Summer Reading: Fifth and Sixth Grade Edition

     Why is it that we love to read when we are not forced to do so? When you have a summer book assigned by your school or parent that you have to read, it just is not as fun as it would be reading your favorite genres or titles for pleasure. For me, this I what summer is about. During the summer, I read as many books as I can. Every spare moment goes to reading. For you, this may not be the case. When I started posting on this blog, I vowed that I would get more girls interested in reading. I did not just mean school reading or assigned/forced reading, I meant reading for pleasure too. My goal is not to get you to do read every second of every single day, but it is to get you interested in reading when you are not forced to do so, because we can learn a lot from books. Below are some of my favorite summer books that I think you will love. Some of these books made me adore reading in the way I do now.

Fifth and Sixth Grade Titles:

1.     Scat

    Carl Hiassen’s Scat opens in a Florida Middle School biology class with the harsh and strict, Ms. Starch. Nick Waters and his friend Marta Gonzalez are in her class and never really enjoy it. The only excitement is with a classmate, Duane “Smoke” Scrod Jr. This boy is the image of toughness and (kinda) stupidity. When Ms. Starch asks Smoke to answer a question, obviously he isn’t listening, he refuses. She then proceeds to stick a pencil in his face to make him cower down. He doesn’t cower. He simply eats half of the pencil stuck in his face. The next day, the class goes on a field trip to the Black Vine Swamp to learn more about the endangered Florida Panther. On a video camera that Nick brings to the field trip, he Marta catch a wild fire starting. The video is fuzzy, but they can see a man wearing a thick black belt. Ms. Starch goes back into the forest for another classmate’s, Libby’s, inhaler, and never comes back out. Read and see how Nick and Marta solve this mystery.

Author Praise: Carl Hiassen definitely knows how to write a great and captivating story. The characters are well developed, but the setting is the literary device to follow. This book is also hilarious. I strongly recommend this book!

Stars: 5 stars

Number of Pages: 371

2.     

       Chomp

    


     Chomp, also by Carl Hiassen, is a lot alike to Scat, as both are set in Southern Florida. The protagonist, Wahoo Cray, is the son of the famous animal wrangler Mickey Cray. Mr. Cray is courageous and outgoing, but is a little scattered due to a recent concussion. Wahoo is a quiet learner. Wahoo and his father take a job on a “reality” TV show that is about wrangling animals that is filmed in the Florida Everglades. The reason this father son duo take this job is because they need money to pay for their truck and housing situation. The star of this so called “reality” TV show is Derek Badger who has no survival skills and after the filming is finished, he stays the night in a 5 star hotel. This humorous book tells the details of this show stars demise and the details of Wahoo and Mickey’s adventures while working on this show.

Author Praise: Carl Hiassen writes the best kids mysteries while incorporating details of reality. Much like Scat, this book is a page turner. You will not be disappointed. I strongly recommend this book!

Stars: 5 stars

Number of Pages: 290

3.     
      Flush

         I know I am going a little crazy with the Carl Hiassen books, but they are the best summer books. The mix between mystery and reality is thrilling! Noah Underwood is living a perfectly normal life living in the Florida Keys with his mother, father, and younger sister, Abbey. He enjoys snorkeling, fishing, and swimming in the nearby marina with his friends and even his younger sister. One day, when he comes home, he is surprised to find out from his mother that his sweet, fun-loving father, Paine, has been arrested and taken to jail. Noah is confused and goes to visit his for the reason for his arrest, because his mother will not tell him. When he arrives at the jail and sees his father, Paine tells him that he was arrested for sinking the gambling boat, the Coral Queen. He explains that the boat was illegally pumping sewage into the beloved marina. (This sewage includes human waste and other harmful things to the natural environment.) Noah is immediately on his father’s side and thinks that the cops should be arresting the owners of the Coral Queen and not his father. After all, his dad is trying to save the community’s marina around which the town is built. Noah and Abbey investigate the Coral Queen, which has now been cleaned up and is up and running again. The kids confirm that the owner is still duping the nasty sewage into the water. The kids enlist the help of Lice, a lazy guy who used to work on the ship. When Lice suddenly goes missing, his girlfriend, Shelly, agrees to help. She knows the owner and gets a job as a bartender. She gains daily access to what is going on every day. These three conspirators devise a plan to expose the owner of the Coral Queen once and for all. Read and find out the whole story.

Author Praise: Carl Hiassen writes again with Flush. This book is not up to the standards of Scat and Chomp, though. The story is just richer in these other two books. I still strongly recommend this book and would give it high marks.

Stars: 4 stars

Number of Pages: 263

4.     
A    Tangle of Knots

      A Tangle of Knots by Lisa Graff is about a girl in a fictional world where ALMOST everyone has a talent or is talented. The person is just simply born with this talent. There are very few people in the population that have no talent. In the beginning of this book, there is a man named Mason. This particular young man just received an inheritance from is mom and it is in a suitcase. This very extraordinary suitcase is one of the only 36 that were made. Mason decides to take a train to New York. Then he realizes that the important suitcase has been stolen.  Suddenly, the story jumps ahead 50 years. This phase of the story shows us a whole new set of interesting characters. Cady, the new protagonist, has a talent of baking cakes perfectly suited to certain peoples’ personalities. Cady currently lives in Miss Mallory’s Orphanage. Miss Mallory is the kindest, sweetest, and most caring person. Her talent is she can match every orphan to their perfect parents, but Cady has been staying with her for a few years and Miss Mallory cannot seem to find a match for Cady. The Asher family is a very strange and fun sort of family. A man they all call The Owner own an emporium that the Asher family moves into. The mysterious Owner turns out to be Mason from the beginning of the story. Mason has a hobby of just taking so many peoples’ talents.  Mason is also collecting all of the suitcases that were like the one that was stolen from him 50 years prior. His son, Toby, helps his father. Toby is sad because many years ago, he was in Africa and he lost his precious daughter and loving wife.

Author Praise: Lisa Graff did a great job developing the characters and plot. She made the mystery element of the story easy to understand and shocking enough at the end, but at certain parts of the story, chapter endings most of the time, she leaves you hanging or finishes the chapter with a cliffhanger. Much later, the cliffhanger is explained. This makes these elements of the story a bit confusing.  

Stars: 3.5 stars

Number of Pages: 230

5      The Candymakers

        













        The Candymakers by Wendy Mass tells the story of 4 four children and their quest to win the candy-making competition (or the opportunity of a lifetime). Logan, Daisy, Miles, and Phillip are the four children chosen to compete. Logan is the son of the owner of the candy factory that sponsors this competition. Daisy lives in a family of spies and is one herself at the tween age she is. Her family’s “spy firm” is hired by various customers to investigate certain situations. This competition is Daisy’s mission. Her task is to find out and steal the secret ingredient in all of the candies that the candy factory where the contest is being held makes. Miles is a squeamish child that saw a girl drown. This affected him pretty strongly and he began being obsessed with the Afterlife and studying about it. Phillip is a child from a wealthy family that visited the factory when he was just a toddler. He met Logan during this visit when they played with Philip’s toy truck. Logan dropped the truck in a boiling vat of chocolate and when he reached in to get it, he fell in and was burnt very badly. This causes Phillip to be banned from the factory and Logan now has a very bad burn scar that defines him for the rest of his life. Read this book to find out how the children come together to win the contest as one.

Author Praise: The characters background stories are well described and are very well written. They are complicated, but not confusing. The characters and setting are well developed and described, but the book is quite long. It could be shorter for the story that is written.

Stars: 4 stars

Number of Pages: 464

6      The Apothecary Series

    The Apothecary Series has a base story of a young American girl named Janie Scott that has just moved to England on account of her parents getting new jobs as screenwriters. She meets the Apothecary's son, Benjamin Burrows and fancies him right off the bat. (Fancy is the English word for "like") Janie learns a little bit of magic can change the world throughout the captivating story.

Author Praise: Maile Meloy keeps you turning pages as you read these magical books. The characters are crafted in such a way, that when you finish the series, you hate to see them go. I am not one for fantasy books, but this series has changed my reading genre preferences for the better. I strongly recommend these books to young tweens who want a world of adventure, magic, and a little romance behind a plastic cover. My sister and I absolutely love these books. (Checkout Maile Meloy’s Author Spotlight that is on the blog as well.)

Stars: 4.5 stars

Number of Pages: It’s a series!