5 Recommended books for Year 5

Build your child’s vocabulary and ability to deal with complex English sentences with this week’s recommendations for year 5 students.
A Christmas Carol is one of Charles Dickens’ most loved books – a true classic and a Christmas time must-read.
“Come, then”, returned the nephew gaily. “What right have you to be dismal? You’re rich enough.”With his world-famous story “A Christmas’ Carol”, Charles Dickens humorously demonstrates that money alone does not buy happiness. His protagonist, grumpy Ebenezer Scrooge, is haunted by three ghosts on Christmas Eve. The spine-chilling night visitors confront the old miser with his cold-heartedness. When Scrooge awakes the next morning, nothing is as it was before…
This award-winning novel (1997 Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year and shortlisted for the Smarties Prize) is a fantastic adventure, full of humour, excitement and the kind of adventures children are always dreaming of.
It’s a spaceship from the past – can it change the future?
Aquila has been found by boys bunking off a geography field trip. They have no idea where it came from or what it does. But Geoff’s discovered that when you sit in it these little coloured lights come on, and if you push one of the big blue ones . . . WHOOSH!
“A gem of a book.” The Guardian
A humorous but deeply moving story about Colin who refuses to believe that his younger brother is dying of cancer and decides to take things into his own hands. Colin decides to go to the top for help, none other than the Queen. Colin’s efforts to penetrate the British establishment are hilarious, surprising and doomed to failure, but although Colin can’t find a cure for cancer, he does find a way to help some of the new friends he makes, as well as discovering the best thing he can do for Luke.
Two Weeks With the Queen is a delight from beginning to end, and brilliantly combines comedy and tragedy as Colin embarks on his hilarious mission. The reluctance of adults to discuss Luke’s illness is incredibly well observed, and Colin’s dream of resolving his family’s problems and becoming the hero of the piece is dealt with so tenderly amid the laugh-out-loud comedy that it is nigh on impossible not to shed a tear. A brilliant book from Australia’s best-loved children’s author. —Susan Harrison
Six generations of readers have found in the story of the March family universal truths about girls, families and growing up – Guardian
The timeless tale of four sisters – Meg, Jo, Amy and Beth – experiencing both hardship and adventure in Civil War New England.
In this simple, enthralling tale, Louisa May Alcott created four of American literature’s most beloved “little women”.
“Morpurgo, as always, is subtle and skilful, and incorporates social and moral issues into his writing without being self-righteous or detracting from the quality of the narrative”
Elizabeth Reilly, British Council
A delightful tale of victory against all odds from master storyteller, Michael Morpurgo, lavishly illustrated by Michael Foreman.
“Every fox in the whole town, in the whole country just about, is a football fan… And we all have an impossible dream.”
In a cosy den under a garden shed lives a family of foxes. They love to watch football – all foxes do. But their favourite team keeps losing and losing, and it seems like things will never look up.
That is, until Daddy Fox finds the ghost of a king, buried underneath a car park. A king who wishes only to be free.
“Release me,” says the Ghost King, “and I can do anything. Just tell me your greatest wish.”
For these football-loving foxes, might everything be about to change…?