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Book report template for 5th grade
What a 5th grade report usually shows
- Title, author, genre and year
- A summary
- Character traits, each with evidence
- The theme and the part that shows it
- One choice the author made
- A recommendation
The outline
- Introduction: title, author, genre, year
- Summary
- Character traits with evidence
- Theme and the author's choice
- Recommendation
Teachers differ, so a class's own instructions come first. This frame covers what most ask for at this age (10 to 11).
🦉 Book report · 5th gradeName ____________ Date ________
Title, author, genre and year
SummaryThe whole story, in your own words.
Character traitsTwo traits of the main character, with a detail from the book for each.
ThemeThe message in one sentence, and the part that shows it.
The author's choiceOne thing the author did on purpose: a repeated line, a surprise, who tells it.
RecommendationWho should read it, and why?
Peabody's Book Club · peabody.kids/book-club · free, no account
A worked example: The Emperor's New Clothes
- Title, author, genre and year
- The Emperor's New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen, a fairy tale first published in Copenhagen in 1837, retold by Peabody.
- Summary
- Two tricksters tell a vain Emperor they can weave magic cloth that fools cannot see. They weave nothing at all. The Emperor and his ministers pretend to see it, because nobody wants to look foolish. The Emperor parades through the town in his new clothes, and a small child says out loud that he has nothing on.
- Character traits
- Vain: the Emperor loves new clothes more than anything. Afraid of looking foolish: he pretends to see cloth that is not there rather than say so.
- Theme
- It takes courage to say what is true. The child shows it by saying out loud what everyone else is only thinking.
- The author's choice
- Andersen makes a small child the only one who tells the truth, so all the grown-ups look sillier than the child.
- Recommendation
- Readers 9 and up who like funny stories with a point. People still say "the emperor has no clothes" today, so it is worth knowing where it comes from.
The review version
Shorter, and opinion first: for a book a child chose themselves, or a quick check after a club meeting.
🦉 Book review · 5th gradeName ____________ Date ________
RatingStars out of 5, and one word for the book.
The best thing about itWhat made you want to keep reading?
One thing I would changeIf you were the author, what would you do differently?
Who should read itFinish the sentence: Read this if you like…
Peabody's Book Club · peabody.kids/book-club · free, no account
For the grown-up helping
The theme is a sentence about people, not about this story: not "the Emperor is tricked" but "it takes courage to say what is true".
Need a book at the right level first? Books for level 9, or the levels index.