Reading-Is-Lit Lists
Reading is lit! For real!
"In order to live a good life you need healthy relationships and books!" — Anne Lamont, Santa Fe Literary Festival
The most recent results for US students’ reading proficiency are sobering: Among 24,300 12th graders evaluated in reading from January to March 2024, only 35% performed at or above proficient, dropping from 37% in 2019 and 40% in 1992.
The results are from the The National Center for Education Statistics, a federal agency fulfilling a mandate from Congress to collect, analyze and report statistics on American education, in what’s referred to as The Nation's Report Card. “Proficient” is a performance standard established by the National Assessment Governing Board to describe what students should know and be able to do in various subjects and grades.
The good news: Reading proficiency is in our hands, literally—in the form of a book!
READ on for grade-level and themed reading suggestions from teachers and parents...
11th & 12th GRADE
George Orwell, 1984 & Animal Farm
Steinbeck, East of Eden, Grapes of Wrath (Springsteen’s Ghost of Tom Joad album pulls from GoW)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists
Robert B Pirsig Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Alam Bsharat, Code Name: Butterfly (I haven’t read this, only heard of it—won the Palestinian Book Award several years back)
Naomi Shihab Nye is a poet and prose author, Arab-American, worth checking out
9th & 10th GRADE
Kurt Vonnegut, anything
Elie Wiesel, Night
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men & Travels with Charley
Hinton, The Outsiders
Sherman Alexi, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games
Douglas Adams, A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
7th & 8th GRADE
Anne Frank, Diary
Rudolfo Anaya, Bless Me Ultima
Gary Paulsen, Hatchet
OUTDOORSY TITLES
Megan Kate Nelson, Saving Yellowstone
Joe Simpson, Touching the Void
Alfred Lansing, Endurance
Jack London, Call of the Wild
Anatoli Bourkeev, The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest
Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air & Into the Wild
Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile & A Walk in the Park
David James Duncan, The River Why
Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire
Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It &Young Men and Fire
Steinbeck: Old Man and the Sea
Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (not really adventure, more contemplative, but Aldo is NM connected!)
Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge
ROAD-TRIP READING
This is a great state-by-state reading list by Elizabeth Hightower Allen for OutsideI: https://www.outsideonline.com/culture/books-media/outdoor-adventure-books-every-state/
