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Posted: 8/21/2016 6:36:30 AM EDT

My niece is taking a remedial reading class in school. She just started third grade and enjoys reading, but needs a little help. Can anyone recommend some age / level appropriate fiction books that we can start reading together? It's been so long since I bought children's books, I don't even know where to start.

Posted: 8/21/2016 6:42:07 AM EDT

[#1]

I have fond memories of The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet by Eleanor Cameron. Looks like there's a sequel as well, but I haven't read that one.

Posted: 8/21/2016 4:00:57 PM EDT

[#2]

I'm a poor judge for age appropriate books, but my daughter loved the Michael Vey series. She started reading them that year.

Posted: 8/21/2016 10:23:02 PM EDT

[#3]

I loved The Boxcar Children when I was a kid, read like half a dozen of the books.

You can't go wrong with Roald Dahl: Danny: The Champion of the World, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

ETA: Man, this thread is a nostalgia trip. I really liked The Ramona Series when I was a kid.

ETA2: TALES OF A FOURTH GRADE NOTHING. THAT IS ALL.

Posted: 8/22/2016 3:13:30 AM EDT

[#4]

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I have fond memories of The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet by Eleanor Cameron. Looks like there's a sequel as well, but I haven't read that one.

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This looks like a fun book, thanks.

Posted: 8/22/2016 3:19:20 AM EDT

[#5]

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Quoted:

I loved The Boxcar Children when I was a kid, read like half a dozen of the books.

You can't go wrong with Roald Dahl: Danny: The Champion of the World, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

ETA: Man, this thread is a nostalgia trip. I really liked The Ramona Series when I was a kid.

ETA2: TALES OF A FOURTH GRADE NOTHING. THAT IS ALL.

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These are great suggestions; all books that I had completely forgotten. I like the idea of starting on a series or an author who has a lot of books in print--I still get disappointed when I find a book I like, finish it, and find out that the author only ever wrote one.

Now I want to go back and read Roald Dahl's "Matilda."

Posted: 8/22/2016 3:22:17 AM EDT

[#6]

Does anyone remember John Bellairs? I've been looking for his books in the original hardcover with illustrations by Edward Gorey.

Posted: 8/22/2016 8:52:57 AM EDT

[#7]

McGuffy's Readers.

Posted: 8/22/2016 12:35:45 PM EDT

[#8]

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Does anyone remember John Bellairs? I've been looking for his books in the original hardcover with illustrations by Edward Gorey.

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I had his name associated with "The Face In The Frost". Wikipedia confirmed my memory. (Woot!) Too bad he's gone.

I liked Dianne Wynne Jones's books. I think I got "Dogsbody" in 3rd or 4th grade.

Posted: 8/22/2016 8:10:43 PM EDT

[#9]

This isn't exactly on the nose of what you're looking for, but in the interest of variety for your niece, a gift subscription to Highlights for Children or Ranger Rick probably wouldn't go amiss.

It's probably not what you're looking for, but I also recall spending a lot of time reading Calvin & Hobbes collections as a kid.

Posted: 8/23/2016 4:39:59 AM EDT

[#10]

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This isn't exactly on the nose of what you're looking for, but in the interest of variety for your niece, a gift subscription to Highlights for Children or Ranger Rick probably wouldn't go amiss.
It's probably not what you're looking for, but I also recall spending a lot of time reading Calvin & Hobbes collections as a kid.

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I love the idea of a subscription, thanks! That should keep things varied and interesting. Plus, they're kind of isolated where they're at in WV, so getting something in the mail with her name on it is a big deal.

And I still love Calvin and Hobbes. Pretty sure I have every collection Watterson wrote.

Posted: 8/23/2016 4:44:25 AM EDT

[#11]

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Quoted:

I had his name associated with "The Face In The Frost". Wikipedia confirmed my memory. (Woot!) Too bad he's gone.

I liked Dianne Wynne Jones's books. I think I got "Dogsbody" in 3rd or 4th grade.

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Quoted:

Quoted:

Does anyone remember John Bellairs? I've been looking for his books in the original hardcover with illustrations by Edward Gorey.

I had his name associated with "The Face In The Frost". Wikipedia confirmed my memory. (Woot!) Too bad he's gone.

I liked Dianne Wynne Jones's books. I think I got "Dogsbody" in 3rd or 4th grade.

"Dogsbody" looks great. Vaguely reminds me of some books I saw a few years back, the "Warriors" series by Erin Hunter.

Posted: 8/23/2016 5:26:55 AM EDT

[#12]

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"Dogsbody" looks great. Vaguely reminds me of some books I saw a few years back, the "Warriors" series by Erin Hunter.

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Quoted:

Quoted:
Does anyone remember John Bellairs? I've been looking for his books in the original hardcover with illustrations by Edward Gorey.

I had his name associated with "The Face In The Frost". Wikipedia confirmed my memory. (Woot!) Too bad he's gone.

I liked Dianne Wynne Jones's books. I think I got "Dogsbody" in 3rd or 4th grade.

"Dogsbody" looks great. Vaguely reminds me of some books I saw a few years back, the "Warriors" series by Erin Hunter.

That is what I was going to recommend. My daughter loved those books.

I started out reading them to her and then she read a bunch by herself.

Posted: 8/23/2016 10:21:53 PM EDT

[#13]

I went and dug around my bookshelves to find some old books and I found The Dark Hills Divide by Patrick Carman. It's a neat little fantasy adventure story about a little girl who lives in a walled city. I read it when I was like 17, but the internet says it's good to go for ages 8+.

Oh! And Harry Potter!

Posted: 8/24/2016 3:34:40 AM EDT

[#14]

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I went and dug around my bookshelves to find some old books and I found The Dark Hills Divide by Patrick Carman. It's a neat little fantasy adventure story about a little girl who lives in a walled city. I read it when I was like 17, but the internet says it's good to go for ages 8+.

Oh! And Harry Potter!

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I don't know why I didn't think of Harry Potter. I was well into my thirties when I picked those up, but I still have them. Carman's books look interesting--there are so many young adult fiction series available now--it amazes me that kids have any time for TV at all. Fantasy in my day was Dragonlance, horror was Christopher Pike and RL Stine, and for Sci-fi we had to go back a few more years to find Bradbury and Heinlein (more adult topics, but we didn't understand that until later anyway).

Posted: 8/24/2016 3:39:09 AM EDT

[#15]

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McGuffy's Readers.

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I saw some of these at Good Will a while back, but didn't know what they were and didn't pick them up. Going to check back and see if they are still there.

Posted: 8/24/2016 9:51:02 PM EDT

[#16]

Hey, sorry I've posted in this thread thirty times already, but I happened to talk to my mom on the phone tonight -- she's been a teacher for 30+ years, and her favorite thing (and her specialty) is teaching reading!

So you're darn right I asked for some recommendations. Just off the dome she gave the following, and promised to poke around in her collection of kids' books for more:

Nat'l Geographic Kids Magazine - (that's a direct link to the subscription page, here's their main wobsite)

The Geronimo Stilton series - she mentioned that this series in particular plays with language a lot, lots of idioms and such, which might make it more challenging or more fun to read.

Junie B. Jones books

She also mentioned - and I'm sure your niece's reading teachers have told her folks about this, too - but if she's still having trouble getting through sentences or pages of books, being read to aloud while she follows along on the page, or "partner-reading" where they take turns reading sentences or paragraphs can be helpful.

ETA: I suddenly remember lots of girls in elementary school reading the Babysitter's Club books. Used to buy them by the bushel basket from the Scholastic Catalog and at the Book Fair.

Posted: 8/25/2016 12:27:34 AM EDT

[#17]

Quote History

Quoted:

I saw some of these at Good Will a while back, but didn't know what they were and didn't pick them up. Going to check back and see if they are still there.

View Quote View All Quotes

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Quote History

Quoted:

Quoted:
McGuffy's Readers.

I saw some of these at Good Will a while back, but didn't know what they were and didn't pick them up. Going to check back and see if they are still there.

McGueffy's Readers were the books for the one room schoolhouse. I saw one once at Conner Prairie Museum and if transported back into time, would be sitting in the back of the classroom.

Posted: 8/25/2016 12:40:54 AM EDT

[#18]

the dark crystal

Posted: 8/26/2016 10:59:51 AM EDT

[#19]

The Little House on the Prairie Series

Posted: 8/27/2016 8:20:27 AM EDT

[#20]

Quote History

Quoted:

Hey, sorry I've posted in this thread thirty times already, but I happened to talk to my mom on the phone tonight -- she's been a teacher for 30+ years, and her favorite thing (and her specialty) is teaching reading!

So you're darn right I asked for some recommendations. Just off the dome she gave the following, and promised to poke around in her collection of kids' books for more:

Nat'l Geographic Kids Magazine - (that's a direct link to the subscription page, here's their main wobsite)

The Geronimo Stilton series - she mentioned that this series in particular plays with language a lot, lots of idioms and such, which might make it more challenging or more fun to read.

Junie B. Jones books

She also mentioned - and I'm sure your niece's reading teachers have told her folks about this, too - but if she's still having trouble getting through sentences or pages of books, being read to aloud while she follows along on the page, or "partner-reading" where they take turns reading sentences or paragraphs can be helpful.

ETA: I suddenly remember lots of girls in elementary school reading the Babysitter's Club books. Used to buy them by the bushel basket from the Scholastic Catalog and at the Book Fair.

View Quote

Great ideas. I bought her a subscription to Nat Geo Kids so she'll have something new every month and found some of the Babysitters Club books at Good Will. After going over her homework this weekend, I can see that we need to work on reading for comprehension. We may need to take a chapter at a time and have some discussion time afterwards.

Posted: 8/27/2016 8:21:20 AM EDT

[#21]

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the dark crystal

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I loved this one as a kid.

Posted: 10/5/2016 10:32:38 PM EDT

[#22]

Hank the Cowdog

Posted: 10/13/2016 7:12:49 AM EDT

[#23]

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Hank the Cowdog

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Thanks. This series looks like fun and the games on the Hank the Cowdog website will keep us busy for a long while.

Posted: 10/13/2016 8:00:28 AM EDT

[#24]

The Bunnicula series is pretty good.

https://www.amazon.com/Vampire-Bunny-Bunnicula-Friends/dp/0689857497

I also got some of the old Peanuts books I had when I was young. I used to love to flip through those.

Posted: 10/13/2016 8:45:14 AM EDT

[#25]

OP a quick googling for 3rd grade books brought up this list by goodreads (a pretty good website for all things book related).

It's got some new ones and old standards as well listed.

https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/3rd-grade-books

Posted: 10/23/2016 7:21:31 AM EDT

[#26]

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The Bunnicula series is pretty good.

https://www.amazon.com/Vampire-Bunny-Bunnicula-Friends/dp/0689857497

I also got some of the old Peanuts books I had when I was young. I used to love to flip through those.

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We started on this one last week after the kids studied vampire bats in school. I vaguely remembered that I read about a vampire rabbit as a kid and found the books at the library. Going back and reading all of these children's books has been great fun.

Posted: 3/5/2017 6:16:11 PM EDT

[#27]

Daniel Pinkwater's books are usually good

The Magic Moscow and Fat Men from Space are two I bought for my kids.

The My Teacher is an Alien series is good.

Posted: 3/5/2017 7:51:38 PM EDT

[#28]

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Daniel Pinkwater's books are usually good

The Magic Moscow and Fat Men from Space are two I bought for my kids.

The My Teacher is an Alien series is good.

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Hah, I remember the 'My Teacher Is An Alien' series. I liked those when I was young. Those might have been my first written sci-fi, I think I was in fifth grade when I started reading some harder stuff like Heinlein's juveniles (Space Cadet! Red Planet! But they'd have been a bit much to handle in 3rd grade).

I remember liking the books from Louis Sachar, like the Sideways Elementary School series. But I just looked up his wikipedia, and saw he also wrote 'There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom'. I had forgotten all about that book until now, but having my memory jogged...it's full of feels.

Posted: 3/31/2017 11:12:08 AM EDT

[#29]

Do a search back a couple years in this forum (maybe 3 years), I started a similar thread for my then 10 year old and got a TON of great responses.

Posted: 3/31/2017 12:43:29 PM EDT

[#30]

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Quoted:
Do a search back a couple years in this forum (maybe 3 years), I started a similar thread for my then 10 year old and got a TON of great responses.

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Bam!

Posted: 4/6/2017 11:56:01 AM EDT

[#31]

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Bam!

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There it is!

Posted: 4/16/2017 12:17:13 PM EDT

[#32]

The Book of Virtues by William Bennett isn't one she could read by herself, but she would benefit immensely from you reading from it to her. Yudisthira at heaven's Gate is one of my favorite stories in the book. It is about a man who will not leave his loyal dog behind in order to enter heaven. He tells the gate guard that he cannot leave his dog after all it's years of loyalty, even if that means he cannot enter heaven. The guard explains that not leaving the dog means the man will never enter heaven, and asks if he wishes to reconsider. Yudisthira says he understands, but he will not forsake his friend.

Finally the guard tells Yudisthira that asking him to leave his friend behind was the final test. If he had forsaken his dog, he would never have been allowed into heaven. Because he would not forsake his friend, both were allowed into heaven.

Anyhow, the books has many stories similar to that one. It is a really good way to teach your kid things like that.