Grades 3 & 4

Unless otherwise noted, all books may be found in the juvenile fiction section under the author’s last name.

FRIENDS & FAMILY
The Penderwicks / Jeanne Birdsall
Four loving sisters have a memorable summer.

Bink & Gollie / Kate DiCamillo
Two roller-skating best friends–one tiny, one tall–share three comical adventures.

The Dunderheads / Paul Fleischman
When Miss Breakbone confiscates Junkyard’s crucial find, the Dunderheads plot to teach her a lesson.

Sadie and Ratz / Sonya Hartnett
Hannah and her hands, named Sadie and Ratz, regularly get into trouble, especially when her brother is around.

Stink and the Great Guinea Pig Express / Megan McDonald
Stink and his friends try to give away 101 guinea pigs rescued from a laboratory.

Secret Letters from 0 to 10 / Susie Morgenstern
Ernest’s boring life is enlivened when a spunky girl named Victory enters his class.

The Moffats / Eleanor Estes
The adventures of four Connecticut children.

Sarah, Plain and Tall / Patricia MacLachlan
Siblings want their father’s mail order bride to stay.

The Good Master / Kate Seredy
A Hungarian farm family is visited by their city cousin.

Younguncle Comes to Town / Vandana Singh
Younguncle brings fun to his three nieces and nephews in Northern India.

The Adventures of Nanny Piggins / R.A. Spratt
A  widower hires a glamorous ex-circus pig who knows nothing about children to be his children’s nanny.

Like Pickle Juice on a Cookie / Julie Sternberg
When nine-year-old Eleanor’s beloved babysitter Bibi moves away, Eleanor spends the summer adjusting to a new babysitter while still missing her old one.

FUNNY STORIES
The No. 1 Car Spotter / Atinuke (j pb A)
When the cart breaks down and the villagers can’t get their goods to market, Oluwalase Babatunde Benson, otherwise known as the No. 1 car spotter in his village, comes up with a brilliant solution.

Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing / Judy Blume
Peter’s little brother, Fudge, is never far from trouble.

The BFG / Roald Dahl
Sophie concocts a plan to save the Big Friendly Giant.

Babymouse: Queen of the World! / Jennifer Holm (j GRAPHIC BABYMOUSE)
An imaginative mouse dreams of being queen of the world. One of a series.

Melonhead / Katy Kelly
Adam “Melonhead” Melon, a budding inventor with a knack for getting into trouble, enters a science contest.

The Princess Test / Gail Carson Levine
Humorous retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Princess and the Pea.”

Alvin Ho: Allergic to Birthday Parties, Science Projects, and Other Man-Made Catastrophes / Lenore Look
A young Chinese boy who loves superheroes tries to overcome his fear of everything.

How to Eat Fried Worms / Thomas Rockwell
Billy must eat 15 worms or lose a bet.

Clementine, Friend of the Week / Sara Pennypacker
It’s Clementine’s turn to be “Friend of the Week” when she gets to be line leader and feed the fish.

Sideways Stories from Wayside School / Louis Sachar
Humorous stories from a class in Wayside School.

Math Curse / Jon Scieszka
One day everything is a math problem.

ANIMAL STORIES
Poppy / Avi
A deer mouse tries to persuade her family to move, but an owl has other plans for them.

Chicken Feathers / Joy Cowley
Josh has a pet chicken who talks, but only to him.

Hurry Home, Candy / Meindert DeJong
A dog is accidentally left behind during a family outing.

Because of Winn-Dixie / Kate DiCamillo
Good things happen to a ten year-old girl because of her big ugly dog Winn-Dixie.

The Mousewife / Rumer Godden
Story of a devoted mouse and a dove.

Runaway Radish / Jessie Haas
Radish the pony grows too big for the girls who own him, but then finds another nice life at a horse camp.

Catwings / Ursula LeGuin
Four cats are born with wings.

Marty McGuire Digs Worms! / Kate Messner
Marty builds a habitat for worms in her school cafeteria as part of the Save the Earth Project.

Calvin Coconut: Dog Heaven / Graham Salisbury
Fourth-grader Calvin wants a dog more than anything in the world.

Lulu and the Brontosaurus / Judith Viorst
When Lulu’s parents don’t give her a brontosaurus for her birthday, she sets out to find her own.

Stories about Rosie / Cynthia Voigt
The daily life of Rosie, a dog.

TRUE STORIES
Lizards / Nic Bishop (j 597.95 Bis)
Fun facts about lizards are paired with full-page images by an award-winning photographer.

Ask Dr. K. Fisher About Dinosaurs / Claire Llewellyn (j 567.9 Lle)
When dinosaurs ask Dr. Fisher about their concerns, his witty replies include lots of prehistoric facts.

Owen and Mzee / Isabella Hatkoff (j 599.635 Hat)
Meet two unlikely friends: an orphaned baby hippo and a giant 130-year old tortoise.

You Wouldn’t Want to be a Medieval Knight!: Armor You’d Rather Not Wear / Fiona Macdonald (j 940.1 Mac)
The real story about the life of knights.

Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night / Joyce Sidman (j 811 Sid)
Poems that celebrate the wonder, mystery, and danger of the night and describe the many things that hide in the dark.

Balloons over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade / Melissa Sweet (j 92S SARG Swe)
Story of the puppeteer Tony Sarg, who inspired helium balloons that would become the trademark of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Roberto Clemente / Jonah Winter (j 92C CLEMENTE Win)
The life of the legendary Pittsburgh Pirate.

MYSTERIES & ADVENTURES
The Trouble with Chickens: A J.J. Tully Mystery / Doreen Cronin
A hard-bitten former search-and-rescue dog helps solve a complicated missing chicken case.

The Courage of Sarah Noble / Alice Dalgliesh
True story of a brave little girl in colonial America.

Half Magic / Edward Eager
Four children find that wishes made on an ancient coin only come half-true.

The Secret of Platform 13 / Eva Ibbotson
Three unlikely companions travel through a magic tunnel to rescue the king’s stolen son.

Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat / Lynne Jonell
Emmy discovers that she and her parents are being drugged with rodent potions by their evil nanny.

Starry River of the Sky / Grace Lin
An innkeeper’s chore boy discovers that a visitor’s stories hold the key to returning the moon to the sky.

The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester / Barbara O’Connor
Three friends find a valuable mechanical treasure that fell from a passing train.

Riding Freedom / Pam Munoz Ryan
The adventure-filled story of a girl who posed as a boy and fooled everyone.

The Mysterious Howling / Maryrose Wood
A governess finds herself in charge of three young children who have been raised by wolves.

OUR FAVORITES
Twenty and Ten / Claire Bishop
Twenty fifth graders hide ten children from the Nazis.

Violet Mackerel’s Brilliant Plot / Anna Branford
A creative seven-year-old girl devises an imaginative plan to get a blue china bird that she desperately wants.

Love That Dog / Sharon Creech
A boy writes a poem about an event close to him.

14 Cows for America / Carmen Agra Deedy (j Ea DEEDY)
Maasai tribal members present the American people with 14 sacred cows as a healing gift after the September 11th attacks.

The Whipping Boy / Sid Fleischman
A prince and his whipping boy meet some outlaws.

Stone Fox / John Reynolds Gardiner
A boy enters an important dog sled race.

The Year of the Dog: A Novel / Grace Lin
A young Taiwanese American girl sets out to apply the lessons of the Chinese Year of the Dog to her own life.

Word After Word After Word / Patricia MacLachlan
An author teaches five friends about the power of words.

Twelve Kinds of Ice / Ellen Bryan Obed
The 12 different kinds of ice that surround the days of a loving family’s Maine winter.

Many Moons / James Thurber
A princess wants the moon.

POETRY
Water Sings Blue: Ocean Poems / Kate Coombs (j 811 Coo)

Tap Dancing on the Roof: Sijo (Poems) / Linda Sue Park (j 811 Par)

Guyku: A Year of Haiku for Boys / Bob Raczka (j Ea RACZKA)

Suggestions from the Mt. Lebanon Public Library Children’s Department
Updated February 2013