Literature

Select a group of books below that corresponds to the main age range of your students (younger, middle, older) and read them aloud. If you have both younger and older students, you can read aloud to the younger and then assign a set of books for older students to read independently. The main goal is to select books that your family will enjoy and read them aloud together.

The main objective of literature is to enjoy well-written books. Ask for narrations if you want to, but don’t feel that you must do a study guide or literary analysis on each. These selections are not meant to be analyzed as works, but treasured as old friends.

For high school students, you can use narration questions to provoke thoughtful, in-depth discussion of one book per school year. These questions shouldn’t be a dissection of the book; instead focus on what students can learn about character qualities from the story.

You can use the links in these book lists to view each title on our free CM Bookfinder to help you find a copy at your library or a book store, and for easy scheduling in our CM Organizer.

Book Lists for Younger Students (Grades 1–4)

Book Group 1

• The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White
• The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne (contains both Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner)
• Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter
• All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor
• Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
• Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan
• Skylark by Patricia MacLachlan
• Caleb’s Story by Patricia MacLachlan
• More Perfect Than the Moon by Patricia MacLachlan
• Grandfather’s Dance by Patricia MacLachlan
• Five Little Peppers and How They Grew by Margaret Sidney
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
• Mr. Popper’s Penguins by Richard Atwater

Book Group 2

• A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• Little Leap Forward: A Boy in Beijing by Guo Yue and Clare Farrow
• Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
• The Borrowers by Mary Norton
• Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
• Five Children and It by E. Nesbit
• Stuart Little by E. B. White
• Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
• Wondrous Rex by Patricia MacLachlan
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
• The Minstrel in the Tower by Gloria Skurzynski

Book Group 3

• Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit
• Heidi by Johanna Spyri
• The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
• At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald
• The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald

Book Group 4

• The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis
• The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
• The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis
• Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis
• Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis
• The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis
• The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis

Book Lists for Middle Students (Grades 5–8)

Book Group 1

• The Kite Fighters by Linda Sue Park
• The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle
• The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss
• My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
• The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan
• Bambi: A Life in the Woods by Felix Salten
• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Book Group 2

• Little Britches by Ralph Moody
• Man of the Family by Ralph Moody
• The Home Ranch by Ralph Moody
• Mary Emma and Company by Ralph Moody
• The Fields of Home by Ralph Moody
• Shaking the Nickel Bush by Ralph Moody

(Be on the alert for some coarse “cowboy language” in the first book of the series and some swearing in the others. You can easily skip it as you read aloud.)

Book Group 3

• Laddie: A True Blue Story by Gene Stratton-Porter
• The Call of the Wild by Jack London
• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
• Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
• Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell
• Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne
• A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park
• Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
• Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan

Book Group 4

• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
• Little Men by Louisa May Alcott
• Jo’s Boys by Louisa May Alcott
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Book Lists for Older Students (Grades 9–12)

Book Group 1

• The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
• The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
• The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien
• The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien
• Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Book Group 2

• Watership Down by Richard Adams
• David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
• Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott

Book Group 3

• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis
• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
• Through Gates of Splendor by Elisabeth Elliot
• Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
• Beowulf by Anonymous (A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney)
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Book Group 4

• Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
• Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore
• The Deerslayer by James Fenimore Cooper
• The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper