3rd-7th Grade Classical Summer Reading List

I want my nieces exposed to good literature. But I'm fighting what seems to be a losing battle. The titles in the juvenile section of our library are flashy, appealing, and frankly, rather scary. Shelf after shelf contain disrespectful teen attitudes, witchcraft, elementary school romances, vampires, demons, psychics, new age ideologies, and other cheap junk that isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

Then there are the suggested Summer reading lists from our library filled with titles in popular best-seller literature. While the titles aren't necessarily objectionable, they're not exactly great reading, either. Yes, reading can be frivolous fun and you can occasionally enjoy pop-culture paperbacks. Books aren't bad because they're new, the classics were modern once, after all. But a nod to greater minds, a debt of gratitude to greater writers, and a reverence for greater literature aren't bad ideals to foster in youth.

By no means exhaustive, here's a little list of classic books (most are in the library) I put together for my nieces to pick and choose from this Summer. The grades are loose suggestions, you might consider some too simple or too advanced for the specified level (I may have goofed on a few of the links if they go to an abridged version). And if you choose to use any of these, parental discretion is, of course, paramount.

3^rd-5^th Grade

Chanticleer and the Fox by Barbara Cooney
Charlotte's Web by E. B. White
Cricket in Times Square by George Selden
Ox-Cart Man by Barbara Cooney
Homer Price by Robert McCloskey
Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
The Courage of Sarah Noble by Alice Dalgliesh
Pippi Longstocking and others by Astrid Lindgren
The Happy Prince and Other Stories by Oscar Wilde
Little House in the Big Woods and others by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Mary Poppins and others by Pamela L. Travers
Misty of Chincoteague and Brighty of the Grand Canyon by Marguerite Henry
Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard Atwater
The Pied Piper of Hamelin by Robert Browning

3^rd-6^th Grade Transitional/Lighter Reading

Black Beauty: the Autobiography of a Horse by Anna Sewell
Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank Gilbreth
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang by Ian Fleming
Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
House at Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne
Justin Morgan Had a Horse by Marguerite Henry
Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
National Velvet by Enid Begnold
Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter
Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan
Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Singing Tree by Kate Seredy
Stuart Little by E. B. White
Tales of the Arabian Nights by Andrew Lang
Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne
Wonderful Wizard of Oz and others by Frank Baum

6^th-7^th Grade

Kind of Easy:

Blue Willow by Doris Gates
Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink
Cricket on the Hearth by Charles Dickens
Evangeline by Henry Longfellow
Strawberry Girl and Judy's Journey by Lois Lensky
The Gift of the Magi by O'Henry
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
The Story of Dr. DooLittle by Hugh Lofting

A Little More Advanced:

A Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne
Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Little Men by Louisa May Alcott
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss
The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli
The White Company by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

More Advanced:

Anne of Green Gables and others by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Christy by Catherine Marshall
Goodbye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton
Hound of the Baskervilles & others by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
Mama's Bank Account by Kathryn Forbes
O! Pioneers by Willa Cather
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggen
Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
Space Trilogy by C. S. Lewis
Tevye the Dairyman by Sholom Aleichem
Time Machine and others by H. G. Wells
White Fang by Jack London

Very Advanced Literature:

Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Moonstone and others by Wilkie Collins
Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens
Pilgrim's Progress and others by John Bunyan
Silas Marner and others by George Eliot
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

What are you and/or your kids reading this Summer?