The common wisdom to draw in middle grade readers is to excite them, and focus on their interests. This means keeping up with trends and having one's finger on the pulse of pop culture. The common wisdom is true and important, but the trouble is, it's dismissive of many classic books. Reading an oldie but goodie can be a good idea. Many new teachers fear that focusing on older books is out of touch and even self-centered, but done right I feel the opposite is true.
Students have a right to keep up with the trends of their peers, but that can mean they wind up with a narrow focus.
A couple of months ago, at my other library, the fifth graders were getting restless. There were five minutes left of class, and the work was complete. It was that awful span of time which is too short to do something, but too long to do nothing. So out of sheer panic I pulled out Robert C. O'Brien's Mrs. Frisby and The Rats of NIMH. We had been working on fantasy and non-fiction anyway, but I assumed they wouldn't like the book. Agriculture and forest life aren't part of their world, they've outgrown anthropomorphic animals, and the writing was slightly old fashioned.
They were rapt. I couldn't believe how still and quiet they became. It was so successful that I continued reading it to them and another fifth grade class. Why did they like this dusty old book so much? It has a good, exciting plot, which transcends pratically everything else. So never assume that students don't want their horizons broadened, or that they can't appreciate something from the past.
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