The Planted Trees: Fifth Grade Literature List

{And How I Finalized My Selections}

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While I found a lot of inspiration at the Great Homeschool Convention in Fort Worth, one of my big take aways {and big purchases} was changing how I approach literature study. Andrew Kern talked about reading less books, but spending more time with them to truly know the work and enjoy it. I had also noticed that the list of books I wanted Grace to read was growing longer every year to the point that there would be no possible way she could read them all. So for this year, I came back from convention and decided to only have her read one book each month for the rest of the year. The last week of each month we would discuss the book using the Teaching the Classics curriculum. I was super excited and ready to dive in, but I needed a much shorter list of books than the one I currently had. So many good books and so little time!

Thankfully I enlisted the help of an online homeschool friend who is known for giving great book recommendations. One of the easiest ways to choose literature, according to her, is to think about the genres you want your child to read from and chose books from each of those. This helps your child not get stuck in one preferred genre, but also allows you to choose books that you want your child to read as well. So here is my finalized list for Grace’s fifth grade literature selections with genre.

Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt (Fantasy)

My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George (Realistic Fiction)

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin (Fairytale/Folktale)

The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau (Futuristic/Dystopian)

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi (Historical Fiction and Mystery)

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster (Humor)

Naya Nuki: Shoshoni Girl Who Ran by Kenneth Thomasma (Real People/Fictional Biography)

Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter (Classics)

The next three books on my list are all going to be read in one month. The short story and the narrative poem will be read in one week with two weeks spent reading Shakespeare. I’m hoping to use Rip Van Winkle and Tuck Everlasting as a compare and contrast type discussion since they both deal with the concept of living well past a normal lifespan and discuss any positives or negatives that each author (Irving or Babbitt) brings out in their stories. I’m already thinking that next year I want to spend an entire month on short stories so we can read more than just one.

Rip Van Winkle by Will Moses and Washington Irving (Short Story)

May B. by Caroline Starr Rose (Poetry/Narrative Poetry)

A Midsummer Night's Dream The Graphic Novel: Original Text by William Shakespeare and John McDonald (Shakespeare/Drama). There is also a Plain Text version in case your child isn’t ready for Shakespeare in his original form. This was the book Grace was most excited about. My sweet little Shakespeare lover. {sigh}

And there you have it! My personal hand-picked literature selections for Grace for fifth grade. As you can see, the list is girl interest heavy for obvious reasons, but I’m really excited about my choices and so is she. Of course there are some more genre categories that I just couldn’t fit into my plan, but I wanted to offer a free printable so that all of you could use these different genres to plan your own child’s literature list. You can follow the link below to print it off.

Literature Planning by Genre

Making literature planning a simple process in the tree house,