Read Across America: A Book List for All Grades, All Subjects

Happy Read Across America Day!

March 2nd is Read Across America Day. If you are thinking “but, I’m a math teacher”: not so fast.

“It’s common to believe that literacy instruction is solely the charge of language arts teachers,” says Rebecca Alber in an article for Edutopia, “but, frankly, this just is not so.”  Students with effective communication skills are more likely to thrive in any classroom. Reading helps develop the writing, listening, and speaking skills that are critical to success in the classroom.

Here is a list of books to fit every subject. Several of them are available to read online.

Challenge your students to think inside the cover.

Math

K-6

• The Lion’s Share by Matthew McElligott
• One Grain of Rice by Demi
• Sir Cumference and the First Round Table by Cindy Neuschwander
• Matilda by Roald Dahl

7-9

• The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
• Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett
• The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure by Hans Magnus Enzensberger
• Lawn Boy by Gary Paulsen

10-12

• Logicomix: An epic search for truth by Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos H. Papadimitriou, Alecos Papadatos(Illustrator), Annie Di Donna (Illustrator)
• Measuring the World by Daniel Kehlmann, Carol Brown Janeway (Translator)
• The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets by Simon Singh
• A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar

Science

K-6

• Aliens for Breakfast by Stephanie Spinner and Jonathan Etra
• If You Decide to Go to the Moon by Faith McNulty and Steven Kellogg
• Just a Dream by Chris Van Allsburg
• The Magic School Bus by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen (Illustrator)

7-9

• The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
• The Giver by Lois Lowry
• Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce
• The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

10-12

• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
• Under a Lucky Star by Roy Chapman Andrews (Author), Ann Bausum (Afterword), Charles Gallenkamp (Foreword)
• The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist by Richard Feynman
• A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

Social Science

K-6

• Freedom Summer by Deborah Wiles
• Uncle Sam and Old Glory: Symbols of America by Delno C. West and Jean M. West
• We Want Jobs! A Story of the Great Depression by Robert J. Norrell
• Children of the Wild West by Russell Freedman

7-9

• Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans by Don Brown
• Holes by Louis Sachar
• The City of Ember by Jeanne DePrau
• Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

10-12

• The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
• Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut

English

K-6

• The Weighty Word Book by  Paul M. Levitt (Author), Douglas A. Burger (Author), Elissa S. Guralnick (Author), Janet Stevens (Illustrator)
• Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
• Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
• Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar

7-9

• Geis of the Gargoyle by Piers Anthony
• The Hound of Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• A Separate Peace by John Knowles
• The Pearl by John Steinbeck

10-12

• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
• The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Have book suggestion of your own? Help us celebrate Read Across America Day by sharing your favorite books by subject.