Children's Book Week: 3rd-4th

I’m not sure that I have as much to say about these books as I did the younger group. I wonder why that is? Actually, it seems like quite an important observation (maybe?). That getting children excited about books at a very early age is essential to developing life-long readers. My parents started reading to me from the moment I came out of the womb. They say that even then, I hung on their every word. Is this small action on the part of my mother and father the reason that I’m in publishing now? The reason I devour any book I can get my hands on?

3rd and 4th Grade Picks:


Chocolate Fever, by Robert Kimmel Smith

Ralph S. Mouse, by Beverly Cleary – Beverly seems to dominate my Top Five, and rightly so!

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, by Judy Blume – I know I read this book before fourth grade, a fact which excited me very much when I was a kid. Mostly because I thought you had to be in fourth grade to be able to read Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. Thus developed my severe reading superiority complex. Book snob in the making.

Ramona Quimby, Age 8, by Beverly Cleary – Who didn’t love stubborn little Ramona and her oh-so-cool older sister, Beezus? There was, and always is, a little bit of Ramona Quimby (age 8!) in all of us!

My Top Pick:

Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White

I remember the reason I read this book. The movie was going to be on TV. Commercials were announcing it like it was going to be a major event. Maybe back then it was. But my mother told me that I absolutely could not watch the movie until I read the book. Impetus! You know, these are the things I should thank my mother for on Mother’s Day, Thanksgiving – every day.

I read the book, loved it, and then she bought me the movie. Thanks, Mom!

Find these books and more in the From Infants to Young Adults Bookstore!