“Isn’t There Anything I Can Read?” New Era, Dec. 1980, 36
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
Photo by Eldon Linschoten