Homeschooling 
Bradley is 9 years old and age-wise, he’s going into 4th grade, but he’s been working a year ahead in literature since he began reading at an early age. My 5th grade literature book list is based off of the Veritas Press literature recommendations.
5th Grade Literature Book List
Veritas Press has a huge list of recommended books. It’s my understanding that they don’t expect all students to read their entire list of books but offer a nice assortment for parents and students to choose from. These are my picks for Bradley this year.
- Cricket in Times Square
- Old Yeller
- Robinson Crusoe
- Swiss Family Robinson
- Treasure Island
- Where the Red Fern Grows
- The Secret Garden
- Squalls Before War
- Blackthorn Winter
- Susan Creek
- Two Williams
- Johnny Tremain
This may look like I’ve picked a hefty list of books for Bradley to read this year. I have. This doesn’t even include the historical fiction that he’ll be reading to accompany his history curriculum (I’ll be talking about that next week). Last year, I chose what I thought was a good amount for him to read, but he ended up reading through the books more quickly than I assigned them. He whizzed through all of the books I had planned for him to read in the first half of the school year. Obviously, he has learned to love reading and that makes his mama happy 🙂
As always, Vertias Press suggests a fantastic assortment of classic literature options for Bradley. I’m excited for Bradley, and maybe a bit jealous that he will get to read so many fantastic books. I know he’ll enjoy reading these books!
Great list! I have been loving getting ideas from the Veritas Press website. I’ve been reading chapter books to my son before his ‘rest time’ after lunch for a while now. After I read, he has to read by himself for about an hour. Usually he would scan through a bunch of books in that hour, but recently he has actually been reading through early reader type books. Sometimes he even comes out and tells me that he read the next chapter in the book I’m reading aloud. I’m just thrilled to see him doing so well with his reading! I’ll have to choose a couple of the books you listed as read alouds for this coming year. I’m sure my son would love them! Do you have the list of ones you had him read last year on the blog somewhere?
We use Veritas Press’ online history as well. It is extremely well done and both my kids love it. What order are you going to do the literature in this year? That is always the hardest part for me – figuring out which books should go at the beginning of the year versus the end of the year. Do you use their literature guides as well?
We read the historical fiction according to how it falls with the history lessons. The literature books I fit in around the historical fiction. I typically just look through the books and try to schedule the more challenging books towards the end of the year and the easier books at the beginning of the year. If you are doing Explorers to 1815 feel free to shoot me a message using our contact form and I’ll send you a list of the order we’re doing the books this year! 🙂
I used their lit guides the first couple of years, but I wasn’t a huge fan of them.
Can you share how you do both literature and historical readings? Is your son responsible for reading a certain # of chapters each day/week of each book or just one at a time? Are any of the books read aloud? I LOVE these lists and we love reading aloud to share the stories.
Also, do you use a Literature cirriculum? He reads the books… does he get tested or do any notebooking, projects? Anyway, just thinking through our own plans for next year!
Hi Kelly,
The historical fiction and the literature books that I list are all my sons independent reading. We also do read-aloud’s in addition to these books.
I coordinate my sons historical fiction with his History Curriculum (we use the Veritas Press self-paced online course. It comes with a guide to help us with that). With his literature, I try to organize the books in order from least – most difficult. We start with the lesser difficult books towards the beginning of the year. I decide how many days I’d like him to get through the book and then assign him chapters to read each day.
I have used some of the Veritas Press literature manuals to go along with some of the books. For some books I find resources online. But, many of the books we simply use this as practice for narration. He tells me about the story – I ask questions and he explains. Anymore, I rarely have to ask questions as he is always so excited to tell me about the books!
I’m glad the lists are helpful 🙂