This list has been designed to provide students with a broad range of reading choices in terms of subject matter, genre and complexity. It reflects the position on reading of the National Council of Teachers of English by providing an opportunity for students to “access…a wide range of texts that mirror the range of students’ abilities and interests (as well as) ample time to read a wide range of materials from the very simple to the very challenging” (NCTE Position Statement on Reading).
All descriptions of literary works in this list are from the following sources: Sundance Publishing Company, American Library Association, Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble publisher annotations.
Classic Fiction
The Age of Innocence- Wharton Brilliant portrayal of New York Society in the 1870's, where
money counted more than manners or morals.
As I Lay Dying – Faulkner At the heart of this 1930 novel is the Bundren family's bizarre
journey to Jefferson to bury Addie, their wife and mother. Faulkner lets each family member
— including Addie — and others along the way tell their private responses to Addie's life.
Cannery Row – Steinbeck Drawing characters based on his memories of real inhabitants
of Monterey, Steinbeck interweaves the stories of Doc, Henri, Mack, and his boys, in a
world where only the fittest survive, in a novel that focuses on the acceptance of life as it
is--a story at once humorous and poignant.
Catch-22 - Heller A savagely funny war novel: military madness and civilian insanity in
World War II.
The Catcher in the Rye - Salinger Holden Caulfield is the quintessentially alienated, private
school rebel in this controversial 1945 classic.
Ethan Frome - Wharton This tragic love story set in New England has become a timeless
classic.
For Whom the Bell Tolls – Hemingway This masterpiece of time and place tells a
profound and timeless story of courage and commitment, love and loss, that takes place
over a fleeting 72 hours. Drawing on Hemingway's own involvement in the Spanish Civil
War, For Whom the Bell Tolls reflects his passionate feelings about the nature of war
and the meaning of loyalty.
Invisible Man- Ellison Strange, gripping saga of a black man who struggles from the
South to the North, always encountering other people’s preconceived notions about him.
The Old Man and the Sea – Hemingway The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway's
most enduring works. Told in language of great simplicity and power, it is the story of
an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal — a relentless,
agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. Here Hemingway recasts,
in strikingly contemporary style, the classic theme of courage in the face of defeat, of
personal triumph won from loss. Written in 1952, this hugely successful novella confirmed
his power and presence in the literary world and played a large part in his winning the 1954
Nobel Prize for Literature.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Smith The Nolans lived in Brooklyn slums from 1902 to 1919.
This is the story of Francie, their daughter, and the beginnings of wisdom.
Winesburg, Ohio – Anderson Sherwood Anderson's masterpiece, a cycle of short stories
concerning life in a small Ohio town at the end of the nineteenth century.
ExxonMobil Masterpiece Theatre American Collection
Learn more about this collection at: www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/americancollection/
Almost a Woman – Santiago In her new memoir the author of When I Was Puerto Rican
continues the chronicle of her emergence from the barrios of Brooklyn to the theaters of
Manhattan, a brave and heartfelt immigrant story.
The American – James Christopher Newman, a wealthy American businessman, descends
on Europe in search of a wife to make his fortune complete. In Paris, he is introduced to
Claire de Cintre', daughter of the ancient House of Bellegarde, and to Valentin, her charming
young brother. His bid for Claire's hand receives an icy welcome from the heads of the family,
an elder brother and their formidable mother, the old Marquise. Can they stomach his manners
for the sake of his dollars? Out of this classic collision between the old world and the new,
James weaves a fable of thwarted desire that shifts between comedy, tragedy, romance,
and melodrama.
“Cora Unashamed” – Hughes The only short story in the ExxonMobil Masterpiece
Theatre American Collection, “Cora Unashamed” can be found in Short Stories of
Langston Hughes edited by Donna Sullivan Harper and Akiba Sullivan Harper. If you choose
to read “Cora Unashamed”, then you should read three more of Hughes’ short stories to
count for your summer reading.
A Death in the Family – Agee Agee’s great novel of a loving, close-knit family and the
courage they display when tragedy suddenly changes their lives.
The Ponder Heart – Welty A comic work of fiction about a small-town Southerner who
had a penchant for giving things away.
Song of the Lark – Cather In the Cather tradition, a memorable heroine emerges
as a woman of strength and hope who works to build a life that affirms her unflagging spirit.
Fiction
A Painted House- Grisham A story inspired by Grisham’s own childhood in rural
Arkansas. The narrator is a farm boy named Luke Chandler, age seven, who lives in
the cotton fields with his parents and grandparents in a little house that's never been
painted. The Chandlers farm eighty acres that they rent, not own, and when the
cotton is ready they hire a truckload of Mexicans and a family from the Ozarks to help
harvest it. For six weeks they pick cotton, battling the heat, the rain, the fatigue,
and, sometimes, each other. As the weeks pass, Luke sees and hears things no
seven-year-old could possibly be prepared for, and finds himself keeping secrets that
not only threaten the crop but will change the lives of the Chandlers forever.
The Aguero Sisters - Williams-Garcia A lyrical story of family secrets and cultural
boundaries. Reina and Constancia are sisters who reunite after a thirty-year
estrangement. NYT Notable.
All the Pretty Horses- McCarthy John Grady Cole is a young Texas rancher who
sets off for adventure in the beautiful but dangerous borderland of Mexico. National
Book Award.
Anywhere But Here - Simpson Adele, a larger-than-life American dreamer, and
her wise child Ann August follow their perennial urge to keep moving on the open road.
Black Elk Speaks - Neihardt The life story and personal vision of a Sioux warrior
and medicine man who lived through the Battle of Little Big Horn, the massacre at
Wounded Knee, and the death of his people.
Briar Rose- Yolen Disturbed by her grandmother Gemma’s unique version of
Sleeping Beauty, Rebecca seeks the truth behind the fairy tale.
California Blue - Klass When seventeen year old John Rodgers discovers a new
butterfly species on land owned by the local lumber mill, he must decide if he will
stick with his family and friends or protect the butterfly and shut down the mill.
ALA Best. ALA Book for Reluctant Readers.
The Chocolate War - Cormier High school politics, cruelty, and conformity sparked
by the annual fundraising event - would you believe? - selling chocolates.
Charming Billy – McDermott Resonant with the voices of its bereaved characters
and fueled by nostalgia and lost love, Charming Billy is the story of the life and tragic
death of Billy Lynch. National Book Award.
A Civil Action - Harr The true courtroom drama of a grieving community’s struggle
for justice in the face of corporate power and a legal system gone awry. It is also the
story of an unlikely hero and how one person can make a difference.
Cold Mountain- Frazier Inman, a wounded Civil War soldier, endures the elements,
The Guard, and his own weakness and infirmity to return to his sweetheart, Ada,
who is fighting her own battle to survive while farming the mountainous North Carolina
terrain.
The Contender - Lipsyte Alfred Brooks must placate his Harlem gang - and the white
world as well.
Dicey’s Song - Voight A heartwarming novel of the young Tillerman family, led by
the eldest sister Dicey. Newberry Award.
Don’t You Dare Read This Mrs. Dunphrey - Haddix Sixteen year old Tish chronicles
her life in the journal she must keep for English class. When her abusive father returns
home, Tish’s entries are increasingly marked "Do Not Read" until she realizes silence
may be dangerous. ALA Best.
The Education of Little Tree - Carter A Cherokee Indian boy growing up in the
Tennessee hills with his grandparents during the Depression narrates his story,
expressing honesty, innocence, trust in goodness, wrenching happiness, and sadness.
Everything That Rises Must Converge - O'Connor Stories about misfits in small
Southern towns force the reader to confront hypocrisy and complacency.
A Gathering of Old Men – Gaines In this eloquent novel, set in Louisiana in the
1970's, eighteen old, black men each claim to have shot a white man and, in the
process, experience their first taste of power and pride.
Going After Cacciato – O’Brien O’Brien captures the peculiar blend of horror and
hallucinatory comedy that marked the Vietnam War I his fictional account of one
private’s sudden decision to lay down his rifle and begin a quixotic journey from
the jungles of Indochina to the streets of Paris. National Book Award.
Heroes- Cormier Just returned home form World War II, 18-year-old Joseph
Cassavant embarks on one last mission - the death of a boyhood hero. Cormier has
written a lean and powerful novel that explores the nature of heroism.
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents - Alvarez Fifteen interconnected stories
portray the immigrant experience with humor and insight as the four Garcia sisters
and their family come to America in 1960 from the Dominican Republic.
In Country- Mason Sam Hughes, a contemporary girl, searches to understand who her
father was and what the Vietnam War that killed him was about.
In the Time of Butterflies – Alvarez Dede, the only survivor of the four Mirabel
sisters, code named Mariposas or butterflies, reveals their role in the liberation of
the Dominican Republic from the dictator Trujillo.
The Handmaid's Tale – Atwood In Gilead, a Christian fundamentalist dystopia,
fertile lower-class women serve as birth-mothers for the upper class.
Jacob Have I Loved – Patterson A twin, overshadowed by her talented, charismatic
sister, is tormented by jealousy and hate. Newberry Award.
Junteenth - Ellison Everyone is shocked when Senator Sunraider, mortally wounded
by an assassin’s bullet, calls an old black minister to his deathbed. A story emerges
of how the senator, an orphan raised by the minister, denied everything to achieve
his goals. NYT Bestseller.
Lake Wobegone – Keillor Garrison Keillor's fictional Midwestern town, Lake Wobegon,
has long since passed into literary legend. Lake Wobegon Days, his first unforgettable
portrait of life in the American small-town named after an Indian word meaning
'Here we are!' or 'We sat all day in the rain waiting for you', is a modern classic of
warmth, humor and tenderness which introduces the reader to 'a cast of characters
to rival Mark Twain' (Daily Mail)
Monster – Myers Sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon, on trial as an accomplice to a
murder, records his trial in the form of a film-script as he tries to sort out who
he is and what is real.
Native Son - Wright Caught up by forces of racism he can’t understand or control,
Bigger Thomas turns to violence. Uncompromisingly realistic.
Practical Magic- Hoffman Gillian and Sally Owens, born into a family of witches,
can’t wait to leave their eccentric aunts for a life of normalcy. When they are
inexorably drawn back to their Massachusetts town, the sisters learn that magic is
far from the affliction they thought it to be.
Shadow of the Dragon -Garland Sixteen-year-old Danny Vo is caught between
two worlds: He fits in with his American friends, yet they don’t understand his
traditional Vietnamese home life.
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants – Brashares Four friends, each very different,
form a sisterhood linked together by The Pants – a pair of jeans each will wear – as they
travel their different paths over the course of one summer.
Speak – Anderson Melinda enters her freshman year in high school as an outcast
– silent, angry and traumatized by a rape. Her black humor and honest depiction of
the high school experience will resonate with many tends. Printz Honor. Golden Kite Award.
Tears of a Tiger – Draper Andy is an African-American teenager whose life derails
when, after a long evening of drinking, the car he’s driving crashes, killing his best
friend. His guilt and despair lead him to turn away from family and friends – and his
plans for the future. Coretta Scott King Genesis Award.
The Women of Brewster Place - Naylor Weaving together the lives of six women,
Naylor creates a powerful and moving portrait of the strengths, struggles and hopes
of black women in today’s America.
The World According to Garp – Irving This comic and compassionate coming-of-age
novel established John Irving as one of the most imaginative writers of his
generation. Irving’s classic is filled with stories inside stories about the life and
times of T.S. Garp, novelist and bastard son of Jenny Fields – a feminist leader
ahead of her time. National Book Award.
Non- Fiction
A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Hole - Hawking
Cosmology becomes understandable as the author discusses the origin, evolution,
and fate of our universe.
Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam - American Service Personnel, Edelman, ed
Letters from those who made it back and from those who did not return provide a
glimpse into the lives of the men and women who served during the Vietnam War.
Into Thin Air- Krakauer The tragedy that took the lives of experienced mountain
guides and novice climbers in a raging blizzard atop Mt. Everest in 1996 is chronicled
with clarity, poignancy, and brutal honesty by one who witnessed the event first-hand.
Longitude: The Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest
Scientific Problem of His Time - Sobel A self-taught eighteenth-century English
clockmaker succeeded where the scientific community failed.
Biography
Angela’s Ashes- McCourt Born in Depression-era Brooklyn to Irish immigrants,
Frank McCourt tells the story of his poverty-stricken childhood years after his family
returned to the slums of limerick, Ireland. Pulitzer Prize.
The Autobiography of Malcom X - Malcom X and Alex Haley The absorbing personal
story of Malcom X’s rise from hoodlum ... to dynamic leader of the black revolution.
Brilliant, painful, honest.
Color of Water - McBride As an adult, James McBride finally persuades his mother
to tell her story - a story of a rabbi’s daughter, born in Poland and raised in the South,
who fled to Harlem, married a black man, founded a church and raised twelve children.
A remarkable tribute to his mother and an unforgettable exploration of what family
really means. NYT Bestseller.
Coming of Age in Mississippi - Moody Anne Moody writes unforgettably and
courageously about what it was like to grow up black in Mississippi in the fifties and
early sixties.
Girl, Interrupted - Kaysen Committed to a psychiatric hospital at age eighteen,
the author spent two years on the ward for teenage girls. A contemporary classic of
self-discovery, this memoir tells of her journey through a "parallel universe" of madness.
Growing Up - Baker A columnist with a sense of humor takes a gentle look at his
childhood in Baltimore during the Depression.
Moving Violations: War Zones, Wheelchairs, and Declarations of Independence –
Hockenberry Journalist Hockenberry is fearless and funny as he relates the personal
and professional experiences he encounters from his wheelchair.
Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman: Adventures of a Curious Character - Feynman as
told to Ralph Leighton This Nobel Prize-winning physicist was also a bongo drummer,
a practical joker, and a loving husband.
This Land Was Made For You and Me: The Life & Songs of Woody Guthrie - Partridge
When I Was a Puerto Rican - Santiago Esmerelda Santiago’s coming-of-age memoir
begins in rural Puerto Rico and follows her to New York City, where the rules and language are bewilderingly different.
Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts - Kingston Vivid and poetic
account of what it was like to grow up in California as the daughter of a traditional
Chinese family that found women inferior to men and considered all non-Chinese "ghosts".
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Ender’s Game -Card Ender Wiggins is the result of a genetic breeding program
and years of harsh, unforgiving training. Hugo and Nebula SF Awards.
Jurassic Park - Crichton The cloning of dinosaur DNA brings dinosaurs back to Earth,
bringing unexpected disasters.
Sphere – Crichton A group of American scientists are rushed to a huge vessel that has
been discovered resting on the ocean floor in the middle of the South Pacific. What they
find defines their imaginations and mocks their attempts at logical explanation. It is a
spaceship of phenomenal dimensions, apparently, undamaged by its fall from the sky.
And, most startling, it appears to be at least three hundred years old.
The Man in the High Castle- Dick Imagine it's 1962 in America, slavery is legal once
again, and the few surviving Jews hide under assumed names. It’s all because the United
States lost a war and is now occupied jointly by Nazi Germany and Japan. Hugo Award
Winner.
Spinners – Napoli Love, greed, magic and revenge all come together in this elaborate
retelling of a tale in which a young woman must spin straw into gold.
Something Wicked This Way Comes - Bradbury October is the season of mystery and
dying, and when Halloween brings the Pandemonium Shadow Show to town, two
fourteen-year-old boys discover its sinister secrets.
A Wizard of Earthsea – LeGuin Ged was the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea,
but once he was called Sparrowhawk, a reckless youth, hungry for power and knowledge,
who tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon the world.
This is the tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an
ancient dragon, and crossed death's threshold to restore the balance.
Sports Literature
Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series - Asinof It’s all here:
the players, the scandal, the shame, and the damage the 1919 World Series caused
America’s national pastime.
In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle - Blais Learn about the year of heart, sweat and
muscle that transformed the Amherst Lady Hurricanes basketball team into state
champions.
Life at these Speeds – Jackson Debut novelist Jeremy Jackson has written a haunting
yet gentle and truly wondrous novel of self-discovery, one that refuses to minimize
the impact of sudden tragedy but ultimately celebrates a marvelous triumph of the
nobility of the human spirit against formidable odds.
Seabiscuit: An American Legend – Hillenbrand Seabiscuit was an unlikely champion:
a roughhewn, undersized horse with a sad little tail and knees that wouldn't straighten
all the way. But, thanks to the efforts of three men, Seabiscuit became one of the most
spectacular performers in sports history. The rags-to-riches horse emerged as an
American cultural icon, drawing an immense following and becoming the single biggest
newsmaker of 1938 -- receiving more coverage than FDR or Hitler. Laura Hillenbrand
beautifully renders this story of one horse's journey from also-ran to national luminary.
Slam - Myers Seventeen-year-old Greg "Slam" Harris can do it all on the court. But
his grades aren’t so hot. When his teachers put pressure on him, he blows up. Suddenly
Slam is going one-on-one with his future, and he doesn’t have the ball. Coretta Scott King
Award. ALA Best.
Mystery
A is for Alibi - Grafton Laurence Fife was a slick divorce lawyer and slippery ladies'
man. Until someone killed him. The jury believed that it was his pretty young wife
Nikki, so they sent her to prison for eight years. Now, Nikki's out on parole and Kinsey
Millhone's in for trouble. Nikki hires Kinsey to discover who really killed her husband.
But the trail is eight years cold, and at the end is a chilling twist even Kinsey doesn't
suspect—a second eight-year-old murder and a brand new corpse.
Back Story – Robert B. Parker In 1974, a revolutionary group called The Dread
Scott Brigade burst into a Boston bank, held up the tellers, and shot one woman dead.
Now, the daughter of Emily Gordon, the innocent victim, searches for closure, and Paul
Giacomin, Spenser's surrogate son, comes to the rescue. Asked to help, our favorite
Boston P.I. struggles with missing evidence and a paucity of clues. Is he dealing with
a threat more potent than a nest of self-styled extremists? Taut, tense, and surprising.
The Body Farm - Cornwell Dr. Kay Scarpetta, consulting pathologist for the FBI
Forensic Science Unit, must deal with the truly horrific as she seeks to understand
the murder of an eleven-year-old girl in rural North Carolina. The details remind her
of a serial killer who has eluded the unit for years. What is required is a series of grisly
experiments at a little known facility called the Body Farm. Scarpetta must re-interpret
some badly botched evidence and interpret the forensic hieroglyphics to reveal an
answer that is as stunning as it is horrifying.
The Maltese Falcon- Hammett Classic tale of suspense and intrigue featuring
hard-bitten detective Sam Spade.
