Ideas for books for rising 5th grade boy to help enrich vocabulary, etc. but are still interesting?

[HappyGrace]

Over the summer, I'd like him to read a "quality" book for about an hour per day. (he reads others for fun, like the original Hardy Boys, which is prbly a comfortable level for him and he doesn't challenge *himself* much above that level, which I'm ok w/ for fun reading but want a little something more for this "reading hour".)

 

He was late to read but totally fine now, but I can see that his vocab and so on is not what my older, early reader's is! I'd like some books that are interesting but help introduce good vocab, sentence structure, and so on. I'd also like it to be enjoyable.

 

I have the Collier Junior Classics, but the vocab is a little "too" advanced. Are there any classics he could read on his own? Would things like Johnny Tremain be enough, or too easy? Any ideas? I'd like it to be a bit of a challenge but not a killer, and the subject matter interesting enough to keep him wanting to read the books. (ETA: they don't *have* to be fiction books)

 

Thanks!

[IrishMum]

My boys enjoyed the Call of the Wild and White Fang at that age. If you do them as a read aloud he will hear all the great vocabulary, without him struggling through them.

 

I would encourage reading by finding something he is interested in like animals, ships, etc and get all the books you can on the subject. It's always easier to read when you are interested in the topic.

[HappyGrace]

I do readalouds, but these would be for him to read. It's also for the purpose of helping his spelling (he is very visual and picks up spelling from reading), and seeing the punctuation and so on-the type of things that good readers pick up from reading good books. I will put those two on the list for readalouds though, thanks-looks like you are blessed to have lots of experience with boys! :)

[happypamama]

My son (8, rising third grader) has been reading the Boys of Wartime series by Laurie Calkhoven, and he really, really likes them. Our librarian recommended them and said they were about 4th-5th grade level. The first one he read (about Gettysburg in the Civil War; we live near there, so I thought the familiarity would endear it to him, and I was right) was really one of the first big chapter books he read. He was a fairly new reader at the time but beyond the simpler series like Magic Treehouse and Ready Freddy. It took him a long time to read (a couple of months, starting at just 4 pages a day and working up from there), and at first he asked me for a lot of help, but he loved it. He's now plowing through the one about Boston in the Revolution, and then there's one about France in 1943. I read the Gettysburg one, and it seemed to be pretty well-written.

 

My son also has the first book in Erin Hunter's Survivors series waiting, but I don't know much about its level or anything.

 

He likes Thornton Burgess's Adventures books too.

[IrishMum]

-looks like you are blessed to have lots of experience with boys! :)

I really am, thanks!

 

You could have a look at the the New York Review Children's Collection of books. We have enjoyed a lot of them. Two favourites were Uncle, and Uncle Cleans up.