At Geek School Tutoring, we are often asked to recommend books that are popular with children and have a good literary content. In year 6, children have often read all the classics in preparedness for the 11 Plus or SATs tests. So, this reading list is mainly to ensure they keep up their reading, and to also give them exposure to more genres, in readiness for secondary school.
The list is order of the authors, not in pririty order, so please choose.
| Watership Down | Richard Adams |
| The James III Sequence | Joan Aiken |
| * Skellig * Kit’s Wilderness |
David Almond |
| Playing on the Edge | Neil Arksey |
| Kelp | Linda Aronson |
| * Little Soldier * Rapid |
Bernard Ashley |
| What’s Your Problem? | Sherry Ashworth |
| Amistad Junior Novelization | Joyce Annette Barnes |
| Squashed | Joan Bauer |
| * Carrie’s War * The Outside Child * The Real Plato Jones |
Nina Bawden |
| Song of Be | Leslie Beake |
| Hacker | Malorie Blackman |
| The Memory Prisoner | Thomas Bloor |
| Are you there God? It’s Me, Margaret | Judy Blume |
| Music on the Bamboo Radio | Martin Booth |
| * River Boy * Midget |
Tim Bowler |
| The Chalet School Series | Elinor M Brent-Dyer |
| * Billy Elliot * Junk * The Baby and Fly Pie |
Melvin Burgess |
| * The Pinballs * Cracker Jackson * The Summer of the Swans |
Betsy Byars |
| The Big Bazoohley | Peter Carey |
| Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland | Lewis Carroll |
| The Puffin Father Brown Stories | G K Chesterton |
| And then there were none | Agatha Christie |
| The Guardians | John Christopher |
| Worm Songs | Ann Coburn |
| The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle |
| * The Dark is Rising Sequence * The Boggart |
Susan Cooper |
| Bully | Yvonne Coppard |
| * The Wanderer * Walk Two Moons * Chasing Redbird |
Sharon Creech |
| Moondial | Helen Cresswell |
| Wolf | Gillian Cross |
| Beowulf | Kevin Crossley-Holland |
| Angels Unlimited | Annie Dalton |
| Tangled Webs | Nicola Davies |
| Robinson Crusoe | Daniel Defoe |
| The Village By The Sea | Anita Desai |
| A Christmas Carol | Charles Dickens |
| * Granny was a Buffer Girl * A Parcel of Patterns * Children of Winter |
Berlie Doherty |
| My Favourite Animal Stories | Gerald Durell |
| The Breadwinner | Deborah Ellis |
| * Up on Cloud Nine * The Tulip Touch |
Anne Fine |
| * The Empty Hand * The Snow-Walker Sequence |
Catherine Fisher |
| * A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair * Grinny * Trillions |
Nicholas Fisk |
| The Diary of a Young Girl | Anne Frank |
| Hitler’s Daughter | Jackie French |
| * Jennie * The Snow Goose |
Paul Gallico |
| * Black Jack * The December Rose |
Leon Garfield |
| The Weirdstone of Brisingamen | Alan Garner |
| August ‘44 | Carlo Gebler |
| * Julie and the Wolves * My Side of the Mountain |
Jean Craighead George |
| A Candle in the Dark | Adèle Geras |
| The Friends | Rosa Guy |
| The Wool-Pack | Cynthia Harnett |
| Way Home | Libby Hathorn |
| The Endless Steppe | Esther Hautzig |
| The Day They Came To Arrest the Book | Nat Hentoff |
| Antonio S and the Mystery of Theodore Guzman | Odo Hirsch |
| I am David | Anne Holm |
| Everything on a Waffle | Polly Horvath |
| * Badge on the Barge * Martin Farrell |
Janni Howker |
| The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawn | Norman Hunter |
| The Redwall Series | Brian Jacques |
| * The Deptford Mice Trilogy * The Whitby Witches |
Robin Jarvis |
| Eye to Eye | Catherine Jinks |
| Dreaming in Black & White, translated by Anthea Bell | Reinhardt Jung |
| Emil and the Detectives | Erich Kastner |
| The Divide | Elizabeth Kay |
| The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler | Gene Kemp |
| The Crowstarver | Dick King-Smith |
| A Wrinkle in Time | Madeline L’Engle |
| * Secret Friends * Kiss the Dust |
Elizabeth Laird |
| Tales FromSkakespeare | Charles & Mary Lamb |
| The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe | C.S. Lewis |
| The Guilty Party | Joan Lingard |
| The Ghost of Thomas Kempe | Penelope Lively |
| * Back Home *Goodnight Mr Tom |
Michelle Magorian |
| * The Ghost of Thomas Kemp * The Haunting |
Margaret Mahy |
| Stratford Boys | Jan Mark |
| The Box of Delights | John Masefield |
| Cuddy | William Mayne |
| Gold Dust | Geraldine McCaughrean |
| Allys World: The Past, the Present and the Loud Loud Girl | Karen McCombie |
| The Daydreamer | Ian McEwan |
| Anne of Green Gables | L M Montgomery |
| * Out of the Ashes From Hereabout Hill |
Michael Morpurgo |
| The Other Side of Truth | Beverley Naidoo |
| The Goalkeeper’s Revenge | Bill Naughton |
| Blitz Boys | Linda Newbery |
| * Griffin’s Castle * The Snow Spider |
Jenny Nimmo |
| The Borrowers | Mary Norton |
| The Highwayman | Alfred Noyles |
| Z for Zachariah | Robert C O’Brien |
| So Far From Skye | Judith O’Neill |
| The Hounds of the Morrigan | Pat O’Shea |
| The Silverwing Saga | Kenneth Oppel |
| Playing Beatie Bow | Ruth Park |
| * Bridge to Terabithia *Jacob Have I Loved |
Katherine Paterson |
| * The Dolphin Crossing * Fireweed |
Jill Paton-Walsh |
| Hatchet | Gary Paulsen |
| * Fall-Out * The Final Journey |
Gudrun Pausewang |
| * Minnow on the Say * The Way To Sattin Shore * Tom’s Midnight Garden |
Philippa Pearce |
| The Ghost Drum | Susan Price |
| Cannibal Adventure | Willard Price |
| Northern Lights | Philip Pullman |
| Paddlefeet | Christine Purkis |
| Swallows and Amazons | Arthur Ransome |
| The Wave | Morton Rhue |
| * Friedrich * I Was There |
Hans-Peter Richter |
| * Zinderzunder * Krindlekrax * Scribbleboy |
Philip Ridley |
| The Prisoner | James Riordan |
| The Great Pyramid Robbery | Katherine Roberts |
| * Floodland * The Dark House |
Marcus Sedgwick |
| Silver Sword | lain Serrailier |
| Treasure Island | Robert Louis Stevenson |
| The Ratastrophe Catastrophe | David Lee Stone |
| * Sword Song * The Mark of the Horse Lord * Beowulf: Dragon Slayer * The Eagle of the Ninth * The Silver Branch * The Witch’s Brat |
Rosemary Sutcliff |
| * Hurricane Summer * Abomination * Brother in the Land * Daz 4 Zoe * Room 13 * Smash * Stone Cold * Unbeliever |
Robert Swindells |
| * Let The Circle Be Unbroken * Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry * The Road To Memphis |
Mildred D Taylor |
| The Lady of Shallot | Alfred Lord Tennyson |
| * Hideaway * The Runaways |
Ruth Thomas |
| The Paradise Garden | Colin Thompson |
| Lark Rise To Candleford | Flora Thompson |
| Switchers | Kate Thompson |
| The Hobbit | J R R Tolkien |
| * Child of the May * The Cellar Lad * The Herring Girls |
Theresa Tomlinson |
| Cue for Treason | Geoffrey Trease |
| The Adventures of Tom Sawyer | Mark Twain |
| Around the World in 80 Days | Jules Verne |
| The Menyms | Sylvia Waugh |
| * Dragonlance Chronicles * Dragonlance Tales |
Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman |
| * Blitz Cat * The Machine Gunners * The Scarecrows |
Robert Westall |
| Tarka the Otter | Henry Williamson |
| * Black Maria * The Time of the Ghost |
Diana Wynne Jones |
| Chinese Cinderella | Adeline Yen Mah |
