skip to Main Content

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.

Winner of both the Guardian Award and the Carnegie Medal, this is an all-time classic, combining mystery, adventure, history and a complex set of human relationships.

 

It all begins with the scratching in the ceiling. From the moment Alison discovers the dinner service in the attic, with its curious pattern of floral owls, a chain of events is set in progress that is to effect everybody’s lives.

Relentlessly, Alison, her step-brother Roger and Welsh boy Gwyn are drawn into the replay of a tragic Welsh legend – a modern drama played out against a background of ancient jealousies. As the tension mounts, it becomes apparent that only by accepting and facing the situation can it be resolved.

Where the Red Fern Grows is a beloved classic that captures the powerful bond between man and man’s best friend.

 Billy has long dreamt of owning not one, but two, dogs. So when he’s finally able to save up enough money for two pups to call his own—Old Dan and Little Ann—he’s ecstatic. It doesn’t matter that times are tough; together they’ll roam the hills of the Ozarks.
Soon Billy and his hounds become the finest hunting team in the valley. Stories of their great achievements spread throughout the region, and the combination of Old Dan’s brawn, Little Ann’s brains, and Billy’s sheer will seems unbeatable. But tragedy awaits these determined hunters—now friends—and Billy learns that hope can grow out of despair, and that the seeds of the future can come from the scars of the past.
 
Praise for Where the Red Fern Grows
 
A Top 100 Children’s Novel, School Library Journals A Fuse #8 Production
A Must-Read for Kids 9 to 14, NPR
Winner of Multiple State Awards
Over 7 million copies in print!

“Engrossing story”Daily Telegraph

You’re thirteen. All you want is a normal life. But most normal kids don’t need heart transplants.

So there’s this doctor. He says there’s a chance for you. But he also says it’s experimental, controversial and risky. And it’s never been done before.

Shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, this is a powerful, thought-provoking story from the award-winning Malorie Blackman.

 A rare, moving story, beautifully written, and true in every way that matters. The Guardian

Masterpiece of English children’s literature. The Independent

When Tom is sent to stay at his aunt and uncle’s house for the summer, he resigns himself to endless weeks of boredom. As he lies awake in his bed he hears the grandfather clock downstairs strike . . .eleven . . . twelve . . . thirteen . . .

Thirteen! Tom races down the stairs and out the back door, into a garden everyone told him wasn’t there. In this enchanted thirteenth hour, the garden comes alive – but Tom is never sure whether the children he meets there are real or ghosts . . . This entrancing and magical story is one of the best-loved children’s books ever written.

Adventure lovers will devour this one and wish that it would continue. School Library Journal, starred review

It is 1910 and Maia, tragically orphaned at thirteen, has been sent from England to start a new life with distant relatives in Manaus, hundreds of miles up the Amazon.
She is accompanied by an eccentric and mysterious governess who has secret reasons of her own for making the journey.
Both soon discover an exotic world bursting with new experiences in Journey to the River Sea, Eva Ibbotson’s highly colourful, joyous adventure.

Save

Back To Top