Recommended Reading - with parents (One or more of the following)
The Rooster Crows: A Book of American Rhymes and Jingles by Maud
and Miska Petersham
The Children's Aesop retold by Stephanie Calmenson
The Three Little Pigs and Other Favorite Nursery Stories retold
and illustrated by Charlotte Voake
New Puffin Children's World Atlas: An Introductory Atlas for
Young People by Jacqueline Tivers and Michael Day
What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know edited by E.D. Hirsch,
Jr., and John Holdren
Grade 1
Recommended Reading - with parents as needed (One or more of the
following)
The Boy Who Held Back the Sea retold by Lenny Hort
A Story a Story retold and illustrated by Gail E. Haley
Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters: An African Tale retold and
illustrated by John Steptoe
Bill and Pete Go down the Nile written and illustrated by Tomi
dePaola
Gilgamesh the King retold and illustrated by Ludmila Zeman
Grade 2
Recommended Reading - with parents as needed (One or more of the
following)
Iktomi and the Buffalo Skull retold and illustrated by Paul Goble
Greek Myths for Young Children by Marcia Williams
John Henry by Julius Lester
Buddha by Susan Roth
Japan: Land of Samurai and Robots by Laurence Ottenheimer
Grade 3
Recommended Reading - with parents as needed (One or more of the
following)
The Random House Book of Poetry for Children selected by Jack
Prelutsky
Classic Myths to Read Aloud compiled and edited by William F.
Russell
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves retold by Walter McVitty
Living in Ancient Rome by Odile Bombarde and Claude Moatti
Rembrandt by Ernest Raboff
Grade 4
Recommended Reading - with parents as needed (One or more of the
following)
Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Weaving of a Dream: A Chinese Folktale retold and illustrated
by Marilee Heyer
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow retold by Robert D. San Souci
Dundiata: Lion King of Mali written and illustrated by David
Wisniewski
Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions by Margaret Musgrove
Grade 5
Recommended Reading - with parents as needed (One or more of the
following)
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza adapted by Margaret Hodges
A Midsummer Night's Dream for Young People edited and illustrated
by Diane Davidson
Native American Stories told by Joseph Bruchac
The Aztecs by Robert Nicholson and Claire Watts
Peter the Great written and illustrated by Diane Stanley
Grade 6
Recommended Reading
The Children's Homer: The Adventures of Odysseus and the Tale
of Troy by Padraic Colum
Classic Myths to Read Aloud compiled and edited by William F.
Russell
The Industrial Revolution edited by John D. Clare
The Golden Age of Greece: Imperial Democracy 500-400 BC by
Peter Cheoros, Jan Coleman-Knight, Rhoda Hmmell, and Linda Symcox
The Ancient World of the Bible by Malcolm Day
Bloomability by Sharon Creech
The Ransom of Mercy Carter by Caroline Cooney
Treasure Island by Robert L.Stevenson
Grade 7
Recommended Reading
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster
by Jon Krakauer
Countdown by Ben Mikaelsen
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Hamlet by William Shakespear
Grade 8
Recommended Reading
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
The Pearl by John Steinbeck
Heart of a Champion by Carl Deuker
The Ransom of Mercy Carter by Caroline Cooney
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Grade 9
Recommended Reading
Children of the River by Linda Crew
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by
Frederick Douglass
Hiroshima by John Hersey
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
Grade 10
Recommended Reading
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Lord of the Flies by W. Golding
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
Grade 11
Recommended Reading
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Catcher In the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Grade 12
Recommended Reading (One or more of the following)
The Romance of Tristan and Iseult by Joseph Bedier
Beowulf by Seamus Heaney
Demian by Herman Hesse
A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Once and Future King by T. H.White
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Advanced Placement (AP) Calculus AB and BC
Recommended Reading (One or more of the following)
Inside Calculus by George R. Exner
The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan by
Robert Kanigel
Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman by James Gleick
e: The Story of a Number by Eli Maor
Advanced Placement (AP) Chemistry
Recommended Reading (One or more of the following)
Marie Curie: A Life by Susan Quinn
Uncle Tungsten by Oliver Sachs
Advanced Placement (AP) English Literature and
Composition
Recommended Reading
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Death of a Salesman (play) by Arthur Miller
Rebecca by Daphne Dumaurier
Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Crime and Punishment by Fyoder Dostoyevski
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Advanced Placement (AP) Government & Politics:
United States
Recommended Reading
Newspapers (one of the following)
The New York Times
The Washington Post
The Wall Street Journal or
The Christian Science Monitor
Books
Irons, Peter, The Courage of Their Convictions: Sixteen
Americans Who Fought Their Way to the Supreme Court (Penguin Books, c.
1990)
Matthews, Christopher, Hardball, How Politics is Played-Told
by One Who Knows the Game (Harper and Row, c. 1989)
George Orwell, 1984, Fictional utopian society of a
totalitarian dictatorship.
Hedrick Smith, The New Russians, A journalist writes about
the history, culture, and changes in Soviet/Russians society from
Stalin to Gorbachev.
Advanced Placement (AP) Physics B and C
Recommended Reading
The God Particle by Leon Lederman
The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence Krauss
Chaos: the Making of a New Science by James Gleick
A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes by
Stephen Hawking
Five Equations That Changed the World by Michael Guillen
Advanced Placement (AP) US History
Recommended Reading
A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America by
Ronald T. Takaki
All the President's Men by Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis
Advanced Placement (AP) World History
Recommended Reading (One or more of the following)
King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
The Columbian Exchange : Biological and Cultural Consequences
of 1492 by Alfred W. Crosby
Sources
K-5
Based on "Books to Build On: A Grade-by-Grade Resource
Guide for Parents and Teachers" edited by John Holdren and E.D. Hirsch,
Jr.
Dr. Hirsch is professor emeritus at the University of Virginia and
author of many acclaimed books including "Cultural Literacy: What Every
American Needs to Know" and "The Schools We Need and Why We Don't Have
Them."
6-12
Based on the Bellevue School District 2003
Required Summer Reading Program
Gar-Field Senior High School, Woodbridge, Virginia, Summer
Reading Assignment
AP
Recommendations from AP Teachers who Participate in the
College Board's Electronic Discussion Groups