When I was in 4th grade, I read "A Time for Andrew: A Ghost Story", by Mary Downing Hahn. The story is about a boy named Drew who opted to stay at his grandparents' house for the summer instead of going to camp. Before long, Drew finds an old cigar box with marbles and a picture with a boy, Andrew, who looks exactly like him from 1910. Because of this, Drew and Andrew switch places. The switch helps Andrew because he is suffering from diptheria and needs modern medicine to save his life, and it gives Drew a chance to see what life with siblings is like, since he's an only child. After some time, Drew wants his old life back, so Andrew challenges him to a game of marbles to settle the deal.
The themes of the book are time travel, modern medicine, and being thankful for the life you're given.
All of the elements are exemplified in the story but the setting, characters, and point of views stick out most because the plots differ when the focus is on Drew or Andrew, and the different settings effect the story too.
This book would be a good side-read for a history lesson about the gifts of modern medicine. A good project idea might be for the students to choose an era to travel to, and they could pretend to be either Drew or Andrew so that traveling to the future would be an option too. They could write about things they find in their grandparents' attic.
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