This is a  reading list for students in grades K-12. The list is not inclusive, nor is it intended as a recommended reading list; rather, it is a list of books that  have literary merit, are representative of the genres, and are being read by students in today’s classrooms. Some are appropriate for all students, some for advanced readers. Titles include folklore, fantasy, science fiction, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama. Selected magazine titles are included in recognition of the importance of using magazines to meet informational and recreational needs.

Selected Titles

Title........................................................................................................... Author
Things Fall Apart ....................................................................................Achebe, Chinua
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings..........................................................Angelou, Maya
Days of Grace...........................................................................................Ashe, Arthur
Pride and Prejudice..................................................................................Austen, Jane
Growing Up.............................................................................................Baker, Russell
Forbidden City .........................................................................................Bell, William
Wuthering Heights ..................................................................................Bronte, Charlotte
My Antonia .............................................................................................Cather, Willa
Shogun .....................................................................................................Clavell, James
Heart of Darkness ....................................................................................Conrad, Joseph
Prince of Tides..........................................................................................Conroy, Pat
After the First Death................................................................................Cormier, Robert
Maggie: Girl of the Streets.......................................................................Crane, Stephen
The Red Badge of Courage .......................................................................Crane, Stephen
Tale of Two Cities .....................................................................................Dickens, Charles
Crime and Punishment............................................................................Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass...............................................Douglass, Frederick
Silas Marner ............................................................................................Elliott, George
The Invisible Man....................................................................................Ellison, Ralph
The Portable Emerson..............................................................................Emerson, Ralph Waldo
As I Lay Dying ........................................................................................Faulkner, William
The Great Gatsby .....................................................................................Fitzgerald, F. Scott
Lord of the Flies........................................................................................Golding, William
Waiting for the Rain ................................................................................Gordon, Sheila
Black Like Me...........................................................................................Griffin, John Howard
Roots ........................................................................................................Haley, Alex
A Raisin in the Sun .................................................................................Hansberry, Lorraine
Tess of the D’Urbervilles..........................................................................Hardy, Thomas
The Scarlet Letter.....................................................................................Hawthorne, Nathaniel
Pentimento...............................................................................................Hellman, Lillian
A Farewell to Arms..................................................................................Hemingway, Ernest
The Snows of Kilimanjaro........................................................................Hemingway, Ernest
Lés Miserables..........................................................................................Hugo, Victor
Dust Tracks on a Road.............................................................................Hurston, Zora Neale
Their Eyes Were Watching God...............................................................Hurston, Zora Neale
A Time to Speak .......................................................................................Jackson, Jesse
The Lottery...............................................................................................Jackson, Shirley
A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man ................................................Joyce, James
Profiles in Courage ..................................................................................Kennedy, John F.
Ironweed...................................................................................................Kennedy, William
Stride Toward Freedom ............................................................................King, Martin Luther
A Separate Peace ..................................................................................Knowles, John
Dark Child ...............................................................................................Laye, Camara
To Kill a Mockingbird..............................................................................Lee, Harper
Call of the Wild ........................................................................................London, Jack
Ninety-Five Theses ..................................................................................Luther, Martin
The Prince ................................................................................................Machiavelli, Niccolo
A Death in Venice ....................................................................................Mann, Thomas
Nicholas and Alexandra.........................................................................Massie, Robert
Color of Water..........................................................................................McBride, James
All the Pretty Horses ...............................................................................McCarthy, Cormac
Moby Dick ...............................................................................................Melville, Herman
Blue Highways.........................................................................................Moon, William Least Heat
Song of Solomon ......................................................................................Morrison, Toni
Beloved ...................................................................................................Morrison, Toni
The Power of Myth ..................................................................................Moyers, Bill
1984..........................................................................................................Orwell, George
Cry the Beloved Country .........................................................................Paton, Alan
*See Original Doc. For More Titles

Selected Titles

Aesop’s Fables ..........................................................................................Aesop
Andersen’s Fairy Tales.............................................................................Andersen, Hans Christian
Johnny Appleseed.....................................................................................Benet, Rosemary
Trickster Stories .......................................................................................Edmonds, I. G.
Greek Mythology .....................................................................................Hamilton, Edith
Mules and Men........................................................................................Hurston, Zora Neale
Tales of King Arthur................................................................................Malory, Sir Thomas
Paul Bunyan ............................................................................................Sandburg, Carl

Selected Titles

Watership Down......................................................................................Adams, Richard
The Handmaid’s Tale................................................................................Atwood, Margaret
I, Robot ....................................................................................................Azimov, Isaac
The Illustrated Man.................................................................................Bradbury, Ray
Jurassic Park ............................................................................................Crichton, Michael
The Princess Bride ...................................................................................Goldman, William
Stranger in a Strange Land .....................................................................Heinlein, Robert A.
Brave New World ....................................................................................Huxley, Aldous
1984..........................................................................................................Orwell, George
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.......................................Twain, Mark
Sirens of the Titan....................................................................................Vonnegut, Kurt
The Time Machine ...................................................................................Wells, H.G.

Selected Titles

And Still I Rise ........................................................................................Angelou, Maya
Collected Poems .......................................................................................Auden, W. Hugh
Cry ...........................................................................................................Baca, Jimmy Santiago
Tiger, Tiger...............................................................................................Blake, William
Thanatopsis..............................................................................................Bryant, William C.
The Canterbury Tales...............................................................................Chaucer, Geoffrey
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson................................................Dickinson, Emily
Collected Poems .......................................................................................Eliot, Thomas S.
Endless Life ..............................................................................................Ferlinghetti, Lawrence
The Poetry of Robert Frost.......................................................................Frost, Robert
My House.................................................................................................Giovanni, Nikki
Selected Poems of Langston Hughes........................................................Hughes, Langston
The Iliad ...................................................................................................Homer
The Odyssey.............................................................................................Homer
Poetical Works .........................................................................................Keats, John
Spoon River Anthology............................................................................Masters, Edgar Lee
Poems of Pablo Neruda (bilingual)..........................................................Neruda, Pablo
The Collected Poems ................................................................................Plath, Sylvia
The Raven ................................................................................................Poe, Edgar Allan
Richard Cory............................................................................................Robinson, Edwin A.
Sonnets.....................................................................................................Shakespeare, William
The Poetical Works ..................................................................................Shelley, Percy Bysshe
Leaves of Grass.........................................................................................Whitman, Walt

Selected Titles

Becket .......................................................................................................Anouilh, Jean
Antigone ..................................................................................................Anoulih, Jean
Waiting for Godot....................................................................................Beckett, Samuel
The Stranger ............................................................................................Camus, Albert
Medea.......................................................................................................Euripides
Julia ..........................................................................................................Hellman, Lillian
A Doll’s House .........................................................................................Ibsen, Henry
Inherit the Wind ......................................................................................Lawrence, Jerome
Death of a Salesman.................................................................................Miller, Arthur
The Crucible.............................................................................................Miller, Arthur
Long Day’s Journey Into Night...............................................................O’Neill, Eugene
Twelve Angry Men..................................................................................Rose, Reginald
Cyrano de Bergerac..................................................................................Rostand, Edmond
As You Like It...........................................................................................Shakespeare, William
Hamlet......................................................................................................Shakespeare, William
Macbeth....................................................................................................Shakespeare, William
Richard II .................................................................................................Shakespeare, William
Romeo and Juliet ......................................................................................Shakespeare, William
Pygmalion................................................................................................Shaw, George Bernard
Oedipus Rex.............................................................................................Sophocles
Tartuffe..........................................................................................Moliere, Jean Baptiste Poquelin
The Heidi Chronicles ...............................................................................Wasserman, Wendy
A Streetcar Named Desire .......................................................................Williams, Tennessee
Fences.......................................................................................................Wilson, August

Selected Titles

Literary Cavalcade
Merlyn’s Pen
The New Yorker
New York Times Magazine
Newsweek
Poets and Writers
Sports Illustrated
Time