The joy of recommended reading 📚

*a lovely, lovely list...

Dear Reader,

hello, lately I've been pondering the joy that is a recommended reading list and how very important these types of lists are. The ones you may have been given at school - if you were lucky - or at college or university. I can still, many years on, remember my college and uni ones - they were (and are) precious. They shaped my reading, to a great extent, and led me to authors I might not otherwise have discovered. I loved putting an asterisk next to the books I wanted to read and I loved ticking them off once I had. The Internet did exist by then but not - at least to me - in any profound way and so I'd make my choices based on titles (judging a book by its name rather than cover), on discussions with teachers/lecturers, or sometimes I'd just order EVERYTHING on the list! (I was lucky, my Mother ran a shop at the time which meant a huge book discount for me - even though the shop was a health-store not a book-one).

In line with these recent ponderings I thought I'd share a recommended reading long-list that myself and some other English teachers put together five, or so years ago. We were all very busy working in a school back then but we all kept finding time and somehow - amongst the madness of school life - prioritising the creation of this bookish catalogue. It was a delight of the work-day and, now I'm a tutor, rather than a teacher, I still send out and hand out this list regularly to any student who will take it. I've added a few titles to the original (2019) list but I know there's ALWAYS, ALWAYs more! So please do tell me what I/we’ve missed by commenting below. At the time we tried to mix up the canonical with the contemporary, our personal childhood favourites with recommendations from students and young people themselves. Although this was originally intended as an academic reading log I think that especially from Year 9 upwards most of the books are also suitable and recommended for adults! (Note too: that the age ranges are not an exact science, for example many that are in the Year 9, 10 and 11 category, i.e. for thirteen to sixteen year olds, I read at thirty- ish! And for those not from a British school background Year 1 is typically five-six years old and year 13 is seventeen- eighteen years old.)

As always thank you for reading, liking and sharing! New to the newsletter? There’s more about me and the type of things you’ll find here here.

Love,

Emma

x o x o

p.s. Talking of books did you know I wrote one? You can purchase it - Roaming Wild, the Founding of Compassion in World Farming - here.

Year 1 

1. Oliver Jeffers, Lost and Found 

2. Pamela Allen, Mr McGee and others 

3. Dr Seuss, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish and others 

4. Julia Donaldson, The Gruffalo 

5. Julia Donaldson, The Snail and the Whale 

7. Beatrix Potter tales 

8. Janet and Allan Ahlberg, Each Peach Pear Plum 

9. Petr Horáček, The Mouse who Ate the Moon 

10. An Vrombaut, Snowbert, the Polar Bear 

11. Roger Hargreaves, Mr. Happy (and any of the ‘Mr Men’ series)

12. Jackie French & Bruce Whatley, Josephine Wants to Dance 

12. Richard Scarry, What Do People Do All Day

13. Samantha Ball, The Little Dinosaur 

14. Judith Kerr, One Night in the Zoo 

15. Sarah KilBride & Sophie Tilley, Princess Evie’s Ponies 

16. Meomi, The Octonauts 

17. Claire Freedman & Ben Cort, Dinosaurs Love Underpants 

18. Janey Louise Jones, Princess Poppy Picture Books (series) 

19. James Mayhew, Katie and Spanish Princess 

20. Natalie Jane Parker, Willow and the Treasure Hunt 

21. Suzanne Chiew, Badger series  

22. Brian Patten & Alison Jay, Emma’s Doll 

23. David McKee, Elmer series (10 books) 

24. Anne Fine, Let It Snow! 

25. Fran Manushkin, Katie Woo series 

26. Amy Proud, I want a Friend 

27. Amy Proud, Izzy the Very Bad Burglar

Year 2 

1. Marjorie Weinman Sharmat, Nate the Great series (29 books)

2. Roald Dahl, Fantastic Mr Fox 

3. A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh and others 

4. Daisy Meadows, Magic Animal Friends (a series of 30 books)

5. Enid Blyton, Amelia Jane (a collection of 5 books) 

6. Enid Blyton, Stories of Wizards and Witches 

7. Usborne Illustrated Stories (including: of Horses and Ponies, for Bedtime,  from Aesop, Norse Myths, Arabian Nights, Myths from Around the  World, Fairy Tales, Tales of King Arthur) 

8. Annie Barrows, Ivy & Bean series 

9. Michael Bond, A Bear Called Paddington (and others in the series)

10. D. Roberts and A. MacDonald, Dirty Bertie series (20 books)

11. Janey Louise Jones, Princess Poppy Fiction (series)

12. Jill Barklem, Brambly Hedge series (8 books) 

13. Usborne Beginners series (including: Storms and Hurricanes, Astronomy,  Your Body) (non-fiction) 

14. Ron Roy, A-Z Mysteries (series of 26 books) 

15. Abby Hanlon, Dory Fantasmagory series  

16. Megan McDonald, Judy Moody series (10 books) 

17. Paula Harrison, The Rescue Princesses series 

18. Mary Pope Osborne, The Magic Treehouse (series of 50 books)

19. Cynthia Lord, Shelter Pet Squad series  

Year 3 

1. P. L. Travers, Mary Poppins (6 books in the original series)

2. David Walliams, Fing 

3. Lauren St John, The White Giraffe series 

4. E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web 

5. Roald Dahl, Matilda 

6. Roald Dahl, James and the Giant Peach 

7. Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book 

8. Michael Morpurgo, The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips 

9. Eva Ibbotson, One Dog and His Boy 

10. Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House on the Prairie 

11. Anna Sewell, Black Beauty 

12. Hugh Lofting, The Story of Doctor Dolittle 

13. Caroline Lawrence, The Roman Mysteries (series) 

14. Andrew Matthews & Tony Ross, The Shakespeare Stories (16 books)

15. Robert Westall, Blitzcat 

16. J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan 

17. Aladdin and Other Tales from the Arabian Nights (Everyman Library  Children’s Classics) 

18. Lucy Daniels, Animal Ark series (6 books) 

19. Adam Blade, Beastquest series (18 books) 

20. Philip Pullman, The Firework Maker’s Daughter 

21. Santa & Simon Sebag Montefiore, The Royal Rabbits 

22. Marcus Sedgwick, Flood and Fang 

23. Beverly Cleary, Ramona the Pest 

24. Astrid Lindgren, Pippi Longstocking 

25. Russell Hoban, The Mouse and his Child 

26. Enid Blyton, The Magic Faraway Tree series (6 books) 

27. Katie Davies/RSPCA, Lamb All Alone (one of a 10-book series)

28. Rupert Kingfisher, Madame Pamplemousse series 

29. Jacqueline Wilson, The Story of Tracy Beaker

Year 4 

1. Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows 

2. Jill Murphy, Worst Witch series (7 books) 

3. E.B. White, The Trumpet of the Swan 

4. E.B. White, Stuart Little 

5. Enid Blyton, The Famous Five (21 books) 

6. Edith Nesbit, Five Children and It 

7. Edith Nesbit, The Phoenix and the Carpet 

8. J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter series 

9. David Walliams, Midnight Gang 

10. Betty Birney, The World According to Humphrey 

11. Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Wimpy Kid (series of 12 books) 13. Zizou Corder, Lionboy 

12. Michael Morpurgo, Kensuke’s Kingdom 

13. Chris Blake, Time Hunters series (12 books) 

14. Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden 

15. Louisa May Alcott, Little Women 

16. Johanna Spyri, Heidi 

17. L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables 

18. Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory 

19. Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland 

20. Noel Streatfeild, Ballet Shoes 

21. C.S.Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe 

22. Edward Eager, Half Magic 

23. Charles Kingsley, The Water Babies 

24. Lemony Snicket, A Series of Unfortunate Events (series of 13 books)

25. Sara Pennypacker, Clementine (series of 6 books) 

26. Tove Jansson, Finn Family Moomintroll 

Year 5 

1. Richard Adams, Watership Down 

2. Philip Pullman, The Ruby in the Smoke (first of a 4-book series)

3. Michael Morpurgo, Born to Run 

4. Michael Morpurgo, Shadow 

5. Nick Lake, Satellite 

6. Louis Sachar, There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom 

7. Louis Sachar, Holes 

8. Tomi Adeyemi, Children of Blood and Bone  (first in trilogy)

9. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit 

10. Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol 

11. Daniel Pennac, The Eye of the Wolf 

12. Arthur Ransome, Swallows and Amazons 

13. Ernest Cline, Ready Player One 

14. Lisa Thompson, Goldfish Boy 

15. Ross Welford, Time Travelling with a Hamster

16. Lara Williamson, A Boy Called Hope 

17. David Solomons, My Brother is a Superhero 

18. Frank Cottrell Boyce, Millions 

19. Frank Cottrell Boyce, Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth 

20. Katherine Paterson, The Bridge to Terabithia 

21. David Walliams, Ratburger 

22. David Walliams, Bad Dad 

23. Ian Seraillier, The Silver Sword 

24. Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy 

25. Phillipa Pearce, Tom’s Midnight Garden 

26. Anthony Horowitz, Alex Rider series (10 books) 

27. Salman Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories 

28. R.J. Palacio, Wonder 

29. Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time 

30. Eleanor H. Porter, Pollyanna 

31. Frances Hodgson Burnett, A Little Princess 

32. E. Fevili & F. Cavallo, Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls (100 1-page  biographies of notable women) 

33. Astrid Lindgren, Ronia the Robber’s Daughter 

34. Sophie Cleverly, Scarlet and Ivy collection (6 books) 

35. Michelle Magorian, Good Night Mister Tom 

Year 6 

1. Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games trilogy 

2. Lisa Thompson, The Goldfish Boy 

3. Cassandra Clare, Shadowhunters (series of 6 books) 

4. Michelle Paver, Chronicles of Ancient Darkness (series of 6 books)

5. Judith Kerr, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit 

6. Terry Pratchett, The Colour of Magic (first of 26+ books in the Discworld series) 

7. Dan Brown, Origins 

8. Cornelia Funke, Inkheart trilogy 

9. Erich Kästner, Emil and the Detectives 

10. Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island 

11. Rachel Ignotofsky, Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers who Changed the  World (biographies)  

12. Lucy Strange, The Secret of Nightingale Wood 

13. Rick Riordan, Percy Jackson collection (5 books) 

14. Rick Riordan, Magnus Chase series (4 books) 

15. Mary Norton, The Borrowers 

16. Neil Gaiman, Coraline 

17. William Goldman, The Princess Bride 

18. Terry Deary, Shivers series  

19. Jamila Gavin, Coram Boy 

20. Jamila Gavin, The Wheel of Surya 

21. Robert Westall, The Machine Gunners 

22. Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl series

23. Philip Pullman, Northern Lights (first of the His Dark Materials trilogy)

24. Sally Gardner, Maggot Moon 

25. Peter Bunzl, Cogheart 

26. Marcus Sedgwick, My Swordhand is Singing 

27. Jenny Nimmo, The Snow Spider Trilogy 

Year 7 

1. Penelope Farmer, Charlotte Sometimes 

2. Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd 

3. Agatha Christie, N or M 

4. Robin Stevens, Murder Most Unladylike (8-book series) 

5. Philip Reeve, Mortal Engines (4-book series) 

6. Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! series 

7. Laurence Gough, The Goldfish Bowl (first in Willows & Parker Mystery series) 9. Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book 

8. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (Also a GCSE text so guided reading!)

9. Maile Meloy, The Apothecary 

10. Hillary Homzie, Queen of Likes 

11. John David Anderson, Posted 

12. Pam Muñoz Ryan, Esperanza Rising 

13. Malala Yousafzai, I am Malala (non-fiction) 

14. Juno Dawson (editor), Proud (short story anthology) 

15. Blue Balliett, Hold Fast 

16. Jack London, The Call of the Wild 

17. Leon Leyson, The Boy on the Wooden Box 

18. T.H. White, The Once and Future King 

19. Francesca Simon, The Lost Gods 

20. Meg Rosoff, How I Live Now 

21. Kiran Millwood Hargrave, The Island at the End of Everything

24. Theodore Taylor, The Cay 

22. Frank Cottrell Boyce, Framed 

23. John Masefield, The Box of Delights 

24. Christopher Edge, Twelve Minutes to Midnight 

25. Nicholas Fisk, A Rag, A Bone and a Hank of Hair 

26. Ted Hughes, Season Songs (poetry)

Year 8 

1. John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids 

2. Ursula Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea (first of a 4-book series)

3. Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl 

4. Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca (Also a GCSE text so guided reading!)

5. Richard Adams, The Plague Dogs 

6. Joan Lingard, Across the Barricades 

7. Paul Brickhill, The Dam Busters

8. Elspeth Huxley, The Flame Trees of Thika (autobiography) 

9. Lois Lowry, The Giver 

10. Malorie Blackman, Noughts and Crosses collection (4 books)

11. Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give 

12. Anne Fine, Goggle Eyes 

13. Charles Dickens, Great Expectations 

14. Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist 

15. Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn 

16. Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey 

17. Kevin Brooks, The Bunker Diary 

18. Markus Zusak, The Book Thief 

19. Jules Vernes, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea 

20. Elie Wiesel, Night 

21. Raymond E. Feist, Magician 

22. Eva Ibbotson, Journey to the River Sea 

23. Georgette Heyer, Frederica (Heyer wrote 48 novels) 

24. H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man 

25. George Orwell, Animal Farm 

26. Barry Hines, A Kestrel for a Knave 

27. Anne Holm, I am David 

28. Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea 

29. Baroness Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel 

30. Nick Hornby, Slam 

31. Irfan Master, A Beautiful Lie

Year 9 

1. Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes mysteries 

2. Aldous Huxley, Brave New World 

3. H.G. Wells, The Time Machine 

4. H.G. Wells, The Country of the Blind and other Selected Stories

5. William Golding, Lord of the Flies 

6. Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird 

7. John Green, The Fault in our Stars 

8. John Green, Looking for Alaska 

9. Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

10. Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls 

11. Lynne Reid Banks, The L-Shaped Room 

12. E.M. Forster, A Room with a View 

13. Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son 

14. Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop 

15. William Thackeray, Vanity Fair 

16. Jane Austen, Emma 

17. Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights (also an A-Level text so guided reading!)

18. Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto 

19. Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

20. Veniamin Kaverin, Two Captains 

21. Patrick Ness, And the Ocean Was Our Sky

22. Robert Graves, I, Claudius 

23. Ying Chang Compestine, Revolution is Not a Dinner Party 

24. Simon Scarrow, Eagles of the Empire series (18 books)  

25. Bernard Cornwell, various 

26. Ewel Montagu, The Man Who Never Was: WW2’s Boldest Counterintelligence  Operation (non-fiction) 

27. Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 

28. Louis de Bernières, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin 

29. Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo 

30. Kevin Brooks, Martyn Pig 

31. Benjamin Zephaniah, Gangsta Rap 

32. Emily M. Danforth, The Miseducation of Cameron Post 

33. Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front 

34. J.G. Ballard, Empire of the Sun 

35. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

36. Philip Larkin, Collected Poems 

37. Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre 

38. Maureen Johnson, Truly Devious

39. Elizabeth Acavedo, The Poet X

40. Salla Simukka, As Red as Blood

Years 10 & 11 

1. Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things 

2. Alice Walker, The Color Purple 

3. Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd 

4. John Steinbeck, East of Eden 

5. Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie 

6. Virginia Woolf, Orlando 

7. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby 

8. Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist 

9. Charles Dickens, Bleak House 

10. Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities 

11. Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend 

12. Jane Austen, Mansfield Park 

13. Hanif Kureishi, The Buddha of Suburbia 

14. Isabel Allende, The House of Spirits 

15. Thomas Hardy, Tess of the Durbervilles 

16. Julie Orringer, How to Breathe Underwater (short stories) 

17. Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club 

18. James Joyce, Dubliners (short stories) 

19. Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit 

20. Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s 

21. J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey (short stories) 

22. Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God 

23. Seamus Deane, Reading in the Dark 

24. Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall 

25. Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray 

26. Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde 

27. Hardy, The Mayor of Castorbridge 

28. George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss 

29. John Gardner, Grendel

30. Herman Melville, Moby Dick 

31. Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter 32. Joseph Heller, Catch-22 

33. John le Carré, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy 

Years 12 & 13 

1. Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road 

2. Graham Swift, Waterland 

3. James Baldwin, Another Country 

4. Anita Desai, Clear Light of Day 

5. Toni Morrison, Sula 

6. Donna Tartt, The Secret History 

7. Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar 

8. Jamaica Kincaid, Annie John 

9. Angela Carter, Wise Children 

10. Jack Kerouac, On the Road 

11. Raymond Carver, Will You Please be Quiet, Please?

12. James Franco, Palo Alto 

13. Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls 

14. Salman Rushdie, East, West (short stories)

15. Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake 

16. Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem (essays)

17. Lorrie Moore, Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?

18. Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty 

19. Evelyn Waugh, A Handful of Dust 

20. Graham Greene, Brighton Rock 

21. Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day 

22. DBC Pierre, Vernon God Little 

23. Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers 

24. James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

25. Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse 

26. Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 

27. Anthony Burgess, Clockwork Orange 

28. James Dickie, Deliverance 

29. E.M. Forster, A Passage to India 

30. Henry James, Portrait of a Lady 

31. Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

32. Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eyes

33. Ana Maria Matute, The Island