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Timeless Classics

  An old Chinese proverb says, "A book is like a garden in the pocket." Many of us who have valued reading in our early years derive enjoyment from reading to our children, and now, as I do, to our grandchildren. Books are voyages of discovery and transforming instruments to all of us.

A few years ago, the National Endowment for the Humanities asked schools around the country to send reading lists of their favorite books. Noticing how often books that other generations have enjoyed appear on these lists, we decided to make this compilation of tried-and- true titles. The works herein, published in 1960 or earlier, have delighted generations of readers.

  Some have asked, "Is the book dead?" as we move into new computer technologies. Not at all. Print text will co-exist with these new mediums.

  As concerned parents, educators, and counselors, we must continue to emphasize the importance of access to good reading in order to shape our students' learning process, enhance their understanding of American heritage, and open up a new world of self-fulfillment. As Aldous Huxley said, "The proper study of mankind is books."

  There are some excellent older books that are missing from the list, because they appeared too infrequently in the school selections: Kate Douglas Wiggin's Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, for example; Dylan Thomas's A Child's Christmas in Wales; Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Despite the absences, we hope this compilation will nevertheless bring hours of pleasure and enlightenment.

  The titles presented for suggested extracurricular reading provide a solid foundation and hours of enjoyment for students and scholars of all ages.

  We at NEH hope that the "Timeless Classics" booklist will continue to be a rich source of material for everyone.

Sheldon Hackney
Chairman

  "Books are humanity in print" ...Barbara Tuchman

"Literature is an investment of genius which pays dividends to all subsequent times." ...John Burroughs

"All that mankind has done, thought, gained, or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books." ...Thomas Carlyle

### Kindergarten through Grade 6 ###

Adamson, Joy
  Born Free

Aesop
  Fables*

Alcott, Louisa May
  Little Women

Andersen, Hans Christian
  Fairy tales

Atwater, Richard and Florence
  Mr. Popper's Penguins*

Bailey, Carolyn Sherwin
  Miss Hickory

* Recommended for K-3, either for reading
by children or for reading to them.

Barrie, J.M.
  Peter Pan

Baum, L. Frank
  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Bemelmans, Ludwig
  Madeline series*

Bond, Michael
  A Bear Called Paddington

Boston, L.M.
  The Children of Green Knowe

Brink, Carol Ryrie
  Caddie Woodlawn

Brown, Margaret Wise
  Goodnight, Moon*

Brunhoff, Jean de
  The Story of Babar*

Burnett, Frances Hodgson
  The Secret Garden

Burton, Virginia Lee
  Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel*

Butterworth, Oliver
  The Enormous Egg

Clark, Ann Nolan
  Secret of the Andes

Cleary, Beverly
  Henry Huggins series

Coatsworth, Elizabeth
  The Cat Who Went to Heaven

Dalgliesh, Alice
  The Bears on Hemlock Mountain*
  The Courage of Sarah Noble*

De Angeli, Marguerite
  The Door in the Wall

De Jong, Meindert
  The House of Sixty Fathers
  The Wheel on the School

Dodge, Mary Mapes
  Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates

Du Bois, William Pene
  The Twenty-One Balloons

Edmonds, Walter D.
  The Matchlock Gun

Estes, Eleanor
  Ginger Pye
  Moffats series

Farley, Walter
  The Black Stallion

Field, Rachel
  Hitty, Her First Hundred Years

Fritz, Jean
  The Cabin Faced West

Gilbreth, Frank B. and
  Ernestine G. Carey
  Cheaper By the Dozen

Gipson, Fred
  Old Yeller

Godden, Rumer
  The Mousewife*

Grahame, Kenneth
  The Reluctant Dragon*
The Wind in the Willows f

Gray, Elizabeth Janet
  Adam of the Road

Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm
  Grimm's Fairy Tales

Hawes, Charles
  The Dark Frigate

Haywood, Carolyn
  Betsy series*

Henry, Marguerite
  King of the Wind
  Misty of Chincoteague

Keith, Harold
  Rifles for Watie

Kelly, Eric
  The Trumpeter of Krakow

Kipling, Rudyard
  Captains Courageous
  Just So Stories for
  Little Children*
  The Jungle Books

Kjelgaard, Jim
  Big Red

Knight, Eric
  Lassie Come Home

Krumgold, Joseph
  ...and Now Miguel
  Onion John

LaFarge, Oliver
  Laughing Boy

Lamb, Charles and Mary
  Tales from Shakespear

Latham, Jean Lee
  Carry on, Mr. Bowditch

Lawson, Robert
  Ben & Me
  Rabbit Hill

Leaf, Munro
  The Story of Ferdinand*

Lear, Edward
  Book of Nonsense*

Lenski, Lois
  Strawberry Girl

Lewis, C.S.
  Chronicles of Narnia series

Lindgren, Astrid
  Pippi Longstocking series

Lofting, Hugh
  Doctor Doolittle series

London, Jack
  The Call of the Wild
  White Fang

MacDonald, Betty
  Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle*

MacGregor, Ellen
  Miss Pickerell series

McCloskey, Robert
  Blueberries for Sal*
  Homer Price
  Make Way for Ducklings*

McSwigan, Marie
  Snow Treasure

Meigs, Cornelia
  Invincible Louisa

Milne, A.A.
  The House at Pooh Corner*
Now We Are Six*
When We Were Very Young*
Winnie-the-Pooh*

Minarik, Else Holmelund
  Little Bear

Montgomery, L.M.
  Anne of Green Gables

Mukerji, Dhan Ghopal
  Gay-Neck, the Story of a Pigeon

Norton, Mary
  The Borrowers series

O'Hara, Mary
  My Friend Flicka

Pearce, Philippa
  Tom's Midnight Garden

Perrault, Charles
  Cinderella*

Potter, Beatrix
  The Tale of Peter Rabbit*

Pyle, Howard
  The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood

Rey, H.A.
  Curious George series*

Richter, Conrad
  The Light in the Forest

Selden, George
  The Cricket in Times Square*

Seuss, Dr.
  The Cat in the Hat*

Sewell, Anna
  Black Beauty

Sorenson, Virginia
  Miracles on Maple Hill

Speare, Elizabeth George
  The Witch of Blackbird Pond

Sperry, Armstrong
  Call It Courage

Spyri, Johanna
  Heidi

Steinbeck, John
  The Red Pony

Stevenson, Robert Louis
  A Child's Garden of Verses*
  Kidnapped
  Treasure Island

Travers, Pamela L.
  Mary Poppins series

Van Loon, Hendrik
  The Story of Mankind

White, E.B.
  Charlotte's Web
  Stuart Little

Wilder, Laura Ingalls
  Little House series

Williams, Margery
  The Velveteen Rabbit*

Wyss, Johann
  Swiss Family Robinson

Zion, Gene
  Harry the Dirty Dog*

### Grades 7 and 8 ###

Alcott, Louisa May
  Little Men

Bagnold, Enid
  National Velvet

Blackmore, Richard D.
  Lorna Doone

Boulle, Pierre
  The Bridge over the River Kwai

Bradbury, Ray
  Dandelion Wine
  Fahrenheit 451
  The Illustrated Man
  Martian Chronicles

Buchan, John
  The Thirty-Nine Steps

Bunyan, John
  The Pilgrim's Progress

Carroll, Lewis
  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
  Through the Looking Glass

Clark, Walter
  The Ox-Bow Incident

Cooper, James Fenimore
  The Deerslayer
  The Last of the Mohicans

Curie, Eve
  Madame Curie: A Biography

Dana, Richard Henry
  Two Years before the Mast

Day, Clarence
  Life with Father

Defoe, Daniel
  Robinson Crusoe

Dickens, Charles
  A Christmas Carol

Douglas, Lloyd C.
  The Robe

Doyle, Arthur Conan
  Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Dumas, Alexander
  The Count of Monte Christo
The Three Musketeers

Du Maurier, Daphne
  Rebecca

Edmonds, Walter D.
  Drums along the Mohawk

Ferber, Edna
  Cimarron

Forbes, Esther
  Johnny Tremain

Forester, C.S.
  The African Queen
  The Hornblower series

Frank, Anne
  Diary of a Young Girl

Frost, Robert
  Poems

Gallico, Paul
  The Snow Goose

Gunther, John
  Death Be Not Proud

Guthrie, A.B.
  The Big Sky

Haggard, H. Rider
  King Solomon's Mines

Hansberry, Lorraine
  Raisin in the Sun

Hemingway, Ernest
  The Old Man and the Sea

Hersey, John
  A Bell for Adano
  Hiroshima
  The Wall

Heyerdahl, Thor
  Kon-Tiki

Hilton, James
  Goodbye, Mr. Chips
  Lost Horizon

Hudson, W.H.
  Green Mansions

Hughes, Richard
  A High Wind in Jamaica

Hugo, Victor
  The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Irving, Washington
  The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Keller, Helen
  Story of My Life

Kennedy, John F.
  Profiles in Courage

Kipling, Rudyard
  Kim

Knowles, John
  A Separate Peace

Lee, Harper
  To Kill a Mockingbird

London, Jack
  The Sea Wolf

Lord, Walter
  A Night to Remember

Malory, Sir Thomas
  Le Morte d'Arthur

Maxwell, Gavin
  Ring of Bright Water

McCullers, Carson
  Member of the Wedding

Michener, James
  The Bridges at Toko-Ri

Mitchell, Margaret
  Gone with the Wind

Nordhoff, Charles and J.N. Hall
  Mutiny on the Bounty

O'Dell, Scott
  Island of the Blue Dolphins

Orczy, Baroness Emma
  The Scarlet Pimpernel

Paton, Alan
  Cry, the Beloved Country

Pyle, Howard
  Men of Iron

Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan
  The Yearling

Renault, Mary
  The King Must Die

Roberts, Kenneth
  Northwest Passage

Saint-Exupery, Antoine de
  The Little Prince
  Wind, Sand and Stars

Saki  
Stories

Schaefer, Jack
  Shane

Scott, Sir Walter
  Ivanhoe

Shelley, Mary
  Frankenstein

Smith, Betty
  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Steinbeck, John
  The Pearl
  Tortilla Flat

Stevenson, Robert Louis
  The Black Arrow
  The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll
  and Mr. Hyde

Stoker, Bram
  Dracula

Thurber, James
  The Thurber Carnival

Tolkien, J.R.R.
  The Hobbit
  The Lord of the Rings

Twain, Mark
  The Adventures of
  Huckleberry Finn
  The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
  A Connecticut Yankee in
  King Arthur's Court
  Innocents Abroad
  Life on the Mississippi
  The Prince and the Pauper

Verne, Jules
  Around the World in Eighty Days
  Journey to the Center of the Earth
  Mysterious Island
  20,000 Leagues under the Sea

Wallace, Lewis
  Ben-Hur

Washington, Booker T.
  Up from Slavery

Wells, H.G.
  The Time Machine
  War of the Worlds

Wharton, Edith
  Ethan Frome

Wilder, Thornton
  The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Wister, Owen
  The Virginian

Yates, Elizabeth
  Amos Fortune, Free Man

### Grades 9 through 12 ###

Agee, James
  A Death in the Family

Anderson, Sherwood
  Winesburg, Ohio

Austen, Jane
  Emma
  Northanger Abbey
  Pride and Prejudice
  Sense and Sensibility

Baldwin, James
  Go Tell It on the Mountain

Balzac, Honore de
  Pere Goriot

Beckett, Samuel
  Waiting for Godot

The Bible
  Old Testament
  New Testament

Bolt, Robert
  A Man for All Seasons

Bronte, Charlotte
  Jane Eyre

Bronte, Emily
  Wuthering Heights

Browning, Robert
  Poems

Buck, Pearl
  The Good Earth

Butler, Samuel
  The Way of All Flesh

Camus, Albert
  The Plague
  The Stranger

Cather, Willa
  Death Comes for the Archbishop
My Antonia

Cervantes, Miguel
  Don Quixote

Chaucer, Geoffrey
  The Canterbury Tales

Chekhov, Anton
  The Cherry Orchard

Chopin, Kate
  The Awakening

Collins, Wilkie
  The Moonstone

Conrad, Joseph
  Heart of Darkness
  Lord Jim
  The Secret Sharer
  Victory

Crane, Stephen
  The Red Badge of Courage

Dante
  The Divine Comedy

Defoe, Daniel
  Moll Flanders

Dickens, Charles
  Bleak House
  David Copperfield
  Great Expectations
  Hard Times
  Oliver Twist
  A Tale of Two Cities

Dickinson, Emily
  Poems

Dinesen, Isak
  Out of Africa

Dostoevski, Fyodor
  Brothers Karamazov
  Crime and Punishment

Dreiser, Theodore
  An American Tragedy
  Sister Carrie

Eliot, George
  Adam Bede
  Middlemarch
  Mill on the Floss
  Silas Marner

Eliot, T.S.
  Murder in the Cathedral

Ellison, Ralph
  Invisible Man

Emerson, Ralph Waldo
  Essays

Faulkner, William
  Absalom, Absalom!
  As I Lay Dying
Intruder in the Dust
Light in August
The Sound and the Fury

Fielding, Henry
  Joseph Andrews
  Tom Jones

Fitzgerald, F. Scott
  The Great Gatsby
  Tender Is the Night

Flaubert, Gustave
  Madame Bovary

Forster, E.M.
  A Passage to India
  A Room with a View

Franklin, Benjamin
  The Autobiography of
  Benjamin Franklin

Galsworthy, John
  The Forsyte Saga

Golding, William
  Lord of the Flies

Goldsmith, Oliver
  She Stoops to Conquer

Graves, Robert
  I, Claudius

Greene, Graham
  The Heart of the Matter
  The Power and the Glory

Hamilton, Edith
  Mythology

Hardy, Thomas
  Far From the Madding Crowd
  Jude the Obscure
  The Mayor of Casterbridge
  The Return of the Native
  Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Hawthorne, Nathaniel
  The House of the Seven Gables
  The Scarlet Letter

Hemingway, Ernest
  A Farewell to Arms
  For Whom the Bell Tolls
  The Sun Also Rises

Henry, O.
  Stories

Hersey, John
  A Single Pebble

Hesse, Hermann
  Demian
  Siddhartha
  Steppenwolf

Homer
  The Iliad
  The Odyssey

Hughes, Langston
  Poems

Hugo, Victor
  Les Miserables

Huxley, Aldous
  Brave New World

Ibsen, Henrik
  A Doll's House
  An Enemy of the People
  Ghosts
  Hedda Gabler
  The Master Builder
  The Wild Duck

James, Henry
  The American
  Daisy Miller
  Portrait of a Lady
  The Turn of the Screw

Joyce, James
  Portrait of the Artist
  As a Young Man
  Dubliners

Kafka, Franz
  The Castle
  Metamorphosis
  The Trial

Keats, John
  Poems

Kerouac, Jack
  On the Road

Koestler, Arthur
  Darkness at Noon

Lawrence, D.H.
  Sons and Lovers

Lawrence, Jerome and Robert E. Lee
  Inherit the Wind

Lewis, Sinclair
  Arrowsmith
  Babbitt
  Main Street

Llewellyn, Richard
  How Green Was My Valley

Machiavelli
  The Prince

MacLeish, Archibald
  J.B.

Mann, Thomas
  Buddenbrooks
  The Magic Mountain

Marlowe, Christopher
  Dr. Faustus

Maugham, Somerset
  Of Human Bondage

McCullers, Carson
  The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Melville, Herman
  Billy Budd
  Moby-Dick
  Typee

Miller, Arthur
  The Crucible
  Death of a Salesman

Monsarrat, Nicholas
  The Cruel Sea

O'Neill, Eugene
  The Emperor Jones
  A Long Day's Journey into Night
  Mourning Becomes Electra

Orwell, George
  Animal Farm
  1984

Pasternak, Boris
  Doctor Zhivago

Poe, Edgar Allan
  Short stories

Remarque, Erich
  All Quiet on the Western Front

Rolvaag, O.E.
  Giants in the Earth

Rostand, Edmond
  Cyrano de Bergerac

Salinger, J.D.
  The Catcher in the Rye

Sandburg, Carl
  Abraham Lincoln:
  The Prairie Years
  Abraham Lincoln:
  The War Years

Saroyan, William
  The Human Comedy

Sayers, Dorothy
  The Nine Tailors

Shakespeare, William
  Plays and sonnets

Shaw, George Bernard
  Arms and the Man
  Major Barbara
  Pygmalion
  Saint Joan

Sheridan, Richard B.
  The School for Scandal

Shute, Nevil
  On the Beach

Sinclair, Upton
  The Jungle

Sophocles
  Antigone
  Oedipus Rex

Steinbeck, John
  East of Eden
  The Grapes of Wrath
  Of Mice and Men

Stowe, Harriet Beecher
  Uncle Tom's Cabin

Swift, Jonathan
  Gulliver's Travels

Thackeray, William M.
  Vanity Fair

Thoreau, Henry David
  Walden

Tolstoy, Leo
  Anna Karenina
  War and Peace

Trollope, Anthony
  Barchester Towers

Turgenev, Ivan
  Fathers and Sons

Twain, Mark
  Pudd'nhead Wilson

Updike, John
  Rabbit Run

Vergil
  The Aeneid

Voltaire
  Candide

Warren, Robert Penn
  All the King's Men

Waugh, Evelyn
  Brideshead Revisited
  A Handful of Dust

Wharton, Edith
  Age of Innocence

White, T.H.
  The Once and Future King
  The Sword in the Stone

Wilde, Oscar
  The Importance of Being Earnest
  The Picture of Dorian Gray

Wilder, Thornton
  Our Town

Williams, Tennessee
  The Glass Menagerie
  A Streetcar Named Desire

Wolfe, Thomas
  Look Homeward, Angel

Woolf, Virginia
  Mrs. Dalloway
  To the Lighthouse

Wouk, Herman
  The Caine Mutiny

Wright, Richard
  Black Boy
  Native Son

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