William Armstrong's Sounder, which won the Newbery medal in 1970, was one of those books I'd known about for a long time but for whatever reason had never read. I think it was because I knew it was really sad and so I avoided it. Well, I read it this morning and found that, although it was as sad as I had feared, it was also deeply moving and inspiring. 
This is the story of a boy whose sharecropper father is arrested for stealing food. Sounder is their dog, and he has a bark like no other dog. Armstrong describes it, in part, like this:
"But it was not an ordinary bark. It filled up the night and made music as though the branches of all the trees were being pulled across silver strings" (p. 5).
Sounder is also exceptionally loyal to his master, losing his great voice when his master is arrested and taken away.
It's interesting that Sounder is the only character in this book who is named. Armstrong refers to the main (human) character as "the boy" and his mother as "the woman" or "the boy's mother." Sounder, then, with his exceptional voice, courage, and loyalty, is the star of the story and it is his story that speaks with the most force, not only to the reader but to the story's other characters as well. This is a beautiful, powerful story, and I'm glad I finally read it.
Johnny Tremain, by Esther Forbes, won the Newbery medal in 1944. This is a great story for 5th graders because it is set in Boston in the 1770's. The Boston Tea Party and the Battle of Lexington and Concord play prominent roles in the plot, and familiar historical figures such as John Hancock and Samuel Adams are characters in the story. 
At the beginning of the story Johnny is an apprentice to a silversmith, but a tragic accident forces him to give up his position and try to make a new life. Johnny is an admirable and likeable character, and I found myself quickly caught up in his world and interested in what would happen next in the story.
This is a fairly advanced book (Renaissance Learning gives its reading level as 5.9) and it is quite long, so I would only recommend it to 5th graders who are ready for a challenging book. I believe that older kids interested in this period of history -- both boys and girls -- would enjoy it. I liked this book, but I did get a little confused reading the last several chapters that deal with the military maneuvers of the battles. I suspect, though, that my confusion was more a result of my lack of interest in these kinds of details than a reflection of the author's skill. This book was written many years ago but has certainly withstood the test of time to become a classic of children's literature.
Kenneth Oppel's Silverwing is the first in a series which also includes Sunwing, Firewing, and Darkwing. These books are fantasy adventure novels about bats. In the author's note to Silverwing, Oppel says he liked the challenge of writing about an animal that is often thought of as ugly or scary, rather than the traditional cuddly animals such as kittens, mice, and rabbits. 
He wanted to make the bats appealing, and I think he has succeeded. The main character, Shade, is a Silverwing bat who is the runt of his colony. One of the main themes of the book involves the mysterious metal bands that humans have given to many bats. Do the bands mark the bats who have them as charmed, or cursed? Oppel has imagined a whole mythology for these bats which includes a bat deity known as Nocturna.
The villain is a large vampire bat named Goth who was transported north from his tropical jungle home. He escapes from some sort of research facility or zoo and manages to create havoc among birds, beasts, and bats alike. Goth has his own religion, the center of which is his god named Zotz. It's interesting to see how these animal characters' religious beliefs affect their actions.
I enjoyed not only the adventure and suspense of the story, but also the complex fantasy world Oppel has created.
