Make this your family’s best summer of reading ever with these free summer reading lists! We want to help you build a culture of reading in your home with titles you can trust to uphold your family’s values. That’s why we’ve put together these book lists with ten recommendations for every grade level to keep your kids busy reading this summer. Grab the book lists in printable form here along with some fun tracker sheets.
Kindergarten
- Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey
- Corduroy by Don Freeman
- Each Peach Pear Plum by Janet and Allan Ahlberg
- The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
- Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Pena
- Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban
- Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton
- Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodinka
- Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion
- The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf
First Grade
- Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik
- Frog and Toad Are Friends by Arnold Lobel
- Billy and Blaze by C. W. Anderson
- Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney
- Come On, Rain! by Karen Hesse
- This Is My Home, This Is My School by Jonathan Bean
- Tales of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
- A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond
- Abraham Lincoln by Ingri and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire
- One Morning in Maine by Robert McCloskey
Second Grade
- A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson
- My Father’s Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett
- The Bears on Hemlock Mountain by Alice Dagliesh
- The Secret Garden of George Washington Carver by Gene Barretta
- Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish
- Building Our House by Jonathan Bean
- A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams
- The Bee Tree by Patricia Polacco
- When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant
- Greg’s Microscope by Millicent E. Selsam
Third Grade
- Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
- Vision of Beauty: The Story of Sarah Breedlove Walker by Kathryn Lasky
- Mr. Popper’s Penguins by Florence and Richard Atwater
- The Illustrated Pilgrim’s Progress by Helen L. Taylor
- Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
- Heidi by Johanna Spyri
- Nate the Great by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat
- The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
- Secret of the Hidden Scrolls: The Beginning by M. J. Thomas
- The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright
Fourth Grade
- Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry
- The Green Ember by S. D. Smith
- The Borrowers by Mary Norton
- Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
- The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate
- Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
- The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford
- Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library by Chris Grabenstein
- The Railway Children by E. Nesbit
- The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White
Fifth Grade
- Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O’Brien
- The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall
- Sounder by William H. Armstrong
- The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes
- King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table by Roger Lancelyn Green
- Beneath the Swirling Sky by Carolyn Leiloglou
- Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Stewart
- The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
- Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
- A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Sixth Grade
- Johnny Tremain by Esther Hoskins Forbes
- Island of the Blue Dolphins by Jeanne Birdsall
- On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness by Andrew Peterson
- The Ocean of Truth: The Story of Sir Isaac Newton by Joyce McPherson
- Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
- My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
- Black Ships Before Troy by Rosemary Sutcliff
- Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
- Redwall by Brian Jacques
Seventh Grade
- Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
- A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park
- Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Latham
- Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
- Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt
- Wonder by R. J. Palacio
- The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
- Watership Down by Richard Adams
Eighth Grade
- The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
- The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
- Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss
- Amos Fortune, Free Man by Elizabeth Yates
- The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare
- The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
- The Giver by Lois Lowry
- Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
- The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba
Ninth Grade
- Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis
- Animal Farm by George Orwell
- Innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton
- Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin
- Why We Can’t Wait by Martin Luther King
- Through Gates of Splendor by Elizabeth Elliot
- Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing
- Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
Tenth Grade
- The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
- The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
- A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
- The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
- The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
- A Chameleon, a Boy, and a Quest by Jennifer Myhre
- The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom
- The Once and Future King by T. H. White
Eleventh Grade
- The Call of the Wild by Jack London
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
- Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
- Henry V by William Shakespeare
- Emma by Jane Austen
- Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
- God’s Smuggler by Brother Andrew
- The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
- The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis
- Night by Elie Wiesel
Twelfth Grade
- Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- 1984 by George Orwell
- Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
- The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis
- All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot
- The Call by Os Guinness
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Don’t forget to grab your FREE summer reading printable to get these book lists in printable form along with some fun pages to track your summer reading.
Need even more book recommendations?
Check out these articles for some more of our summer favorites.
- 10 Favorite Picture Books for Summer
- 10 Favorite Chapter Book Read Alouds for Summer
- 10 Best Books to Encourage Your Heart as a Homeschool Mom
This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for supporting the Homeschool Compass by shopping through our page!