Parents? Teachers? TOP FIVE books for kids in grade school

My youngest sister is finishing a degree in Elementary Ed and will begin teaching (as a sub or assistant to start) next spring.

I'd like to begin building up a graduation/New Year's gift for her of a huge bunch of children's books for her personal library... which means I need some mooching suggestions!!

So if you have (or have taught, or tutored, or babysat etc) kids of grade school age, what are the TOP FIVE books you'd recommend? I need suggestions of three types:

1. stories she could read aloud in a single sitting
2. stories she could connect to lessons in history, science, civics, culture...
3. artsy stories that she could use as a springboard for in-class craft projects

I would REALLY appreciate your suggestions, whether or not they're in your inventory. I plan to mooch and wishlist as much as possible so that I can give my sister a great big bag of books by the end of this year... Thanks!!

Elizabeth ('fullmoonblue')
http://bookmooch.com/m/bio/fullmoonblue

Some old favourites:

fox in socks (GREAT for reading out loud)
but no elephants
henry's awful mistake
where the wild things are
amelia bedelia (series)
christina katerina and the box
august explains
just-so stories
katy no-pocket

I'm not sure what you mean by "grade school age" (grade one? grade eight? that's a big range!) but those are suited for fairly youngish readers... all beloved from my childhood and still read on occasion!

Tacky the Penguin is a great one for reading aloud! It also has the theme of being true to yourself against peer pressure. I love that book :-)

I'd need grades, or at least a range of grades to do this right.
As everyone else has done the younger grades, I'll do Middle Grades - although I really know 6-8 best. Although only the Search for Delicious could be read in a single sitting. There really aren't any books you could do in a single sitting for this age group. Maybe some short stories that could work, though - or parts of these books.
4-6
The Tale of Despereaux
Tuck Everlasting or The Search for Delicious Meaning of words
Masterpiece Art
The Lightning Thief Greek Mythology
the Phantom Tollbooth Words/meaning/rhymes

Let me add two to the younger grades:
Click Clack Moo; Cows that Type writing and bartering tie-in
If you give a Mouse a Cookie or any of the sequels What If story tie-in

I have a kindergartner and a third grader. Here are some all time favorites--

The Skippyjon Jones series are good for reading aloud.

Enrico Starts School was my son's favorite book for his first few months of school.

Beverly Cleary's Ramona series is great for both reading aloud and for a second-third grade level chapter book. Chapters are quite long, however.

The Stinky Cheese Man and others by Jon Scieszka are fun retellings of fairy tales.

The Incredible Book Eating Boy is humorous and fantastically designed.

And, finally, the Junie B. Jones series by Barbara Park are favorites of everyone.

Thank you for all of the suggestions so far!!

She isn't sure exactly what grade she'll be teaching in the spring, just that it'll be between grades 1 and 5... so anything up to ten years old or so would work for the gift I'm putting together! She wants to be prepared for anything up to middle school, just in case.

I've already gotten her a copy of A House for Hermit Crab by Eric Carle for the younger ones, and Dr Desoto the Mouse Dentist for grade 3 or so...

I'm looking forward to checking out the others...! Please keep the suggestions coming! :)

Louis Sachar's Wayside School series!

My childhood favourites and I recently mooched them for nostalgia's sakes. They are a bunch of short stories so they should be able to be read in bite-sized portions.

7 -- wow! I had completely forgotten Wayside School, but you're right! I remember loving the first one... Will have to mooch a copy for my sister *and* one for myself. :)

My five favorite books to read aloud to K-3's (in part because they let you have fun with language/voices/rhyming . . . they very definitely lend themselves to "performance" and practicing beforehand)

17 Kings and 42 Elephants by Margaret Mahy
Wombat Stew by Marcia Vaughn
Tangle Town or Slow Train to Oxmox by Kurt Cyrus
Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss
Burt Dow, Deep Water Man by Robert McCloskey

Honorable mention:

Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin

Here is an Amazon Listmania list that I made a long time ago: http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/syltguides/fullview/2CT0IPET3J5CA/ref=cm_pdp_sy...

I'll try to flesh it out a bit more when I have a little time... but basically:

1. Any Leo Lionni for instance Fish is Fish and Swimmy. (quite young)
2. Amos & Boris by William Steig (quite young)
3. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster (older)
4. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle (older)
5. The Thirteen Clocks by James Thurber (older)

Here is a wide age range selection...

Miss Know-it-All and Miss Know it All Returns by Carol Beach York

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett

Anything by Shel Silverstein or Roald Dahl, in particular Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Giving Tree.

The Giant Jam Sandwich by John Vernon Lord

Gregory the Terrible Eater by Mitchell Sharmat

Encyclopedia Brown series by Donald J. Sobol

Cam Jansen and Young Cam Jansen series by David A. Adler

Just some of my favorites. Enjoy!

PS, Sorry, forgot it was supposed to be top 5.

I purchase textbooks for the visually impaired in our state.

Here are some of the popular ones this year:

Wanted Dead or Alive: The Story of Harriet Tubman by Ann McGovern (grades 2-3)

Wilbur & Orville Wright, Flight to Adventure by Louis Sabin

biographies about Pocahantas and Helen Keller

Finding the Titanic by Robert D. Ballard

Any of the Magic Tree House books by Mary Pope Osborne

Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney and sequel Rodrick Rules (best seller paperback list)

Last year we did a bunch of books by Debbie Dadey. The titles include ones like:
Santa Claus Doesn't Mop Floors
Ghosts Don't Eat Potato Chips

One ofr art, shapes and colors is My Crayons Talk by Patricia Hubbard

An old favorite when I was teaching: Miss Nelson is Missing

For a timely (Halloween) read-aloud, I recommend Shake Dem Halloween Bones. It's very rhythmic and fun.

A good children's history connection is So You Want to Be President?

A fun artsy classic is Purple Green and Yellow.

In K-5, my students always liked The Funny Little Woman, which is Chinese in origin.

For her, (if she doesn't already have it): The First Days of School is indispensable.

I also second the recommendation for Shel Silverstein, because poetry is often skipped in a classroom library. If you get the 25th Anniversary edition, there's a CD in it with Shel singing, playing guitar, and reading his poems, too!