100+ Novels Every High School Student Should (Consider) Read(ing)

What books should high school students read? If you're a more traditional teacher, you may have visions quietly reading your favorite novels from the Western canon and discussing them with your students. This is where I started.

But after five years of classroom experience and trying to figure out how to convince actual high school students to enjoy reading, I realized that the traditional Western literature canon only appeals to a small subset of students. A very small subset. If I wanted to convince more of my students to value reading inside my class and once they leave my class, I'd need to find books that either mirror their experiences, or serve as windows into the current world. (Thank you, Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop for that metaphor!)

For this reason, I've included a list of books divided by class subject. For example, "Introduction to Literature" could be taught in the 9th grade. At my school in Oklahoma, "American Literature" is taught in the 11th grade.

Personally, I think it would make more sense to teach the introductory course freshman year, then broaden student horizons to reading American literature sophomore year, and expand to world literature junior year. I also think, if we're going to divide literature this way, we should continue with an overview of world literature during senior year instead of narrowing the focus to British literature.

Truth be told though, I think it would make more sense to focus on themes or topics each year and provide students with opportunities to choose what they want to read independently and in literature circles. We should focus our reading instruction on the students in front of us and their interests, not on a prescribed list or a literary canon dominated by dead white men.

Introduction to Literature

1. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

2. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

3. A Child Called “It” by Dave Pelzer

4. Crank by Ellen Hopkins

5. Divergent by Veronica Roth

6. Dune by Frank Herbert

7. Frankly in Love by David Yoon

8. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

9. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

10. The Giver by Lois Lowry

11. The Harry Potter series by J K Rowling

12. The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins

13. His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman

14. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

15. House of Night series by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast

16. Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

17. Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

18. Lord of the Flies by William Golding

19. The Maze Runner series by James Dashner

20. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

21. The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare

22. The Princess Bride by William Goldman

23. The Princess Diaries series by Meg Cabot

24. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

25. Speak: The Graphic Novel by Laurie Halse Anderson

26. Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

27. Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

28. Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

For more recommendations, check out our list of Books for Secondary English Class.

American Literature

1. An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

2. All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

3. American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

4. Anthem by Ayn Rand

5. The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley

6. The Call of the Wild by Jack London

7. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

8. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

9. Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman

10. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

11. Crank series by Ellen Hopkins

12. Delirium series by Lauren Oliver

13. Dragonwings by Laurence Yep

14. Dreamland Burning by Jennifer Latham

15. Every Day by David Levithan

16. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

17. The Fault In Our Stars by John Green

18. Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes

19. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous

20. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

21. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

22. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

23. The Help by Kathryn Stockett

24. Holes by Louis Sachar

25. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

26. The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins

27. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

28. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

29. Jubilee by Margaret Walker

30. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

31. Looking for Alaska by John Green

32. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult

33. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglass

34. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

35. Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck

36. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

37. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey

38. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

39. Paper Towns by John Green

40. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

41. Rethinking Normal: A Memoir in Transition by Katie Rain Hill

42. Roots by Alex Haley

43. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series by Ann Brashares

44. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

45. A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

46. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

47. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

48. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

World Literature

1. 1984: A Novel by George Orwell

2. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

3. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

4. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

5. Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne

6. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

7. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne

8. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

9. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

10. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

11. Dracula by Bram Stoker

12. The Hobbit series by J.R.R. Tolkien

13. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

14. Life of Pi by Yann Martel

15. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

16. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

British Literature

1. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

2. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

3. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

4. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien

5. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

6. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

7. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

8. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

9. Pride And Prejudice by Jane Austen

10. The Sherlock Holmes series by Arthur Conan Doyle

11. Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

12. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

13. Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

14. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

15. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (especially if you’re a Twilight fan)