Here is a list of suggested books to choose from as you introduce the strategy of summarizing to your students. Be sure to model summarizing with both fiction and non-fiction texts, and give your students practice summarizing newspaper or magazine articles, song lyrics, game rules, and other types of text that they will encounter in their everyday life.

These are outstanding trade books chosen for us by the Cooperative Children's Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The list includes engaging titles that meet a range of reading and listening abilities. You may also print the complete list with suggested books for all strategies: Reading to Understand: Children's Books to Use with Comprehension Strategies. Then find multimedia, online resources about these books and authors using the Into the Book List at TeachingBooks.net.

Children's Books to Help You Teach the Summarizing Strategy

Bang, Molly. Common Ground: The Water, Earth and Air We Share. Blue Sky Press / Scholastic, 1997. 32 pages

Blake, Robert J. Togo. Philomel, 2002. 40 pages

Cooper, Elisha. Ice Cream. Greenwillow, 2002, 40 pages

Fleming, Candace. Boxes for Katje. Illustrated by Stacey Dressen-McQueen. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003. 36 pages

Fleming, Denise. Buster. Henry Holt, 2003. 32 pages

Goldin, Augusta. Ducks Don't Get Wet. Illustrated by Helen K. Davie. (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science) HarperCollins, 1999. 32 pages

Haas, Jessie. Runaway Radish. Illustrated by Margot Apple. Greenwillow, 2001. 56 pages

Harjo, Joy. The Good Luck Cat. Harcourt, 2000. 32 pages

Markle, Sandra. Creepy, Crawly Baby Bugs. Walker, 1996. 32 pages

Muth, Jon J. The Three Questions. Scholastic Press, 2002. 32 pages

Rylant, Cynthia. Mr. Putter and Tabby Stir the Soup. Illustrated by Arthur Howard. Harcourt, 2003. 48 pages

Willey, Margaret. Clever Beatrice: An Upper Penninsula Conte. Illustrated by Heather Solomon. Atheneum, 2001. 32 pages

Winter, Jeanette. My Name Is Georgia: A Portrait. Harcourt / Silver Whistle, 1998. 48 pages

Compiled by Megan Schliesman
Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison

For another list of books for strategy instruction and practice, see Strategies that Work.