Isn’t There Anything I Can Read?

“Isn’t there anything I can read?” I’ll bet I repeated that question at least a thousand times while I was in junior and senior high school. Usually I nagged my mom about books (in my very most “I’m bored” voice), but l also trekked to the public library every week or so. Sure, I spent hours in the library, but most of that time I simply stared at the shelves and shelves of books. I knew that somewhere in that maze of grayish bindings there had to be a book so enthralling that I could even forget posture and pimples for a while. I was not often that lucky! I wanted a good book desperately but knew that my random guessing usually produced stories so poorly written that not even I could finish them, or stories so filled with immorality that I was embarrassed to finish them. Sometimes I gathered all of my faltering courage and asked the librarian for help. She’d heard my question before and usually nodded her head and pointed “over there,” where I faced a bewildering college reading list filled with book titles that I couldn’t even pronounce.

Through the years since then I have compiled a list of books that I and my own teenage children have especially enjoyed. There are many, many more books worth reading, including Church books, and some of your favorites may not be found on this list. But at least these books are acceptable to an English teacher, and to a mother, and they are good reading. Use them as a place to start.

Adams, Richard
Watership Down

Alcott, Louisa May
Little Women

Aldrich, Bess Streeter
Lantern in Her Hand

Alexander, Lloyd
Book of Three*

Armstrong, William H.
Sounder Sour Land

Annixter, Paul
Swiftwater

Austen, Jane
Pride and Prejudice

Bagnold, Enid
National Velvet

Bickham, Jack
Baker’s Hawk

Blos, Joan
A Gathering of Days

Brontë, Charlotte
Jane Eyre

Brontë, Emily
Wuthering Heights

Buck, Pearl
The Good Earth

Burch, Robert
Queenie Peavy

Burnford, Sheila
The Incredible Journey

Byars, Betsy
Summer of the Swans
House of Wings
Trouble River

Cather, Willa
My Antonia

Clark, Ann N.
Secret of the Andes

Cleaver, Vera and Bill
Where the Lillies Bloom

Collins, Larry and Lapierre, Dominique
Freedom at Midnight

Cooper, James Fenimore
Last of the Mohicans

Cooper, Susan
The Dark Is Rising*

Conrad, Joseph
The Secret Sharer

Crane, Stephen
The Red Badge of Courage

Craven, Margaret
I Heard the Owl Call My Name

Daly, Maureen
Seventeenth Summer

Defoe, Daniel
Robinson Crusoe

deTrevino, Elizabeth
I, Juan de Pareja

Dickens, Charles
David Copperfield
Great Expectations
Oliver Twist

du Maurier, Daphne
Rebecca

Edmunds, Walter
Drums Along the Mohawk

Eckert, Allan
Incident at Hawks Hill

Engdahl, Sylvia
Enchantress from the Stars

Farley, Walter
Black Stallion

Fast, Howard
April Morning

Fitzgerald, John D.
The Great Brain*

Forbes, Esther
Johnny Tremain

Fox, Paula
The Slave Dancer

Frank, Anne
Diary of a Young Girl

Fraser, Antonia
Mary, Queen of Scots

Freedman, Benedict and Nancy
Mrs. Mike

Gallico, Paul
The Snow Goose

Gipson, Fred
Old Yeller

George, Jean
My Side of the Mountain

Greene, Bette
Summer of My German Soldier

Hamilton, Virginia
M. C. Higgens, the Great Planet of Junior Brown

Hautzig, Esther
The Endless Steppe

Hemingway, Ernest M.
The Old Man and the Sea

Herriot, James
All Creatures Great and Small

Hersey, John
Hiroshima

Heyerdahl, Thor
Kon Tiki

Hunt, Irene
Across Five Aprils
Up a Road Slowly

Keller, Helen
The Story of My Life

Key, Alexander
Escape to Witch Mountain
The Forgotten Door

Kieth, Harold
Rifles for Watie

Kipling, Rudyard
Captains Courageous
Kim

Kjelgaard, James
Big Red

Knight, Eric
Lassie Come Home

Knowles, John
A Separate Peace

Konigsburg, Ellen L.
From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
Jennifer
Hecate Macbeth
William McKinley and Me, Elizabeth

Kroeber, Theodora
Ishi, Last of His Tribe

Krumgold, Joseph
… And Now Miguel

Lawson, Robert
Ben and Me

Lee, Harper
To Kill a Mockingbird

L’Engle, Madeline
Wrinkle in Time*
Meet the Austins

LeGuin, Ursula
Very Far from Anywhere Else
Wizard of Earthsea*

Lewis, C.S.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe*

London, Jack
The Call of the Wild

McCaffrey, Ann
Dragonsong*

McCloskey, Robert
Homer Price

Meigs, Cornelia L.
Invincible Louisa

North, Sterling
Rascal

O’Brian, Robert
Z for Zachariah
Mrs. Frisbee and the Rats of Nimh

O’Dell, Scott
Island of the Blue Dolphins
Zia
Sing Down the Moon

O’Hara, Mary
Green Grass of Wyoming
My Friend Flicka

Orwell, George
Animal Farm

Paterson, Katherine
Bridge to Terabithia

Pease, Howard
The Tattooed Man

Peck, Robert Newton
A Day No Pigs Would Die

Rabe, Berniece
The Orphans
The Girl That Had No Name
Rass
Naomi

Raskin, Ellen
The Westing Game

Rawles, Lou
Where the Red Fern Grows
Summer of the Monkeys

Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan
The Yearling

Richter, Conrad
Light in the Forest

Robinson, Barbara
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

Rockwood, Joyce
Long Man’s Song
To Spoil the Sun

Rogers, Mary
Freaky Friday

Sandburg, Carl
Abe Lincoln Grows Up

Schaefer, Jack Warner
Shane

Sewell, Anna
Black Beauty

Silverstein, Shel
Where the Sidewalk Ends

Speare, Elizabeth George
Witch of Blackbird Pond
The Bronze Bow
Calico Captive

Sperry, Armstrong
Call It Courage

Steinbeck, John
The Pearl

Stevenson, Robert Louis
Kidnapped
Treasure Island

Street, James
Goodbye My Lady

Swift, Jonathan
Gulliver’s Travels

Taylor, Theodore
The Cay

Ten Boom, Corrie
The Hiding Place

Tolkein, J.R.R.
The Hobbit
Lord of the Rings*

Twain, Mark
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Ullman, James Ramsey
Banner in the Sky

Verne, Jules
Around the World in 80 Days
Journey to the Center of the Earth
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Washington, Booker T.
Up From Slavery

Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine

West, Jessamyn
Cress Delahanty

White, Robb
Firestorm
Deathwatch

Wilder, Laura Ingalls
Little House on the Prairie*

Wojcechowska, Mara
The Shadow of a Bull

Wolfe, Thomas
Look Homeward Angel

Wyss, Johann David
Swiss Family Robinson

Yates, Elizabeth
Amos Fortune, Free Man

Zweig, Stefan
Mary, Queen of Scotts