah of Buxton

Kate DiCamillo – The Tale of Despereaux

Sharon M. Draper - Romiette and Julio, Double Dutch, Copper Sun, Money Hungry, Begging for Change

Nancy Farmer - A Girl Named Disaster, The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm,

Sharon Flake – The Skin I’m In

Sid Fleischman - The Whipping Boy, The Ghost in the Noonday Sun, Jingo Django

Cornelia Funke – The Thief Lord, Inkheart, Inkspell, Dragon Rider

Jean Craighead George – Julie of the Wolves, My Side of the Mountain, There’s an Owl in the Shower

Dan Gutman – Honus and Me, Virtually Perfect, Jackie and Me, The Million Dollar Shot

Margaret Peterson Haddix – Among the Hidden, Among the Betrayed, Among the Imposters

Virginia Hamilton – Zeely, M.C. Higgins, the Great, The House of Dies Drear

Karen Hesse – Out of the Dust, Letters from Rifka, Just Juice, Witness, Stowaway, The Music of Dolphins

Carl Hiaasen – Hoot, Flush

Angela Johnson – Heaven, Bird, Toning the Sweep, Running Back to Ludie

Tracy Jones - Standing Against the Wind

Lois Lowry – The Giver, Us and Uncle Fraud, The Giver, Messenger, The Silent Boy

Mike Lupica - Heat

Norma Fox Mazer – Good Night, Maman

Patricia McKissack – Run Away Home, A Friendship for Today, Run Away Home, Long, Hard Journey

Donna Jo Napoli - Three Days, Bound, Trouble on the Tracks, For the Love of Venice, Stones in Water

Jenny Nimmo – Midnight for Charlie Bone

Linda Sue Park – A Single Shard

Gary Paulsen – Brian’s Winter, The River, Hatchet, The Crossing, The Quilt, The Monument

Shelly Pearsall – Trouble Don’t Last, Crooked River, All of the Above

J.K. Rowling – any Harry Potter books

Johanna Reiss – The Upstairs Room

Pam Munoz Ryan – Esperanza Rising, Paint the Wind

Cynthia Rylant – Missing May, A Blue-Eyed Daisy, I Had Seen Castles, The Storm

Louis Sachar – There’s a Boy in the Girl’s Bathroom, The Boy who Lost his Face, Small Steps

Jon Scieszka - See you Later, Gladiator, Summer Reading is Killing Me!, It’s All Greek to Me, 2095

Jackson Scholz – Batter Up, Fielder From Nowhere

Alfred Slote – Finding Buck McHenry

Lemony Snicket - any “Series of Unfortunate Events” books

Gary Soto – Taking Sides, Summer on Wheels

Jerry Spinelli – Loser, Crash, The Library Card, There’s a Girl in my Hammerlock, Milkweed, Wringer

Mildred D. Taylor - The Gold Cadillac, The Well, The Friendship, Let the Circle Be Unbroken

Bill Wallace – Never Say Quit, Aloha Summer, True Friends

Jacqueline Woodson - Hush

Jane Yolen – The Devil’s Arithmetic

Non-Fiction

The next two books you will read are non-fiction pieces of text. First, you should choose a book (non-fiction) on a subject in science that interests you (storms, insects, plants, animals, etc.). Fill out the “Need-To-Know” chart as you read this selection. We have many suggestions to get you started on a selecting a book: Tornado! The Strongest Winds on Earth by Mike Graf

How Do Flies Walk Upside Down? Questions and Answers About Insects by Melvin Berger

The Magic School Bus at the Waterworks by Joanna Cole

Animals Nobody Loves by Seymour Simon

Air Raid – Pearl Harbor! By Theodore Taylor

Four Perfect Pebbles: A Holocaust Story by Lila Perl

Immigrant Kids by Janet Bode

September 11, 2001 by Andrew Santella

True Stories of D-Day by Henry Brook

Amazing but True Sports Stories by Phyllis Hollander

Fast Track by Joe Layden

Isaac Newton by Kathleen Krull

Remember, the nonfiction book you read is your choice!

Autobiographies and Biographies

Then, choose an autobiography or biography as your second non-fiction read. Choose someone to read about that has always interested you. Look over some of the books recommended on the final page, but don’t limit your choice to these listed. This is what we feel is so crucial – your interest in the subject! Fill out the “Biography” graphic organizer as you read. Once you’ve completed this book, you only have ONE more to go!!!!!!

Suggestions for Autobiography/Biography * Voice of Freedom: A Story of Frederick Douglass by Maryann N. Weidt * Stealing Home: The Story of Jackie Robinson by Barry Denenberg * Amelia Earhart: Courage in the Sky by Mona Kerby

* How I Became A Writer by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

* Eleanor Roosevelt: First Lady of the World by Doris Faber

* Knots in my Yo-Yo String: The Autobiography of a Kid by Jerry Spinelli

* Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

* The Greatest: Muhammad Ali by Walter Dean Myers

* Lost Star: The Story of Amelia Earhart by Patricia Lauber

* Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary by Walter Dean Myers

* Orphan Train Rider: One Boy’s True Story by Andrea Warren

* Promises to Keep by Sharon Robinson

* Stealing Home: The Story of Jackie Robinson by Barry Denenberg

* Sacajawea by Joseph Bruchac

Poetry

The final (and fourth) genre that you will read this summer will be poetry. Two of the featured poets in Fifth Grade are Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky. We ask that you select three poems in one of these authors’ books, such as Where the Sidewalk Ends, A Light in the Attic, or A Pizza the Size of the Sun. There are MANY more poetry books written by the authors, so you do not have to use the three books mentioned here in this paragraph. After reading your three poems in a poetry book, please complete "Poetry Corner".

Fiction

STORY MAP

Directions: Fill in each box below with information about the novel.

Main Characters:

Setting: (time and place)

Main Conflict/Problem:

Summary of Major Story Events:

Climax: Resolution of Conflict:

Non-Fiction

NEED –TO – KNOW CHART

Title: Author:

Before

Reading

After Reading

What I hope to learn: What I now know:

Biography

Title: Author:

What did I learn about this person

while reading the book?

What else do I want to know about

this person?

What do I already know

about this person?

Where can I look to find

this information besides the

Internet?

POETRY CORNER

Title: Author:

Directions: Use the *Paraphrase Chart to help you translate key

parts of a poem into your own words.

*You are paraphrasing when you restate something in your own

words.

First write a quotation from the poem on the left.

Then, write your paraphrase of the quotation on the right and any other thoughts that

you have below it.

Lines (from the poem) My Paraphrase

My Thoughts