Give Your Child a GEP-Style Reading List (Primary 4 to 6)

A child stands on a stack of books to reach a high library shelf.

Singapore's Gifted Education Programme (GEP) was best known for its exclusivity, admitting only the top one per cent of primary school pupils. Although the programme is being phased out, interest in it has not faded, and many parents are still curious about it.

We can't tell you everything that GEP pupils did, but here's one small part of it: what they read. Anecdotally, we've heard that they tended to be avid readers rather than heavy screen users. If you're curious about the kinds of books they were recommended, we've got a list below!

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Booklist for high-ability students in Singapore
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Booklist for high-ability kids in Singapore

These book recommendations were shared with a member of our team years ago. They'll give you an idea of what GEP pupils were encouraged to read in the upper primary levels.

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Level ↕	Genre ↕	Author ↕	Title ↕	Synopsis
Primary 4	Fiction	Adam, Paul	Escape from Shadow Island	A teenage escape artist follows a single clue across the world to uncover the truth about his father’s death and his mother’s imprisonment.
Primary 4	Fiction	Aiken, Joan	The Wolves of Willoughby Chase	Left in the care of a cruel governess, cousins Bonnie and Sylvia must escape a prison-like orphan school and reclaim their home.
Primary 4	Fiction	Applegate, Katherine	The One and Only Ivan	A gorilla who has lived for years in a shopping-mall enclosure sees his world afresh when a baby elephant arrives.
Primary 4	Fiction	Babbitt, Natalie	Eyes of the Amaryllis	A girl, her grandmother, and a watchful stranger are drawn into a strange contest with the sea that swallowed a ship long ago.
Primary 4	Fiction	Banks, Lynne Reid	The Indian in the Cupboard	A boy discovers that a magic cupboard can bring his small plastic figure to life as a real man from another time.
Primary 4	Fiction	Bawden, Nina	Granny the Pag	A girl fights for the right to keep living with her unconventional, motorbike-riding grandmother.
Primary 4	Fiction	Beck, Ian	The Secret History of Tom Trueheart	The youngest of seven brothers must venture into the Land of Stories to rescue his siblings and find a tale of his own.
Primary 4	Fiction	Birdsall, Jeanne	The Penderwicks	Four sisters spend a memorable summer at a country estate, where they befriend the owner’s lonely son.
Primary 4	Fiction	Blume, Judy	Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing	Peter’s troublesome toddler brother Fudge causes chaos wherever he goes.
Primary 4	Fiction	Boston, Lucy M.	The Children of Green Knowe	Staying at his great-grandmother’s ancient house, Tolly slowly discovers the children who lived there centuries before.
Primary 4	Fiction	Broach, Elise	Masterpiece	A beetle and a boy form an unlikely friendship and get caught up in an art heist at a famous museum.
Primary 4	Fiction	Browne, Anthony	Piggybook	When an overworked mother walks out, the men who treated her like a servant undergo some curious changes.
Primary 4	Fiction	Browne, Anthony	Voices in the Park	Four different voices give their own version of the same walk in the park.
Primary 4	Fiction	Burnett, Frances Hodgson	The Secret Garden	A lonely, spoilt girl is transformed when she discovers a locked, hidden garden.
Primary 4	Fiction	Byars, Betsy	Keeper of the Doves	A girl and her sisters puzzle over a strange old man who lives in the woods and keeps a flock of doves.
Primary 4	Fiction	Byars, Betsy	The Midnight Fox	A town boy sent to stay on a farm becomes fascinated by a rare black fox and tries to save her from being hunted.
Primary 4	Fiction	Carpenter, Frances	Tales of a Korean Grandmother	A collection of traditional Korean folk tales told by a grandmother to her grandchildren.
Primary 4	Fiction	Cleary, Beverly	Dear Mr. Henshaw	A boy coping with his parents’ separation pours his feelings into letters to his favourite author.
Primary 4	Fiction	Clements, Andrew	Frindle	A boy invents a new word for “pen”, and it spreads further than anyone expects.
Primary 4	Fiction	Coatsworth, Elizabeth	The Cat Who Went to Heaven	A struggling artist’s fortunes change when a small white cat comes to live with him.
Primary 4	Fiction	Creech, Sharon	The Boy on the Porch	A childless couple takes in a mysterious boy who turns up asleep on their porch.
Primary 4	Fiction	Creech, Sharon	Absolutely Normal Chaos	A girl’s ordinary summer is upended when her quiet, sad cousin comes to stay.
Primary 4	Fiction	Cushman, Karen	Matilda Bone	A well-educated orphan reluctantly becomes assistant to a bonesetter and learns to see the world differently.
Primary 4	Fiction	Dahl, Roald	Matilda	A brilliant girl with a special power outwits her neglectful parents and a tyrannical headmistress.
Primary 4	Fiction	Dahl, Roald	The BFG	A kind giant and a girl set out to rid the world of the child-eating giants.
Primary 4	Fiction	DiCamillo, Kate	The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane	A vain china rabbit learns what it means to love through a long and unexpected journey.
Primary 4	Fiction	DiCamillo, Kate	The Tale of Despereaux	A brave little mouse, a vengeful rat, and a simple serving girl find their lives entwined.
Primary 4	Fiction	Ende, Michael	The Neverending Story	An ordinary boy is drawn into a magical world falling into decay, and must help restore it.
Primary 4	Fiction	Fang, Linda	The Ch’i-Lin Purse	A collection of nine lively retold ancient Chinese stories.
Primary 4	Fiction	Fine, Anne	Step by Wicked Step	Five children in a spooky mansion discover they all share the experience of living in stepfamilies.
Primary 4	Fiction	Fleischman, Sid	The Whipping Boy	A prince and the boy punished in his place become unlikely companions when they run away and are captured by outlaws.
Primary 4	Fiction	Gipson, Fred	Old Yeller	A stray dog proves his worth protecting a family on the Texas frontier.
Primary 4	Fiction	Grahame, Kenneth	The Wind in the Willows	The riverside adventures and misadventures of Mole, Rat, Badger, and the reckless Toad.
Primary 4	Fiction	Hoban, Russell	The Mouse and His Child	Two discarded clockwork mice set out on a journey to find a home of their own.
Primary 4	Fiction	Juster, Norton	The Phantom Tollbooth	A bored boy drives through a magic tollbooth into a land that teaches him the wonder of words and numbers.
Primary 4	Fiction	Kadohata, Cynthia	Kira-Kira	A girl learns to hold on to hope and wonder as her beloved older sister falls seriously ill.
Primary 4	Fiction	Kelly, Eric P.	The Trumpeter of Krakow	A boy sworn to protect a priceless jewel must guard it from those who would kill for it.
Primary 4	Fiction	Kent, Rose	Kimchi and Calamari	An adopted Korean-Italian-American boy struggles to write a school essay about his ancestors.
Primary 4	Biographies & Autobiographies	Kuroyanagi, Tetsuko	Totto-Chan, the Little Girl at the Window	A memoir of an unusual, joyful school in wartime Tokyo, told through a young girl’s eyes.
Primary 4	Fiction	Laird, Elizabeth	Lost Riders	Two brothers taken from Pakistan are forced to become camel-race jockeys in the Gulf.
Primary 4	Fiction	LaFleur, Suzanne	Love, Aubrey	After an unbearable loss, a girl goes to live with her grandmother and slowly learns to move on.
Primary 4	Fiction	Lawson, Robert	Rabbit Hill	The animals of the Hill wonder how their lives will change when new folk move into the big house.
Primary 4	Fiction	Lenski, Lois	Strawberry Girl	A family making a new start on a Florida farm faces hardship and troublesome neighbours.
Primary 4	Fiction	Lin, Grace	Where the Mountain Meets the Moon	Inspired by old folktales, a girl sets off on a quest to change her family’s fortune.
Primary 4	Fiction	Lin, Grace	Starry River of the Sky	A runaway boy working at a village inn is changed by a mysterious storytelling guest.
Primary 4	Fiction	Lowry, Lois	Gossamer	A tiny dream-giving creature tries to protect a troubled foster boy from nightmares.
Primary 4	Fiction	Lowry, Lois	See You Around, Sam	A small boy, forbidden to wear his plastic fangs indoors, decides to run away to Alaska.
Primary 4	Fiction	Lowry, Lois	The One Hundredth Thing about Caroline	Two children become convinced their mother’s new suitor means them harm.
Primary 4	Fiction	MacLachlan, Patricia	The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt	A girl learns that some things cannot be found, they simply have to happen, as she waits to master her cello.
Primary 4	Fiction	MacLachlan, Patricia	Word After Word After Word	A visiting teacher brings a new way of seeing to a class of fourth graders through writing.
Primary 4	Biographies & Autobiographies	Mah, Adeline Yen	Chinese Cinderella	A memoir of a girl’s painful childhood in an affluent but unloving Chinese family.
Primary 4	Fiction	McKay, Hilary	Saffy’s Angel	When she learns she was adopted, Saffy sets out to discover the meaning of the angel her grandfather left her.
Primary 4	Fiction	Montgomery, Lucy Maud	Anne of Green Gables	A talkative, imaginative orphan girl makes a home and friends at Green Gables.
Primary 4	Fiction	Morpurgo, Michael	The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips	A girl and her family are evacuated for D-Day preparations, but her cat refuses to leave.
Primary 4	Fiction	Morpurgo, Michael	The Mozart Question	A boy’s fascination with a hidden violin uncovers a family secret from the Second World War.
Primary 4	Fiction	Neville, Emily	It’s Like This, Cat	A coming-of-age story about a boy and his cat in late-1950s New York.
Primary 4	Fiction	O’Brien, Robert C.	Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH	A widowed mouse turns to a colony of extraordinarily intelligent rats to save her sick son.
Primary 4	Fiction	Paterson, Katherine	Bridge to Terabithia	Two friends invent an imaginary kingdom, until a tragedy tests everything.
Primary 4	Fiction	Paulsen, Gary	Hatchet	A boy survives alone in the Canadian wilderness after a plane crash, armed only with a hatchet.
Primary 4	Fiction	Pullman, Philip	Count Karlstein	A wicked count plots to hand his two orphaned nieces over to a demon huntsman.
Primary 4	Fiction	Pullman, Philip	Clockwork	A clockmaker’s apprentice, a mechanical knight, and a sinister stranger collide on a snowy winter’s night.
Primary 4	Fiction	Ransome, Arthur	Pigeon Post	A group of children hunt for gold in the hills above the lake, using pigeons to carry messages.
Primary 4	Fiction	Smith, Doris Buchanan	A Taste of Blackberries	A boy must face life and impossible questions after his best friend dies suddenly.
Primary 4	Fiction	Spyri, Johanna	Heidi	A cheerful orphan finds happiness with her grandfather in the Alps, then longs to return when taken away.
Primary 4	Fiction	Stead, Rebecca	Liar and Spy	A boy is recruited by a self-appointed young spy to track a mysterious neighbour.
Primary 4	Fiction	Snyder, Zilpha Keatley	The Witches of Worm	A lonely girl becomes convinced her ugly kitten is making her do cruel things.
Primary 4	Fiction	Tolan, Stephanie	Listen!	A girl recovering from injury and grief forms a bond with an abused, untameable dog.
Primary 4	Fiction	Velde, Vivian Vande	Remembering Raquel	An “invisible” girl’s death is pieced together through the voices of those who knew her.
Primary 4	Fiction	Voigt, Cynthia	Young Fredle	A young mouse cast out into the wider world discovers danger, wonder, and the meaning of home.
Primary 4	Fiction	Wang, Gabrielle	The Garden of Empress Cassia	A box of magic pastels lets a girl draw a beautiful garden, but the pastels are dangerous in the wrong hands.
Primary 4	Fiction	Wang, Gabrielle	A Ghost in My Suitcase	In China, a girl uncovers a family secret and learns to use her gift as a ghost-hunter.
Primary 4	Fiction	Wang, Gabrielle	The Wish Bird	A girl leaves the Forest of Birds to save her dying Wishbird, aided by a street orphan.
Primary 4	Fiction	Webster, Jean	Daddy Long Legs	An orphan sent to college by a mysterious benefactor writes him letters about her new life.
Primary 4	Fiction	White, E.B.	Charlotte’s Web	A clever spider spins words in her web to save the life of a pig named Wilbur.
Primary 4	Fiction	Wojciechowska, Maia	Shadow of a Bull	The son of a famous bullfighter, expected to follow in his footsteps, hides a secret fear.
Primary 5	Mysteries	Alejandro, Jessica	Extraordinary Losers: The Lunchbox Thief	Four friends set a trap for a thief targeting younger pupils, and find themselves facing a dangerous adversary.
Primary 5	Mysteries	A. J. Low	Sherlock Sam and the Missing Heirloom in Katong	Singapore’s greatest kid detective and his robot sidekick hunt for a missing Peranakan cookbook.
Primary 5	Mysteries	Brezenoff, Steve	Museum Mysteries: The Case of the Stolen Sculpture	A group of young detectives set out to recover a priceless sculpture stolen from their city museum.
Primary 5	Mysteries	Christie, Agatha	Elephants Can Remember	Hercule Poirot reopens an old case of a husband and wife found shot dead years earlier.
Primary 5	Mysteries	Christie, Agatha	Murder on the Orient Express	A murder aboard a snowbound luxury train leaves Poirot to find a killer among the passengers.
Primary 5	Mysteries	Christie, Agatha	The A.B.C. Murders	Poirot pursues a serial killer working through the alphabet, town by town.
Primary 5	Mysteries	Christie, Agatha	The Murder on the Links	Poirot arrives in France too late to save his client, and finds a second, identical corpse.
Primary 5	Mysteries	Christie, Agatha	The Murder of Roger Ackroyd	A wealthy man is stabbed to death just as he learns a fatal secret.
Primary 5	Mysteries	Collins, Wilkie	The Moonstone	A cursed diamond is stolen on the night it is inherited, and no one in the household is above suspicion.
Primary 5	Mysteries	Collins, Wilkie	The Woman in White	A drawing master is drawn into a sinister web of identity, madness, and deception.
Primary 5	Mysteries	Gardner, Erle Stanley	The Case of the Crooked Candle	Lawyer Perry Mason defends a client accused of murder after a businessman is found dead on his yacht.
Primary 5	Mysteries	Gardner, Erle Stanley	The Case of the Phantom Fortune	Perry Mason investigates a fingerprint, a blackmail plot, and a wife’s mysterious past.
Primary 5	Mysteries	Konigsburg, E.L.	From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler	Two runaway children hide in a museum and unravel the mystery of a statue.
Primary 5	Mysteries	Oppel, Kenneth	The Boundless	A boy joins a travelling circus aboard the greatest train ever built, pursued by sinister figures.
Primary 5	Mysteries	Pullman, Philip	The Adventures of the New Cut Gang	A ragtag gang of children solve two comic cases of forgery and burglary.
Primary 5	Mysteries	Raskin, Ellen	The Westing Game	Sixteen unlikely heirs must solve the puzzle of an eccentric millionaire’s will to claim his fortune.
Primary 5	Mysteries	Raskin, Ellen	Figgs & Phantoms	A girl tries to find her eccentric family’s idea of heaven before she loses her beloved uncle.
Primary 5	Mysteries	Raskin, Ellen	The Tattooed Potato and Other Clues	A painter’s assistant finds herself helping her eccentric employer solve crimes.
Primary 5	Mysteries	Read, Anthony	The Baker Street Boys: The Case of the Haunted Horrors	Sherlock Holmes’s gang of street-urchin detectives investigate a ghost at a waxworks.
Primary 5	Mysteries	Thomas, Donald	Sherlock Holmes and the Ghosts of Bly	Holmes faces cases that plunge him into the realm of the supernatural.
Primary 5	Mysteries	Thomson, June	The Secret Notebooks of Sherlock Holmes	A collection of Holmes cases too sensitive to publish in their own time.
Primary 5	Mysteries	Watson, Victor	The Deeping Secrets	A wartime treasure hunt leads children to uncover a spy in their midst.
Primary 5	Mysteries	Yu, Ovidia	The Mudskipper	An unwelcome girl arriving at her late father’s Singapore home discovers its many hidden secrets.
Primary 5	Fiction	Avi	Who Was That Masked Man, Anyway?	A boy caught up in radio-hero fantasies becomes convinced his family’s new tenant is a mad scientist.
Primary 5	Fiction	Babbitt, Natalie	Tuck Everlasting	A girl discovers a family who have drunk from a spring that grants eternal life.
Primary 5	Fiction	Barron, T.A.	Heartlight	A girl must find her missing grandfather and the secret that could save the solar system.
Primary 5	Fiction	Bauer, Joan	Hope Was Here	A waitress and her aunt take over a small-town diner and get swept into a mayoral campaign.
Primary 5	Fiction	Baum, L. Frank	The Wizard of Oz	Swept away by a tornado, Dorothy follows the yellow brick road to find her way home.
Primary 5	Fiction	Berry, James	Ajeemah and His Son	A father and son are kidnapped from Africa and sold into the slave trade.
Primary 5	Fiction	Blume, Judy	Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret	A girl navigates a new school, growing up, and questions of faith.
Primary 5	Fiction	Burroughs, Edgar Rice	Tarzan Series	A boy raised by apes in the African jungle grows into a heroic adventurer.
Primary 5	Fiction	Cashore, Kristin	Graceling	A girl cursed with a deadly fighting skill breaks free of a king’s control and uncovers a dark mystery.
Primary 5	Fiction	Choldenko, Gennifer	Al Capone Does My Shirts	A boy’s family moves to Alcatraz Island, where his father works at the famous prison.
Primary 5	Fiction	Christopher, John	Beyond the Burning Lands	A young prince uncovers dangerous secrets as he explores a post-apocalyptic world.
Primary 5	Fiction	Cleaver, Vera and Bill	Where the Lilies Bloom	A girl fights to keep her family together on their mountain after their father’s death.
Primary 5	Fiction	Conrad, Pam	Stonewords	A girl travels back a century in time to save the ghostly friend who haunts her house.
Primary 5	Fiction	Cooper, Susan	The Dark Is Rising	On his eleventh birthday a boy learns he is the last of an immortal order fighting the rising Dark.
Primary 5	Fiction	Coville, Bruce	Into the Land of the Unicorns	A girl and her companions race to reach the Unicorn Queen before a mysterious pursuer.
Primary 5	Fiction	Curtis, Christopher Paul	Bud, Not Buddy	A boy sets out during the Depression to find the father he believes is a jazz musician.
Primary 5	Fiction	DeFelice, Cynthia	The Apprenticeship of Lucas Whitaker	An orphaned boy apprenticed to a doctor confronts fear, grief, and superstition.
Primary 5	Fiction	Dickinson, Peter	The Ropemaker	An ordinary girl discovers she alone can protect her group on a quest to save their valley.
Primary 5	Fiction	Du Bois, William Pène	The Twenty-One Balloons	A professor’s balloon voyage lands him on Krakatoa and a world of extraordinary invention.
Primary 5	Fiction	Farmer, Nancy	A Girl Named Disaster	Fleeing a forced marriage, a girl undertakes a dangerous year-long journey across southern Africa.
Primary 5	Fiction	Fenner, Carol	Yolonda’s Genius	A confident girl sets out to prove that her quiet little brother is a musical genius.
Primary 5	Fiction	Forbes, Esther	Johnny Tremain	A young silversmith’s apprentice is swept into the events of the American Revolution.
Primary 5	Fiction	Fox, Paula	The Slave Dancer	A boy is kidnapped onto a slave ship and forced to play music for the captives.
Primary 5	Fiction	Funke, Cornelia	Inkheart	A girl’s father has the power to read characters out of books and into the real world.
Primary 5	Fiction	Funke, Cornelia	The Thief Lord	Two runaway brothers join a band of street children in Venice led by the mysterious Thief Lord.
Primary 5	Fiction	Garner, Alan	Elidor	Four children must guard the treasures of a dying twilight world from the forces of darkness.
Primary 5	Fiction	Gauthier, Gail	A Year with Butch and Spike	A straight-A pupil is seated beside the school’s two most notorious troublemakers.
Primary 5	Fiction	George, Jean Craighead	My Side of the Mountain	A boy runs away to live alone in the mountains and discovers a new side of himself.
Primary 5	Fiction	Gibbons, Kaye	Ellen Foster	A young girl tells the story of her hard childhood with honesty and humour.
Primary 5	Fiction	Goudge, Elizabeth	The Little White Horse	An orphan arriving at a manor sets out to undo an old sorrow shadowing the place.
Primary 5	Fiction	Henry, Marguerite	King of the Wind	The story of a golden Arabian stallion and the stable boy devoted to him.
Primary 5	Fiction	Hesse, Karen	Out of the Dust	In free-verse poems, a girl survives the Dust Bowl years and the loss of her mother.
Primary 5	Fiction	Hunt, Irene	Up a Road Slowly	A girl grows up in the care of her spinster aunt, learning about life and love along the way.
Primary 5	Fiction	Irving, Washington	The Legend of Sleepy Hollow	The classic tale of Ichabod Crane and the headless horseman, with other stories.
Primary 5	Fiction	Jones, Diana Wynne	Howl’s Moving Castle	A girl cursed into old age seeks out a wizard’s moving castle to break the spell.
Primary 5	Fiction	Krumgold, Joseph	…And Now, Miguel	A boy longs to prove he is ready to join the men on the family sheep drive.
Primary 5	Fiction	Laird, Elizabeth	The Garbage King	Two very different runaway boys join a gang surviving on the streets of Addis Ababa.
Primary 5	Fiction	Law, Ingrid	Savvy	On the eve of gaining her family’s magical gift, a girl sets off on a journey to save her father.
Primary 5	Fiction	LeGuin, Ursula	A Wizard of Earthsea	A gifted young wizard looses a terrible shadow and must set right the balance of his world.
Primary 5	Fiction	L’Engle, Madeleine	A Circle of Quiet	The author’s reflections on life and writing from her country retreat.
Primary 5	Fiction	L’Engle, Madeleine	A Wrinkle in Time	Three children travel through space and time to rescue a scientist father.
Primary 5	Fiction	Lewis, C.S.	The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe	Four siblings step through a wardrobe into Narnia, a land held in eternal winter.
Primary 5	Fiction	London, Jack	The Call of the Wild	A domestic dog stolen and sold as a sled dog reverts to his wild instincts in the Yukon.
Primary 5	Fiction	Lord, Cynthia	Rules	A girl who longs for a normal life is challenged by her friendships and her brother’s autism.
Primary 5	Fiction	Manes, Stephen	Be a Perfect Person in Just Three Days	A boy follows a book’s odd instructions in his quest to become perfect.
Primary 5	Fiction	Marsden, John	Winter	A haunted girl returns to her old home to confront the family tragedy that changed her life.
Primary 5	Fiction	MacDonald, George	At the Back of the North Wind	A poor boy is carried on journeys by the mysterious lady called North Wind.
Primary 5	Fiction	MacLachlan, Patricia	Journey	A boy searches old photographs for clues to why his mother left him and his sister.
Primary 5	Fiction	Magorian, Michelle	Goodnight, Mister Tom	An evacuated, mistreated boy blossoms in the care of a gruff old countryman.
Primary 5	Fiction	McCaughrean, Geraldine	Tamburlaine’s Elephants	A boy travelling with a conqueror’s horde forms an unlikely friendship amid the destruction.
Primary 5	Fiction	McCaughrean, Geraldine	The Kite Rider	A boy escapes poverty by becoming a kite rider in a travelling circus in old China.
Primary 5	Fiction	Myers, Anna	Red-Dirt Jessie	A Depression-era girl hopes that taming a wild dog will help bring her grieving father back.
Primary 5	Fiction	Paterson, Katherine	Flip-Flop Girl	Grieving her father and caring for her silent brother, a girl finds a friend in a mysterious classmate.
Primary 5	Fiction	Paterson, Katherine	The Great Gilly Hopkins	A tough, unmanageable foster girl schemes to reunite with her real mother.
Primary 5	Fiction	Pearce, Philippa	Tom’s Midnight Garden	A boy discovers a garden that comes alive when the clock strikes thirteen.
Primary 5	Fiction	Pratchett, Terry	The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents	A streetwise cat and talking rats run a Pied Piper scam that goes badly wrong.
Primary 5	Fiction	Pullman, Philip	I Was a Rat!	A scruffy boy insists he used to be a rat, and only three people believe him.
Primary 5	Fiction	Pullman, Philip	Northern Lights	A girl journeys to the frozen North on a quest with world-changing consequences.
Primary 5	Fiction	Pullman, Philip	The Golden Compass	A girl is drawn into a struggle over stolen children, witches, and armoured bears.
Primary 5	Fiction	Pullman, Philip	The Amber Spyglass	Two children journey to the land of the dead as a great cosmic war rages.
Primary 5	Fiction	Pullman, Philip	The Firework-Maker’s Daughter	A girl makes a perilous journey to face the Fire-Fiend and become a firework-maker.
Primary 5	Fiction	Pullman, Philip	The Subtle Knife	A girl and a boy discover an object of devastating power in a haunted otherworld.
Primary 5	Fiction	Richardson, Bill	After Hamelin	A deaf girl uses her gift of dreaming to rescue the children lost to the Pied Piper.
Primary 5	Fiction	Rockwell, Thomas	How to Eat Fried Worms	A boy takes on a bet to eat fifteen worms in fifteen days.
Primary 5	Fiction	Sachar, Louis	Holes	A boy unjustly sent to a harsh desert camp digs holes and uncovers a long-buried secret.
Primary 5	Fiction	San Souci, Robert D.	Cut from the Same Cloth	A collection of tall tales about larger-than-life American women.
Primary 5	Fiction	Saroyan, William	My Name Is Aram	Warm, humorous tales of a boy’s childhood in an Armenian-American family.
Primary 5	Fiction	Schmidt, Gary D.	Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy	A minister’s son befriends a girl from a poor island community facing eviction.
Primary 5	Fiction	Selznick, Brian	The Invention of Hugo Cabret	An orphan living in a Paris station guards a secret tied to a mechanical man.
Primary 5	Fiction	Serraillier, Ian	The Silver Sword	Orphaned children cross war-torn Europe in search of their parents.
Primary 5	Fiction	Smith, Doris Buchanan	A Taste of Blackberries	A boy must face life and impossible questions after his best friend dies suddenly.
Primary 5	Fiction	Speare, Elizabeth George	Calico Captive	A girl taken captive during the French and Indian War endures a harrowing journey north.
Primary 5	Fiction	Speare, Elizabeth George	The Bronze Bow	A young man bent on revenge against the Romans is changed by the teachings of Jesus.
Primary 5	Fiction	Speare, Elizabeth George	The Sign of the Beaver	A boy left to guard a wilderness cabin survives with the help of a Native American boy.
Primary 5	Fiction	Speare, Elizabeth George	The Witch of Blackbird Pond	A girl in colonial Connecticut is drawn to a lonely woman accused of witchcraft.
Primary 5	Fiction	Sperry, Armstrong	Call It Courage	A chief’s son, afraid of the sea, sets out alone to face his fears.
Primary 5	Fiction	Spinelli, Jerry	Maniac Magee	An orphan boy’s legendary feats begin to heal a racially divided town.
Primary 5	Fiction	Stead, Rebecca	First Light	A boy in Greenland and a girl from a hidden community beneath the ice discover their linked pasts.
Primary 5	Fiction	Stead, Rebecca	When You Reach Me	Mysterious notes lead a girl to believe she can prevent a tragic death.
Primary 5	Fiction	Stevenson, Robert Louis	Treasure Island	A cabin boy sets sail after buried treasure amid pirates and mutiny.
Primary 5	Fiction	Stewart, Trenton Lee	The Mysterious Benedict Society	Four gifted children go undercover at a sinister school on a secret mission.
Primary 5	Fiction	Trueman, Terry	Stuck in Neutral	A boy who cannot move or speak reveals a rich inner life, and a growing danger.
Primary 5	Fiction	Voigt, Cynthia	Dicey’s Song	Having led her siblings to safety, a girl learns the hard lesson of letting go.
Primary 5	Fiction	Welch, Ronald	Knight Crusader	A young knight fights, is captured, and escapes across the world of the Third Crusade.
Primary 5	Fiction	White, Ruth	Belle Prater’s Boy	Two cousins become best friends as they face the mysteries of a vanished mother and a dead father.
Primary 5	Fiction	Winthrop, Elizabeth	The Castle in the Attic	A toy castle and its silver knight come alive, sending a boy on a magical quest.
Primary 5	Fiction	Woodruff, Elvira	Dear Levi: Letters from the Overland Trail	An orphan writes home describing his 1851 journey west by wagon train.
Primary 6	Biographies & Autobiographies	Conway, Jill Ker	The Road from Coorain	A memoir of growing up on an isolated Australian sheep farm and leaving for America.
Primary 6	Biographies & Autobiographies	Dillard, Annie	An American Childhood	A memoir of an unconventional, wide-eyed childhood in 1950s Pittsburgh.
Primary 6	Biographies & Autobiographies	Frank, Anne	Diary of a Young Girl	The diary of a Jewish girl hiding with her family in occupied Amsterdam.
Primary 6	Biographies & Autobiographies	Freedman, Russell	Eleanor Roosevelt, A Life of Discovery	The life of the former First Lady, from childhood to the founding of the United Nations.
Primary 6	Biographies & Autobiographies	Yep, Laurence	The Dragon’s Child: A Story of Angel Island	A boy leaves China with his near-stranger father to face the immigration test at Angel Island.
Primary 6	Fiction	Abelove, Joan	Go and Come Back	A village girl watches two visiting anthropologists with bafflement and growing affection.
Primary 6	Fiction	Almond, David	My Name Is Mina	A perceptive girl fills a notebook with her thoughts, discoveries, and dreams.
Primary 6	Fiction	Almond, David	Skellig	A boy finds a strange, ailing creature, part owl, part angel, in his ramshackle garage.
Primary 6	Fiction	Ang Su-Lin	Hidden in Plain Sight	Children follow clues and codes through pre-independence Singapore to solve a puzzle.
Primary 6	Fiction	Armstrong, William	Sounder	A poor sharecropping family and their faithful dog endure hardship in the American South.
Primary 6	Fiction	Avi	Crispin: The Cross of Lead	A wrongly accused boy flees his village and finds protection with a mysterious travelling juggler.
Primary 6	Fiction	Bawden, Nina	Carrie’s War	Two children evacuated to Wales during the war are caught up in the tensions of their host household.
Primary 6	Fiction	Bradbury, Ray	The Martian Chronicles	Linked stories of humanity’s attempts to colonise Mars.
Primary 6	Fiction	Blos, Joan M.	A Gathering of Days	A New England girl’s diary of a pivotal year of change and loss.
Primary 6	Fiction	Boyne, John	The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas	A commandant’s young son befriends a boy on the other side of a concentration-camp fence.
Primary 6	Fiction	Card, Orson Scott	Ender’s Game	A brilliant boy is trained through brutal war games to lead humanity against an alien threat.
Primary 6	Fiction	Carter, Forrest	The Education of Little Tree	An orphaned boy is raised by his Cherokee grandparents in the Appalachian mountains.
Primary 6	Fiction	Cooper, Susan	The Grey King	A boy seeks a golden harp and must wake the sleepers for the battle between Dark and Light.
Primary 6	Fiction	Collins, Suzanne	The Hunger Games	A girl volunteers for a televised fight to the death to save her sister.
Primary 6	Fiction	Creech, Sharon	Walk Two Moons	On a road trip with her grandparents, a girl tells a strange tale and confronts her own loss.
Primary 6	Fiction	Crichton, Michael	The Andromeda Strain	Scientists race to contain a deadly organism brought back from space.
Primary 6	Fiction	Crossley-Holland, Kevin	Storm	A girl braves a stormy marsh alone and meets its ghost.
Primary 6	Fiction	de Trevino, Elizabeth B.	I, Juan de Pareja	The slave and assistant of the painter Velázquez becomes an accomplished artist himself.
Primary 6	Fiction	DiCamillo, Kate	Flora and Ulysses	A cynical girl rescues a squirrel who gains superpowers after an accident.
Primary 6	Fiction	Dickinson, Peter	City of Gold	Thirty-three Old Testament stories retold through different voices.
Primary 6	Fiction	Dickinson, Peter	The Gift	A boy who can see pictures in others’ minds must save his family from a dangerous man.
Primary 6	Fiction	Dickinson, Peter	Healer	A boy tries to rescue a young girl whose healing gift is being exploited.
Primary 6	Fiction	Doherty, Berlie	The Snake-Stone	An adopted boy sets off in search of the mother who gave him up at birth.
Primary 6	Fiction	Doyle, Brian	Uncle Ronald	A very old man recalls the year he and his mother fled his violent father.
Primary 6	Fiction	Dorris, Michael	Morning Girl	A native family strives to live in harmony with their world on the eve of Columbus’s arrival.
Primary 6	Fiction	Fisk, Pauline	Midnight Blue	A girl escapes in a magic hot-air balloon to a world beyond the sky.
Primary 6	Fiction	Garner, Alan	The Owl Service	Three teenagers are drawn into the replay of a tragic Welsh legend.
Primary 6	Fiction	George, Jean Craighead	Julie of the Wolves	An Inuit girl lost on the tundra survives with the help of a wolf pack.
Primary 6	Fiction	Allen, Paula Gunn	Spider Woman’s Granddaughters	A collection of traditional and modern stories by Native American women.
Primary 6	Fiction	Keith, Harold	Rifles for Watie	A young Union soldier sent to spy on the enemy discovers they are men much like himself.
Primary 6	Fiction	Henkes, Kevin	Olive’s Ocean	A girl cannot stop thinking about a former classmate after a tragic accident.
Primary 6	Fiction	Holm, Anne	I Am David	A boy escapes a concentration camp and journeys alone across Europe.
Primary 6	Fiction	Innocenti, Roberto	Rose Blanche	A German girl secretly brings food to children imprisoned behind barbed wire.
Primary 6	Fiction	Jerome, Jerome K.	Three Men in a Boat	The comic misadventures of three friends and a dog boating on the Thames.
Primary 6	Fiction	Kadohata, Cynthia	A Million Shades of Gray	A boy and his elephant flee into the jungle as the Vietnam War reaches his village.
Primary 6	Fiction	Kim, Hyejin	Jia: A Novel of North Korea	An orphaned young woman flees her village and carves a path through hardship and exile.
Primary 6	Fiction	L’Engle, Madeleine	A Swiftly Tilting Planet	A boy travels through time to prevent the world’s destruction by a mad dictator.
Primary 6	Fiction	Lasky, Kathryn	Ashes	A girl’s love of books and her ordinary life are threatened as Hitler rises to power.
Primary 6	Fiction	Lively, Penelope	The Ghost of Thomas Kempe	A boy is blamed for the mischief of a long-dead apothecary’s ghost.
Primary 6	Fiction	Lovelace, Maud Hart	Betsy in Spite of Herself	A high-school girl tries to reinvent herself to impress a boy.
Primary 6	Fiction	Lovelace, Maud Hart	Heaven to Betsy	A girl relishes her freshman year of new friends, old friends, and boys.
Primary 6	Fiction	Lowry, Lois	Number the Stars	A Danish girl helps her family shelter her Jewish friend from the Nazis.
Primary 6	Fiction	MacGill, Sheila	The Children of Lir	A retelling of the Irish legend of children turned into swans by a jealous queen.
Primary 6	Fiction	Nelson, Marilyn	Carver: A Life in Poems	A portrait in verse of the botanist and inventor George Washington Carver.
Primary 6	Fiction	McKay, Hilary	The Exiles in Love	Four sisters fall hopelessly, hilariously, in and out of love.
Primary 6	Fiction	McKinley, Robin	The Hero and the Crown	A king’s overlooked daughter grows into the hero destined to wield the Blue Sword.
Primary 6	Fiction	McKillip, Patricia	The Forgotten Beasts of Eld	A young wizard-woman raising a royal child is drawn into a world of love and revenge.
Primary 6	Fiction	Naidoo, Beverley	The Other Side of Truth	A brother and sister flee Nigeria and struggle as refugees in London.
Primary 6	Fiction	Palacio, R.J.	Wonder	A boy born with a facial difference starts mainstream school and longs to be accepted.
Primary 6	Fiction	Paterson, Katherine	Lyddie	A determined mill girl weighs her dream against the cost of speaking up for better conditions.
Primary 6	Fiction	Paulsen, Gary	Brian’s Winter	An imagined sequel in which the boy of Hatchet must survive the wilderness winter.
Primary 6	Fiction	Peck, Richard E.	Something for Joey	The true story of a footballer and his younger brother’s battle with leukaemia.
Primary 6	Fiction	Peck, Richard E.	A Year Down Yonder	A girl sent to live with her sharp-tongued grandmother has a year of hilarious adventures.
Primary 6	Fiction	Potok, Chaim	The Chosen	Two Jewish boys from very different traditions form a deep and testing friendship.
Primary 6	Fiction	Potok, Chaim	The Promise	A young man studying to be a rabbi challenges his teachers and helps a troubled boy.
Primary 6	Fiction	Richter, Conrad	The Light in the Forest	A boy raised by the Lenni Lenape is forced back to the white family he cannot accept.
Primary 6	Fiction	Rostkowski, Margaret	The Best of Friends	Three teenage friends struggle as the Vietnam War reaches into their lives.
Primary 6	Fiction	Rylant, Cynthia	Missing May	A grieving girl and her uncle set out to find a sign from her beloved late aunt.
Primary 6	Fiction	Seredy, Kate	The White Stag	The epic legend of the tribes who followed a white stag to their promised homeland.
Primary 6	Fiction	Sleator, William	Blackbriar	A boy senses something sinister about his isolated new home and its dark past.
Primary 6	Fiction	Speare, Elizabeth George	The Witch of Blackbird Pond	A girl in colonial Connecticut is drawn to a lonely woman accused of witchcraft.
Primary 6	Fiction	Staples, Suzanne Fisher	Shabanu, Daughter of the Wind	A spirited desert girl in Pakistan is asked to sacrifice her dreams for her family’s honour.
Primary 6	Fiction	Taylor, Mildred D.	Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry	A Black family in Depression-era Mississippi holds on to its land and dignity amid racism.
Primary 6	Fiction	Turner, Megan Whalen	The Thief	A boastful young thief is sent to steal a priceless magical jewel.
Primary 6	Fiction	Wolff, Virginia Euwer	The Mozart Season	The youngest contestant in a violin competition learns to find the music within herself.
Primary 6	Fiction	Woodson, Jacqueline	Last Summer with Maizon	A girl faces her father’s death and her best friend leaving in the same summer.
Primary 6	Fiction	Woodson, Jacqueline	Maizon at Blue Hill	A girl on scholarship at a boarding school wonders whether she truly belongs.
Primary 6	Fiction	Yolen, Jane	The Devil’s Arithmetic	A girl is transported into the past and the horrors of the Holocaust.
Primary 6	Fiction	Zusak, Markus	The Book Thief	In Nazi Germany, a foster girl steals books and shares them, as Death looks on.

How to use this booklist

Although the recommendations were originally intended for high-ability students, there's nothing exclusive about the books themselves. Any child who enjoys reading can pick them up, at their own pace, whatever level they're at.

You may not recognise more than a handful of these authors, and 250+ titles is a lot to take in at once. Here's how to get from the full list to the right book for your child.

Narrow it down with the filters. Choose your child's level, and filter by a genre that they already lean towards.

Let the synopses do the work. Read through the shortlist and mark two or three titles that may appeal to your child.

Anchor on something familiar. Titles such as Charlotte's Web, Matilda, Wonder, and Anne of Green Gables are widely loved and easy to borrow. These may be a gentler first choice than a complete unknown title.

For a book that seems more difficult, try reading while listening. Letting your child follow the printed text while an audiobook plays is a strong way into a text that they might find hard. A study of eight- and nine-year-olds found that reading while listening supports vocabulary and word learning better than reading or listening on its own. You can find audiobook titles through the National Library Board.

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