Nonfiction biography books for 5th graders

But the inspiring biographies below will have your upper elementary students begging for more!

Autobiography for 6th graders

When students are looking for a new book to read, I go to the shelves and hand pick a stack of books for them to peruse. This strategy works because it is built on choice and trust. They get to choose what to read. Full disclosure, I first learned it from the The Book Whisperer and then made it my own with some tweaking. Donalyn Miller has some great strategies to get kids reading.

You can check her out here. This really happened? This story is like, for real? This is the truth: no matter who we are or how old we are, we are always looking for someone to light the way forward on this dark road called life. Even the most jaded of students have the propensity to be inspired by the stories of people who have survived and thrived.

When we see how other people navigate the not insubstantial bumps in their personal roads it gives us hope.