Missing Out
These books represent some of the best examples of traditional classics, American literature, British literature, contemporary literature, and titles from authors with different cultural backgrounds. Many of these books have also been referenced on English Advanced Placement exams. Others are suggested from a variety of recommended reading lists. These books are outstanding examples of high quality literature, are absent of gratuitous sex, violence, and profanity per Blue Valley's selection policy 4600, and have one other thing in common:
They are not on the "approved" reading list dated 9/2000 for Blue Valley Communication Arts (English) classes.
| Great Titles for high school | Author | Great Titles for younger students through any age | Author |
|---|---|---|---|
| Emma | Jane Austen | Little Women | Louisa M. Alcott |
| Pride and Prejudice | Jane Austen | A Lantern in Her Hand | Aldrich, Bess Streeter |
| Lorna Doone | Blackmore | Daniel Boone | James Daugherty |
| A Man for all Seasons | Robert Bolt | The House of 60 Fathers | Meindert Dejong |
| Of Plymouth Plantation | William Bradford | Hans Brinker | Mary M. Dodge |
| The Great Escape | Paul Brickhill | Halfback Tough | Thomas Dygard |
| Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | Kon Tiki | Thor Heyerdahl |
| Good Earth | Pearl Buck | Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl | Anne Frank |
| Pilgrim's Progress | John Bunyan | The Lion of the North | G.A. Henty |
| Gifted Hands | Dr. Benjamin Carson | Rip van Winkle | Washington Irving |
| The Last of the Mohicans | James Fenimore Cooper | Westward Ho! | Charles Kingsley |
| Madame Curie: A Biography | Eve Curie | Carry On, Mr. Bowditch | Jean Latham |
| The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes | Sir Arthur C. Doyle | The Call of the Wild | Jack London |
| Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave | Frederick Douglass | Anne of Green Gables | Lucy M. Montgomery |
| The Conquest of Mexico | Bernal Diaz Del Castillo | Little Britches | Ralph Moody |
| Witness | Whitaker Chambers | Rascal | Sterling North |
| The Crisis | Winston Churchill | Otto of the Silver Hand | Howard Pyle |
| The Deerslayer | James Fenimore Cooper | Robin Hood | Howard Pyle |
| Gilead | Marilyne Robinson | ||
| The Prairie | James Fenimore Cooper | The Bronze Bow | Elizabeth George Speare |
| Robinson Crusoe | Daniel Defoe | The Pearl | John Steinbeck |
| David Copperfield | Charles Dickens | The Red Pony | John Steinbeck |
| The Count of Monte Cristo | Alexandre Dumas | Gulliver’s Travels | Jonathan Swift |
| The Three Musketeers | Alexandre Dumas | Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry | Mildred Taylor |
| Middlemarch | George Eliot | The Hobbit | J.R.R. Tolkien |
| Silas Marner | George Eliot | Around the World in 80 Days | Jules Verne |
| A Peculiar Treasure | Edna Ferber | Swiss Family Robinson | J. D. Wyss |
| So Big | Edna Ferber | ||
| Cheaper by the Dozen | Gilbreth and Carey | ||
| Pilgrim's Inn | Elizabeth Goudge | ||
| Green Dolphin Street | Elizabeth Goudge | ||
| The Heritage of the Desert | Zane Grey | ||
| Light of Western Stars | Zane Grey | ||
| A Raisin in the Sun | Lorraine Hansberry | ||
| The Return of the Native | Thomas Hardy | ||
| Bret Harte Short Stories | |||
| The Dark Frigate | Charles Boardman Hawes | ||
| Bugles in the Afternoon | Ernest Haycox | ||
| The Old Man and the Sea | Ernest Hemingway | ||
| O. Henry Short Stories | |||
| In the Reign of Terror | G.A. Henty | In Freedom’s Cause | G.A. Henty |
| Green Mansions | W. H. Hudson | ||
| The Hunchback of Notre Dame | Victor Hugo | ||
| Elizabeth the Great | Elizabeth Jenkins | ||
| Story of My Life | Hellen Keller | ||
| Profiles in Courage | John F. Kennedy | ||
| Captains Courageous | Rudyard Kipling | ||
| A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man | James Joyce | ||
| My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr. | Coretta Scott King | ||
| The Screwtape Letters | C.S. Lewis | ||
| How Green Was My Valley | Richard Llewellyn | ||
| A Man Called Peter | Catherine Marshall | ||
| Christy | Catherine Marshall | ||
| Julie | Catherine Marshall | ||
| Bartelby the Scrivener | Herman Melville | ||
| Moby Dick | Herman Melville | ||
| Christopher Columbus, Mariner | Samuel Elliott Morison | ||
| Gone With the Wind | Margaret Mitchell | ||
| A Whale for the Killing | Farley Mowat | ||
| Mutiny on the Bounty | Charles Nordhoff and J.N. Hall | ||
| Master and Commander | Patrick O’Brien | ||
| The Scarlet Pimpernel | Baroness Orczy | ||
| The Adventures of Marco Polo | |||
| The Scottish Chiefs | Jane Porter | ||
| Giants in the Earth | O. Rolvaag | ||
| Killer Angels | Jeff Shaara | ||
| Shane | Jack Schaefer | ||
| Ivanhoe | Sir Walter Scott | ||
| One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich | Alexander Solzhenitsyn | ||
| How I Found Livingstone | Henry M. Stanley | ||
| The American Senator | Anthony Trollope | ||
| The Warden | Anthony Trollope | ||
| A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court | Mark Twain | ||
| Ben Hur | Lewis Wallace |
Click here to see The Harvard Classics including the Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction. "The most comprehensive and well-researched anthology of all time comprises both the 50-volume “5-foot shelf of books” and the the 20-volume Shelf of Fiction. Together they cover every major literary figure, philosopher, religion, folklore and historical subject through the twentieth century."