Book Lists by Grade

Learn How it works

Reading levels vary, so read up or down a band as needed. Parents: preview books for your family's values and your child's maturity. Free copies of public-domain books are at Project Gutenberg, and audiobooks are at LibriVox.

Try it Lists

Kindergarten–Grade 2

• Frog and Toad Are Friends by Arnold Lobel
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
• Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
• Corduroy by Don Freeman
• Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey
• The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter (public domain)
• Owl at Home by Arnold Lobel
• Henry and Mudge series by Cynthia Rylant
• Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik
• Mercy Watson series by Kate DiCamillo

Grades 3–5

• Charlotte's Web by E. B. White
• The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner
• Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater
• Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan
• Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (public domain)
• Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• Stuart Little by E. B. White
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
• Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell

Grades 6–8

• Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
• The Giver by Lois Lowry
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
• Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
• Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
• The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (public domain)
• Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery (public domain)
• Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
• The Call of the Wild by Jack London (public domain)

Grades 9–10

• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (public domain)
• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (public domain)
• The Odyssey by Homer (public-domain translations)
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (public domain)
• Night by Elie Wiesel

Grades 11–12

• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (public domain since 2021)
• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (public domain)
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (public domain)
• Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
• 1984 by George Orwell
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (public domain)
• Hamlet by William Shakespeare (public domain)
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (public domain)
• The Crucible by Arthur Miller
• Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington (public domain)