Great Adventures (for kids in grades 3 - 5)
Suggestions from Mt. Lebanon Public Library, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
www.mtlebanonlibrary.org
Suggestions for kids in grades 3—5
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Whales on stilts! / M.T. Anderson
A shy middle-school student and her friends must foil the plot of her father's boss to conquer the world using an army of whales. (grades 3 – 5)
Poppy / Avi
Poppy the mouse urges her family to move next to a corn field big enough to feed them all forever, but a terrifying owl has other ideas. (grades 4 –6)
Harry the poisonous centipede : a story to make you squirm / Lynne Reid Banks
When their adventures lead them to explore the scariest villain of all, Harry and George realize that they are not brave, only reckless and foolish. (grades 3 – 4)
The secret history of Tom Trueheart / Ian Beck
When young Tom’s 7 older brothers go missing during their adventures in the Land of Stories, he embarks on a perilous mission to save them. (grades 3 – 5)
The greatest skating race / Louise Borden
During World War II in the Netherlands, a ten-year-old boy's dream of skating in a famous race allows him to help two children escape to Belgium by ice skating past German soldiers and other enemies. (grades 3 – 4)
My buddy, the King : a novel / Bill Brittain
When King Tokab is saved from choking on a frankfurter by Tim Quilt, they become friends and together outwit a plot to do in the king. (grades 4 – 5)
A lion to guard us / Clyde Robert Bulla
Left on their own in seventeenth-century London, 3 poor children decide to go to the Virginia colony in search of their father. (grades 3 – 5)
Trouble River / Betsy Byars
A twelve-year-old boy and his grandmother escape a hostile Indian attack on their homemade raft. (grades 3 – 5)
White Star : a dog on the Titanic / Marty Crisp
Aboard the Titanic, 12-year-old Sam helps care for the dogs in the ocean liner's kennel and befriends the Irish setter of the ship's owner. (grades 3 – 5)
James and the giant peach / Roald Dahl
A young boy escapes from 2 wicked aunts and embarks on an adventure with six giant insects he meets inside a giant peach. (grades 3 – 5)
The courage of Sarah Noble / Alice Dalgliesh
An eight-year-old girl finds courage to go alone with her father to build a new home in the Connecticut wilderness and to stay with the Indians when her father goes back to bring the rest of the family. (grades 2 – 4)
The field guide / Tony DiTerlizzi
When the Grace children go to stay at their Great Aunt Lucinda's house, they discover a field guide to fairies and begin to have some unusual experiences. The first in The Spiderwick Chronicles. (grades 3–4)
The giant rat of Sumatra : or, Pirates galore / Sid Fleischman
A cabin boy on a pirate ship finds himself in San Diego in 1846 as war breaks out between the United States and Mexico. (grades 4 - 5)
The whipping boy / Sid Fleischman
A bratty prince and his whipping boy have many adventures when they trade places after becoming involved with dangerous outlaws. (grades 3 – 4)
Stone Fox / John Reynolds Gardiner
Little Willie hopes to pay the back taxes on his grandfather's farm with the purse from a dog sled race he enters. (grades 3 – 4)
Toughboy and Sister / Kirkpatrick Hill
The death of their father strands ten-year-old Toughboy and his younger sister at a remote cabin in the Yukon, where they spend a summer coping with dwindling food supplies and hostile wildlife. (grades 3 – 4)
The Abernathy boys / L.J. Hunt
A fictionalized account of the 1909 trip of nine-year-old Bud Abernathy and his five-year-old brother who traveled alone, mostly on horseback, from their home in Oklahoma to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and back again. (grades 4+)
Gnat Stokes and the Foggy Bottom Swamp Queen / Sally M. Keehn
In Mary's Cove, Tennessee, in 1869, twelve-year-old Gnat Stokes decides to prove she's not just a trouble maker by rescuing a boy who was spirited away 7 years earlier by the evil Swamp Queen of Foggy Bottom. (grades 4 – 5)
Earthquake terror / Peg Kehret
When an earthquake hits the California island where his family had been camping, 12-year-old Jonathan must find a way to keep himself, his partially paralyzed younger sister, and their dog alive until help arrives. (grades 4 – 5)
The 5,000-year-old puzzle : solving a mystery of ancient Egypt / Claudia Logan
A fictionalized account of the excavation of a secret tomb at Giza, Egypt, in 1925, told through the experiences of a young boy who accompanies his father on an archeological dig. (grades 2 – 4)
The great serum race : blazing the Iditarod Trail / Debbie S. Miller
The story of the heroic role played by sled dogs in the delivery of antitoxin serum to those sick with diphtheria in 1925 Nome. j 798.8 Mil (grades 2 – 4)
The extraordinary adventures of ordinary Basil / Wiley Miller
Tired of his life in a lighthouse, Basil sets out for adventure and, in a mysterious cloud city, discovers a plan that threatens the world . (grades 3 – 4)
Magic Tree House Series / Mary Pope Osborne
Eight-year-old Jack and his sister Annie find a Magic Tree House, which takes them to a variety of different times and places. (grades 2 – 3)
White water / P.J. Petersen
Greg confronts his own fears and assumes a leadership role when his father is bitten by a rattlesnake during a white-water rafting trip. (grades 4 – 5)
The Firework-maker's daughter / Philip Pullman
In a country far to the east, Chulak and his talking white elephant help Lila seek the Royal Sulphur from the sacred volcano so that she can become a master maker of fireworks like her father. (grades 4 – 5)
Avalanche! / Ron Roy
Two brothers are buried by an avalanche in Colorado. (grades 3 – 5)
Riding freedom / Pam Muñoz Ryan
A girl runs away from an orphanage, poses as a boy, moves to California, and fools everyone by her appearance. (grades 3 – 5)
The great cape rescue / Phyllis Shalant
Upon entering fourth grade, Fin and his friends discover that their superhero game might become real through a magical cape, and the Society of Super Secret Heroes is born. (grades 3 – 5)
The minstrel in the tower / Gloria Skurzynski
In 1195, eleven-year-old Roger and his sister travel through France in search of their ailing mother's estranged brother, a wealthy baron. (grades 3 - 4)
Call it courage / Armstrong Sperry
Relates how Mafatu, a young Polynesian boy whose name means Stout Heart, overcomes his terrible fear of the sea and proves his courage to himself and his people. (grades 3 – 4)
Abel's island / William Steig
Castaway on an unhabited island, a very civilized mouse finds his endurance tested to the limit as he struggles to survive and return home. (grades 4 - 5)
Hugo Pepper / Paul Stewart
A boy raised by reindeer herders uncovers a plot that threatens his mermaid godmothers and other friends of his family. One of The Far Flung Adventures Series. (grades 4 – 5)
Lake of Skulls: a knight's story / Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell
A knight meets more than his share of trouble when he signs on with Lord Big Nose to recover a crown from the Lake of Skulls. First in the A Knight’s Story series. (grades 3 – 5)
Lost treasure of the Emerald Eye / Geronimo Stilton
Geronimo's sister discovers an old map showing a secret treasure hidden on a faraway island. First in the series. (grades 2 – 4)
Nurk : the strange, surprising adventures of a (somewhat) brave shrew / Ursula Vernon
Nurk, a sort-of brave shrew, packs up a few pairs of clean socks and sails off on an accidental adventure. (grades 3 – 4)
Kate Shelley and the midnight express / Margaret K. Wetterer
Fifteen-year-old Kate risks her life in a storm to prevent a train disaster.
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Night of the full moon / Gloria Whelan
A young girl is trapped with a her friend’s Potawatomi Indian family when they are rounded up and forced from their lands by soldiers in the1840s.(grades 3 – 4)
Princess for a Week / Betty Ren Wright
When Princess arrives to spend a week at Roddy's house, she encourages him to help her investigate the suspicious activities happening at a supposedly haunted house. (grades 3 – 4)
Look for these and other great books in
The Children’s Library
Mt. Lebanon Public Library
16 Castle Shannon Blvd.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15228
412.531.1913 7/08
www.mtlebanonlibrary.org
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