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Star Suggests: Books for a 3rd Grader to Read

Star learned to read pretty quickly and easily but over the past year, she’s REALLY caught the reading bug and spends hours reading after school or before bed.

She loves reading the series that her older sisters introduce her to and then she and her friends read them and talk endlessly about them. It’s basically the cutest thing.

Here are some books she’s loved recently.

books for a 3rd grader to read

Books for a 3rd Grader to read

Keeper of the Lost CitiesKeeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger
512 pages
This has been THE book series for our family over the last year (I’m still on book 4, but everyone else has plowed through every single book). Sophie doesn’t fit in at school or in her family, in part because she can read minds. Then she meets a boy who has the same powers she does and it turns out there are a lot of secrets about herself and the world around her that she doesn’t know. But she’s going to find out pretty quickly!

What Star has to say: It’s fun to read because it can challenge me more since it’s a little harder and I really like it because it’s funny and you get to know a lot of the characters well. I like that there is magic because I like magic. 

Land of StoriesThe Land of Stories by Chris Colfer
454 pages
Ella blazed through this entire series when she was this same age and it’s fun to see Star fall in love with it now. Alex and Conner, sister-brother twins, open up a beloved book of stories only to find themselves sucked into the book. In a mysterious land where magic runs rampant, they find themselves interacting with fairy tale characters they’ve heard about all their lives. The real question is. . . can they ever get home?

What Star has to say: I love that there are twins as the main characters. I loved meeting all the regular fairy tale characters but that they’re different from the original stories. Goldilocks is a robber! Little Red Riding Hood is a queen! If you like longer books and funny books, this series is for you. 

 

best read-aloud booksNanny Piggins by R. A. Spratt
251 pages
I picked this up for Ella years ago on a whim at the library and she loved it so much that as soon as she finished, she told me I HAD to read it. Now this hilarious series is a beloved family favorite and I’ve read multiple of the books in the series aloud and we own all the books on Audible.  When the current nanny quits, the Green children require a new one and their ultra-cheap father hires a pig because, well, pigs charge a lot less than regular nannies. Of course, the children are insanely obsessed with their sugar-loving nanny and the high-jinks that follow are laugh-out-loud funny.

What Star has to say: It’s really funny and I like that it’s a bunch of separate stories about Nanny Piggins but it still comes back to some of the original storylines again and again. And I love that she eats a lot of chocolate. At the end of most of the books there is a recipe for a different dessert. 

 

false prince bookThe False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielsen
357 pages
I read this more than a decade ago and LOVED it (in fact, it’s a pick for Everyday Reading Book Club this summer!), and I got my whole family hooked on it – Bart listened to it, Ani blew through the whole series on audio and Star inhaled the whole series as well. This book is takes place in a kingdom on the brink of civil war. A nobleman decides to find an impersonator for the long-lost prince and put him on the throne as a puppet, so he recruits four orphans to compete to play the lost prince.

What Star has to say: It’s a little bit of a mystery and it’s fun to make predictions about what is going to happen. I really liked the characters, especially because you get to know them over lots of books. It’s kind of scary because there is a murderer but not too scary for me. 

 

Mrs. Piggle WiggleMrs. Piggle Wiggle by Betty MacDonald
128 pages
I grew up on Mrs. Piggle Wiggle and my kids have been fans since their earliest audiobook days. These are total comfort listens for my kids and they love these stories of Mrs. Piggle Wiggle’s unconventional cures for childhood misbehavior.

What Star has to say: I really like Mrs. Piggle Wiggle because it talks a lot about children and because it’s funny. I like that the books have pictures too. And I love that Mrs. Piggle Wiggle has a lot of pets. 

 

And if you’d like a printable copy of this 3rd grade book list that you can take to your library or screenshot on your phone for easy access, just pop in your email address below and it’ll come right to your inbox!

see the previous star suggests posts here!

 

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