CTY Reading List
One way we can help [children] begin to shape their own values, their
own identities, their own ways of making sense of the world, is to introduce
them to works of literature that grapple with important issues.
-A message
from Diane Ravitch, Assistant Secretary of Education,
to the Summer Institute, National Javits Language
Arts Project, Saratoga-Warren BOCES, NY, July 24, 1991
• Endorsing this
precept, staff members, program participants, and friends of CTY have compiled
this list to encourage young people of extraordinary promise to grow
intellectually by reading good books. Use this list as a starting point in
developing your own personal reading list.
• Ask your
parents, older friends, teachers, and librarians to direct you to books related
to your interests and concerns. Talking with friends and family about books
that excite you will encourage introspection and reflection as well as
stimulate your curiosity about the larger world around you.
• You may also investigate joining or starting a book
discussion group in your community. Contact the Great Books Foundation
(800-222-5870 or www.greatbooks.com) for information on its program, which
encourages reading important books, taking part in interpretive discussions,
and writing.
• Visit online bookstores and go to their "Award
Winners" section for a variety of highly acclaimed books written
throughout the years.
Adventure Stories
Paul Creswick: Robin Hood
Daniel Defoe:
Robinson Crusoe
Alexandre Dumas: The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers
Thor Heyerdahl: Kon-Tiki
Rudyard Kipling: Kim
Howard Pyle: The Story or King Arthur and His Knights
Sir Walter Scott: Ivanhoe
Mary Shelley: Frankenstein
Robert Louis Stevenson: Kidnapped,
Bram Stoker: Dracula
Jonathan Swift: Gulliver's Travels
Mark Twain: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Adventures
of Tom Sawyer
Jules Verne: Journey to the Center of the Earth, other
titles
H.G. Wells: The Time Machine, The
War of the Worlds
Classic Fiction
Charles Dickens: A Tale of
Nathaniel Hawthorne: The House of the Seven Gobles
W.H. Hudson: Green Mansions
Victor Hugo; Les Miserables,
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Daphne du Maurier: Rebecca
John Steinbeck: The Pear), The
Red Pony
Mystery
Agatha Christie: Hercule
Poiror mysteries
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Hound of the Baskervilles
Virginia Hamilton: The House of Dies Drear, The Mystery of Drear House
Ruth Park: Playing Beatie
Bow
Ellen Raskin: The Westing Game
Modern Fiction
William Armstrong: Sounder
Avi: Blue Heron, Nothing but the Truth,
other titles
Frances Hodgson Burnett: The
Sheila Burnford: The
Incredible Journey
Betsy Byars: Summer of the
Swans
Sook Nyul Choi: Year of Impossible Goodbyes
Brock Cole: Celine, The Goofs
Sharon Creech: Walk Two Moons
Christopher Paul Curtis: Bud, Not Buddy
Paul Fleischman: The Borning
Room
Paula Fox: Monkey Island, One-Eyed Cat, other titles
Jean George- My Side of the Mountain, The Cry of the Crow
Karen Hesse: Out of the Dust
Minfong Ho: The Clay Marble
E.L. Konigsburg: The View From Saturday
Jack London: The Call of the Wild
Lois Lowry: The Giver, A
Summer to Die, Number the
Margaret Mahy: Memory
L.M. Montgomery: Anne of Green Gables
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor:
Katherine Paterson: Jacob Have 1 Loved
Richard Peck: A Year Down
Yonder
M. Rawlings: The Yearling
W. Rawls: Where the Red Fern Grows
Cynthia Rylant: Missing May
Louis Sachar: Holes
Antome de Saint-Exupery:
The Little Prince
Jerry Spinelli: Manioc Magee
Rosemary
Sutcliff: The Shining Company
Mildred Taylor:
Let the Circle Be Unbroken; Roll of Thunder, Hear My l
Cynthia Voigt: Dicey's Song, Jackaroo, Tree by
Leaf, other titles
Jocqueline Woodson: Miracle's Boys
Laurence Yep:
The Star Fisher, Dragonwings
Vladimir Zheleznikov: Scarecrow (translated by Antonia W. Bovis)
Poetry
Ann Atwood: Haiku: The Mood of the
Sara and John E. Brewton: Or Quarks, Quasars, and
Other Quirks;
Quizzical Poems for the Supersonic Age
Joanna Cole: A New Treasury of Children's Poetry
Paul Fleischman: Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices
X.J. and D. Kennedy: Knock at a Star: A Child's
Introduction to Poetry
Kenneth Koch: Talking to the Sun:
An Illustrated Anthology of Poems for Young People
Nancy Larrick: Crazy To Be Alive in Such a Strange World
Kenneth G. Rainis: Exploring
with a Magnifying Glass
Gloria Skurzynski: Almost
the Real Thing:
Simulation in Your High Tech World
Z. Sutherland and M.C. Livingston: Scott, Foresman
Anthology of Children's Literature
Biography and Autobiography
B. Brenner: On
the Frontier with Mr. Audubon
Michael Brophy: Michael Faraday
Daniel Cohen:
Carl Sagan: Superstar Scientist
Joan Dash: The
Triumph of Discovery: Four Nobel Women
M. Davidson:
The Golda Meir Story
M. Facklam: Wild Animals, Gentle Women [story of Jane Goodall]
Kitty
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
Russell
Freedman:
Jim Haskins: Outward Dreams: Black Inventors and Their
Inventions
Esther Hautzig: The Endless Steppe: Growing Up in
John Henricksson: Rachel
Carson: The Environmental Movement
Barbara Lewis:
Kids with Courage:
True
Stories about Young People Who Make a Difference
Margaret Mead: Blackberry Winter
Milton Meltzer: The American Revolutionaries, Thomas
Jefferson
Janet Nomura Morey and Wendy Dunn: Famous Asian
Americans
Carol Pearce: Amelia Earhart
Linda Peavy: Dreams into Deeds: Nine Women Who Dared
Carl Sandburg: Abe Lincoln Grows Up
Frances Stonaker: Famous
Mathematicians
Ginger Wadsworth: Julia Morgan, Architect of Dreams
Paul Yee: Tales from
Periodicals
Calliope Magazine (World
History)
Cobblestone Magazine (American
History)
Faces Magazine (World
Cultures)
Footsteps Magazine (African
American History)
Odyssey Magazine (Adventures
in Science)
Cricket Magazine
Cobblestone Publishing, Division of Carus Publishing Company
(for listings above)
www.cobblestonepub.com/pages/magmain.htm
Imagine:
Opportunities and Resources for Academically Talented Youth
published by
CTY, The
McAuley Hall, 580;
cty.jhu.edu/imagine
Science Fiction and Fantasy
Richard Adams: Watership
Down
Lloyd
Alexander: Prydain Chronicles
Natalie
Babbitt: Tuck Everlasting
Lucy M.
Boston: The Children of Green Knowe
Ray Bradbury:
Martian Chronicles
Eleanor Cameron:
The Court of the Stone Children
Susan Cooper:
Dork Is Rising Sequence
William Pene DuBois: The Twenty-one
Balloons
Brian Jacques:
Redwall
Ursula Le Guin: Earthsea Trilogy
Madeline L'Engle: Time Trilogy
C.S. Lewis:
The Chronicles of Narnia
Robin
McKinley: The Blue Sword, The Hero and the Crown
Mary Norton:
The Borrowers
R. O'Brien:
Mrs. Frisby and the Rots of NIMH
Katherine
Paterson: Bridge to Terabithia
Philippa Pearce: Tom's
Meredith Ann
Pierce: The Darkangel Trilogy
William Steig: Abel's
J.R.R. Tolkien: The Hobbit, The Lord of
the Rings Trilogy
Historical Fiction
Marguerite de Angeli: The Door in the Wall
Patricia
Beatty: Jayhawker
Rhoda Blumberg;
Commodore Perry in the Land of the Sbogun,
The
Incredible Journey of Lewis and dark
Polly S.
Brooks: Beyond the Myth: The Story of Joan of Arc
Ina Chang: A
Separate
James and
Christopher Collier: My Brother Sam Is Dead
Karen Cushman:
The Midwife's Apprentice
Walter D.
Edmonds: The Matchlock Gun
Esther Forbes:
Johnny Tremain
Michael
Foreman: War Boy: A Country Childhood
Paulo Fox: The
Slave Dancer
Jean Fritz: The Great Little
Sheilo Garrigue: The
Eternal Spring of Mr. Ito
F. Gibson: Old
Yeller
Irene Hunt: Across Five Aprils
Eric Kelly: The Trumpeter of
Clemence McLaren:
Inside the Walls of
who lived the Trojan War, Waiting for Odysseus
Scott O'Dell:
Katherine Paterson: Lyddie
Elizabeth Speare: The Sign
of the Beaver, The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Suzanne Fisher Staples: Shabanu:
Daughter of the Wind
Robert Westall: Blitzcat, Echoes of War, The
Kingdom by the Sea
Mythology and Folk Tales
K. Battle: Great American Folklore
1. and E. Parin
D'Aulaire: Book of Greek Myths, Norse Gods and Giants
Edith Hamilton: Mythology
Virginia Hamilton: The People Could Fly: American
Block Folk Tales
E. and M. Haugaard: The
Story of Yuriwaka: A Japanese Odyssey
Ted Hughes: Tales of the early World
M. Jottrey: Seasons of
Splendor: Tales, Myths, and Legends of
Clemence McLoren:
Inside the Walls of
History and Geography
Miriam Chaikin: A Nightmare
in History: The Holocaust
John Devaney:
Doris Epier: The
Jean Fritz:
W. John Hackwell: Desert of
Ice: Life and Work in
Albert Man-in: Napoleon and the Napoleonic Wars
Delia Ray: A Nation Torn, Behind the Blue and Gray
S.E. Solberg: The Land and People of
Rebecca Stefoff:
Erika Uitz: The Legend of
Good Women: Medieval Women in Towns and Cities
Art
Steven Adams: The Impressionists
John Beardsley: Pablo Picasso
Bruno Ernst: The Magic Mirror of M.C. Escher
Jan Greenberg and Sondra Jordan: The Pointer's Eye:
Learning To Look
at Contemporary American Art
H.W. Janson: History of Art
for Young People
Richard Meryman: Andrew Wyeth
Susan E. Meyer: Mary Cassatt
Zheng Zhensun and Alice
Low: A Young Pointer: Life and Paintings of
Wang Yoni-China's
Extraordinary Young Artist
Music
Melvin Berger: The Science of Music
Michael Hurd: The
Mathematics
Edwin Abbott:
R.E. Jason Abdelnoor: The
Silver Burdett Mathematical Dictionary
William Blackwell: Geometry in Architecture
Martha Boles and Rochelle Newman: The Golden
Relationship: Art, Math, and Nature
Julia Diggins: String,
Straightedge, & Shadow: The Story of Geometry
Michael Ecker: Getting
Started in Problem Solving and Moth Contests
Trudi Garland: Fascinating Fibonaccis
P.R. Halmos: I Want To Be a
Mathematician
Andrew Kaplan: Careers for Number Lovers
Claire Newman, et al.: Exploring Probability
H.O. Peitgen and RH. Richter:
The Beauty of Fractals
Teri Peri: Math Equals
Garth Runion: The Golden
Section
J. Stenmark, et al.: Family
Math
Dirk Struik: A Concise
History of Mathematics
David Thomas: Math Projects for Young Scientists
David Wells: The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and
Interesting
Math Games and Puzzles
Mitsumasa Anno: Anno's Math Games III, other titles
Stephen Borr: Mathematical
Brain Benders
Anglea Dunn: Mathematical Bafflers
Martin Gardner: any work
Sam Loyd: Mathematical
Puzzles of Sam Loyd. More Mathematical Puzzles of Sam
Loyd
Norvin Pallas: Calculator Puzzles, Tricks and
Games
Fred Schuh: The Master Book
of Mathematical Recreations
Raymond Smullyan:
Steven Snover and Mark Spikell: Puzzles
and Pastimes for Programmable Calculators & Personal Computers
George Summers: New Puzzles
in Logical Deduction
Science and Engineering
Margaret J. Anderson: Food Chains: The Unending Cycle
George Barr: Sports Science for Young People
Robert Bates: Industrial Minerals: How They Are Found
Melvin Berger: Lights, Lenses and Losers
Nicholas Booth: Space: The Next ;00
Years
Edward F. Dolan and Margaret M. Scariano:
Nuclear Waste
Nigel Hawkes: Genetic
Engineering
Mark Lambert: Medicine in the Future
David Macaulay: The Way
Things Work, other titles
Thomas Metos: The Human Mind:
How We Think and Learn
Philip Neal: The Greenhouse Effect
Dorothy Patent: The Quest for Artificial Intelligence
Animal Studies
James Herriot: All Creatures
Great and Small, other titles
Sy Montgomery: Walking with the Great
Apes: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey
Laurence Pringle: Batman: Exploring the World of Bats
Don C. Reed: The Dolphins and Me
Anthropology & Archaeology
David Attenborough: The First
Sara C. Bisel: The Secrets
of Vesuvius: Exploring the Mysteries of an Ancient Buried City
David Peters: From the Beginning: The Story of Human
Evolution
Peggy
Thompson: Auks, Rocks, and the Odd Dinosaur: Inside Stories from the
© 2006