be read to 5th graders?" That is the Google search that brought someone to my blog site. My first thought was that they were wondering if it's too hard or too long for them--it takes a while to read it aloud. But they may have meant that they wondered if it was okay to read a picture book to "big" kids. Actually, you're never too old for picture books! When I was a school librarian, I read Wild About Books
(see my post about it, below) to all the students, from grades K through 5, and they all loved it! I have read such books as The Little Ships: The Heroic Rescue at Dunkirk in World War II
and The Christmas Menorahs: How a Town Fought Hate 
to 4th and 5th graders, and the length of the books and the ideas in them were certainly not beneath the students. Even the simplest picture books can be enjoyed by older kids: I read Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!
to older kids when I shared all the Caldecott medal winning books with all the students, and I read it again to 5th grade when they were learning about persuasive writing in class!There are a few of the simplest picture books, really meant for infants and toddlers, that might not do for older kids, but there are many picture books that are perfect for them!
Jim Trelease says in The Read-Aloud Handbook: Sixth Edition
(you need this book!) "A good story is a good story, whether it has pictures or not. All those pictures in museums don't have a lot of words under them but they still move us, right?" He goes on to say "I remember talking with a remedial class of ninth-graders in California one day. Of the twenty-one students, not one had ever heard of the Pied Piper, none had heard of the Wright brothers, and only two had heard of David and Goliath. Their mainstream cultural references were a bit shallow and ripe for planting"He goes on to recommend Johnny on the Spot
by Edward Sorel, The Man Who Walked Between The Towers
by Mordicai Gerstein, and An Orange for Frankie
by Patricia Polacco for older students.
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