St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
Catholic School
Summer Reading List 2016
For years, educators have known that students lose reading skills during the summer
if they don’t continue reading. They call this loss the “summer slide.”

K Alexander’s, D. Entwisle’s and L. Olson’s 2007 longitudinal study of Baltimore students over 15
years found that by the end of fifth grade, students who didn’t read during the summer measured
two years behind their classmates who did. They concluded that 2/3 of the reading difference in
ninth graders can be attributed to reading or not during summer school breaks.
To help counteract the “summer slide,” here are the required and recommended readings.
Happy Reading!
First Grade
Students need to read or have read to them at least ten books. Please bring a favorite book to class the
first two weeks of school. Here are some great suggested titles, many are available at the library.
Make Way for Ducklings
The Little Engine That Could
Tomie De Paola’s Mother Goose
The Cat in the Hat
The Story of Ferdinand
Frog and Toad
Frog and Toad Are Friends
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
Curious George
Sylvester and the Magic Pebble
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
The Biggest Bear
The Ugly Duckling
The Random House Book of Poetry for Children
Anno’s Counting Book
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel
Pecos Bill
Blueberries for Sal
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
The Napping House
Watch Out For Chicken Feet in Your Soup
The Great Big Enormous Turnip
Mercy Watson series
Henry and Mudge series
Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse
Penny and Her Song
Nate the Great
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and others in this series
Madeline (series)
Arthur’s Loose Tooth
Little Rabbit’s Loose Tooth
Corduroy
Pascual and the Kitchen Angels
A Sick Day for Amos McGee
Little Bear Series
Mouse Tales
Last Stop on Market Street
Robert McCloskey
Watty Piper
Tomie De Paola
Dr. Seuss
Munro Leaf
Arnold Lobel
Arnold Lobel
Beatrix Potter
H. A. Rey
William Steig
Judith Viorst
Lynn Ward
Hans Christian Anderson
Jack Prelutsky (selector)
Mitsumasa Anno
Virginia Lee Burton
Ariane Dewy
Robert McCloskey
Eric Carle
Audrey Wood
Tomie De Paola
Helen Oxenburg
Kate Di’Camillo
Cynthia Rylant
Kevin Henkes
Kevin Henkes
Marjorie Weinman Sharmat
Laura Numeroff
Ludwig Bemelmans
Marc Brown
Lucy Bate
Don Freeman
Tomie dePaola
Phillip Stead
Else Holmelund Minarik
Arnold Lobel
Matt de la Pena
Second Grade
Required:
Pick two of the following books and read by yourself or with a parent/guardian:
Aesop’s Fables
Mouse Tales
Any of the Tales of Beatrix Potter
Little Bear
Frog and Toad books (your choice)
A Child’s Garden of Verses
Aesop
Arnold Lobel
Beatrix Potter
Else Holmelund & Maurice Sendak
Arnold Lobel
Robert Louis Stevenson
Recommended:
Thanksgiving on Thursday
The Great Kapok Tree
Mary Pope Osborne
Lynne Cherry
Third Grade
Required:
Little House in the Big Woods (available as audiobook
on you tube)
Recommended:
Charlotte’s Web (available as an audiobook on you tube)
The Railway Children (this book is available as a free e-book
and audiobook download from the Gutenberg Project
www.gutenberg.org and as an audiobook on You Tube)
All-of-a-Kind Family
The Boxcar Children
Fourth Grade
Required:
Five Children and It
(this book is available as a free e-book and audiobook
Download from the Gutenberg Project www.gutenberg.org
and as an audiobook on You Tube)
Laura Ingalls Wilder
E.B. White
E. Nesbit
Sydney Taylor
Gertrude Warner
E. Nesbit
Select at least one from the 2016-2017 Bluebonnet list:
Space Case
Stuart Gibbs
Ratscalibur
Josh Lieb
Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer
Kelly Jones
Crenshaw
Katherine Applegate
A Handful of Stars
Cynthia Lord
The Chicken Squad
Doreen Cronin
Woof
Spencer Quinn
Circus Mirandus
Cassie Beasley
Hamster Princess Harriet the Invincible
Ursula Vernon
*Students will be expected to take the AR test the first week we return.
Fifth Grade
Required:
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
(available as audiobook on you tube)
C.S. Lewis
Select at least one from the 2016-2017 Bluebonnet list:
Space Case
Stuart Gibbs
Ratscalibur
Josh Lieb
Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer
Kelly Jones
Crenshaw
Katherine Applegate
A Handful of Stars
Cynthia Lord
The Chicken Squad
Doreen Cronin
Woof
Spencer Quinn
Circus Mirandus
Cassie Beasley
Hamster Princess Harriet the Invincible
Ursula Vernon
*Students will be expected to take the AR test the first week we return.
Sixth Grade
Required:
The Wind in the Willows
(This book is available as a free e-book and audiobook
download from the Gutenberg Project www.gutenberg.org
and as an audiobook on YouTube.)
Kenneth Grahame
Choose 1 other book from the list below:
Farmer Boy
The Secret Garden
Robin Hood
Robin Hood
The Wizard of Oz
The Jungle Book
Heidi
Swiss Family Robinson
Carry On, Mr. Bowditch
King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table
Pinocchio
Sing Down the Moon
Joel: A Boy of Galilee
Little Women
Anne of Green Gables
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Howard Pyle
Roger Lancelyn Green
L. Frank Baum
Rudyard Kipling
Johanna Spyri
Johann Wyss
Jean Lee Latham
Roger Lancelyn Green
Carlo Collodi
Scott O’Dell
Anne Fellows Johnston
Louisa May Alcott
L. M. Montgomery
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Seventh Grade
Required:
The Cay (available as an audiobook on YouTube)
Theodore Taylor
Choose one other book from the list below:
Journey to the Center of the Earth
The Call of the Wild
Captains Courageous
The Westing Game
The Lions of Little Rock
Wonder
Fever 1793
The Book Thief
Jules Verne
Jack London
Rudyard Kipling
Ellen Raskin
Kristin Levine
R.J. Palacio
Laurie Halse Anderson
Markus Zusack
Recommended for Science: Jurassic Park
Michael Crichton
The World in your lunchbox: The wacky history
and weird science of every day foods
Claire Eamer
Fever 1793 *
Laurie Halse Anderson
The Story of Science: Aristotle Leads the Way Joy Hakim
The Story of Science: Newton at the Center
Eighth Grade
Required:
The View from Saturday
Joy Hakim
E.L. Konigsburg
Choose one other book from the list below:
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Red Pony
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Tuck Everlasting
Mockingbird
Freak the Mighty
Okay for Now
Moon Over Manifest
Escape Under the Forever Sky
Counting by 7s
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Arthur Conan Doyle
John Steinbeck
Jules Verne
Natalie Babbitt
Katherine Erskine
Rodman Philbrick
Gary Schmidt
Clare Vanderpool
Eve Yohalem
Holly Sloan
Mark Twain
Recommended for Science: The Children’s Blizzard
Isaac’s Storm
Longitude
Gone at 3:17: The untold story of the worst
school disaster in American History
The Golden Ratio: The story of PHI
The Story of Science: Einstein Adds a New
Dimension
David Laskin
Eric Larson
Dava Sobel
David M. Brown and
Michael Wereshagin
Mario Livio
Joy Hakim