Read This Book! Recommended Reading for 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders 

The Secret Life of a Boarding School Brat by Amy Gordon

Lydia Rice absolutely cannot stand the Florence T. Pocket boarding school. Homesick for her mother, grieving for her grandmother, and feeling unwanted by all, Lydia prowls the halls during her sleepless nights and wreaks havoc during the day. But after she meets Howie, the night watchman and self-proclaimed Silly Wizard, life begins to get a lot less boring. When Howie gives her the wizardly task of discovering a long-forgotten Pocket School secret, Lydia not only turns the school on its head, but uncovers some revelations about her own family.

I enjoyed this story, told in diary form, because Lydia is such a funny and vivacious girl. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to be a young girl living in a boarding school in 1965 but I have a feeling that this story hits it right on the head!

For more stories that take place in boarding schools, don’t miss The Dragonfly Pool by Eva Ibbotson and The Mysterious Case of the Allbright Academy by Diane Stanley.