Recommended Reading Lists
English and Library Departments
This is the time to let your imagination run wild! Don’t be afraid to try something new and read outside your comfort zone. Reading widely will broaden your horizons and show you other ways of thinking.
Below are just some suggestions of books you might like to read, so pick one that catches your eye, find a quiet place and give your book a chance. We hope you will be surprised, inspired, and ready for more.
If you’re looking for further recommendations, you can use resources such as The Ultimate Teen Book Guide and What Writers Read for suggestions, get recommendations from each other, or come and find Miss Pearce in the LRC!
Recommended Reading for the Thirds
25 Must-reads
1. A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson-Burnett
2. Where the River Runs Gold by Sita Brahmachari
3. All Fall Down by Sally Nicholls
4. CHERUB series by Robert Muchamore
5. Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah
6. Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo
7. Framed by Frank Cottrell Boyce
8. Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian
9. Holes by Louis Sachar
10. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
11. Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson
12. Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds
13. My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
14. Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman
15. October, October by Katya Balen
16. Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan
17. Skellig and My Name Is Mina by David Almond
18. The Last Paper Crane by Kerry Drewery
19. The Girl of Ink and Stars by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
20. The Ingo Chronicles by Helen Dunmore
21. The Midnight Fox by Betsy Byars
22. Cinderella is dead by Kalynn Bayron
23. Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce
24. War Horse by Michael Morpurgo
25. Wonder by R. J. Palacio
Further Recommendations:
A few classics
1. The Machine Gunners by Robert Westall
2. When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr
3. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
4. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
5. The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier
6. The Borrowers by Mary Norton
7. Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
8. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
9. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
10. Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransom
11. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
12. Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield
Non-fiction
1. Unlocking the Universe by Stephen & Lucy Hawking
2. Greek Myths: Meet the Heroes, Gods, and Monsters of Ancient Greece by Jean Menzies
3. Becoming (adapted for younger readers) by Michelle Obama
4. Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls: 100 Immigrant Women who Changed the World by Elena Favilli
5. You Are A Champion: How To Be The Best You Can Be by Marcus Rashford
6. Good Girls Don’t Make History by Elizabeth Kiehner, Kara Coyle, and Keith Olwell
7. You Don't Know What War Is by Yeva Skalietska
Mystery/thriller
1. Murder Most Unladylike by Robin Stevens
2. The Lost Twin by Sophie Cleverly
3. High-Rise Mystery by Sharna Jackson
4. The Laura Marlin Mysteries by Lauren St John
5. Liar and Spy by Rebecca Stead
Dystopian
1. WildSpark by Vashti Hardy
2. The Last Wild by Piers Torday
3. The Territory by Sarah Govett
4. The Dog Runner by Bren MacDibble
Fantasy and Science Fiction
1. Show Us Who You Are by Elle McNicoll
2. Asha & the Spirit Bird by Jasbinder Bilan
3. Wonderscape by Jennifer Bell
4. Coraline by Neil Gaiman
5. Amari and the Night Brothers by BB Alston
6. Nevermoor series by Jessica Townsend
7. Rebel Skies by Ann Sei Lin
Adventure
1. The Explorer by Katherine Rundell
2. The Girl Who Speaks Bear by Sophie Anderson
3. The Island at the End of Everything by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
4. Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver
5. Lionboy by Zizou Corder
6. Time Travelling With A Hamster by Ross Welford
Historical
1. Star by Star by Sheena Wilkinson
2. Windrush Child by Benjamin Zephaniah
3. Freedom (1783) by Catherine Johnson
4. The Skylarks’ War by Hilary McKay
5. Five Children on the Western Front by Kate Saunders
6. I, Coriander by Sally Gardner
Contemporary
1. Can You See Me? by Libby Scott and Rebecca Westcott
2. Jemima Small versus the Universe by Tamsin Winter
3. No Ballet Shoes in Syria by Catherine Bruton
4. The Boy Who Lied by Kim Slater
5. Vote for Effie by Laura Wood
6. Some Places More Than Others by Renée Watson
And finally, some lighter reading – there is always a place for relaxation and pleasure!
1. The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot
2. The Chocolate Box Girls series by Cathy Cassidy
3. Geek Girl by Holly Smale
4. Ally’s World by Karen McCrombie
5. Who Let the Gods Out? by Maz Evans
6. Amber undercover by Em Norry
Recommended Reading for L4 and U4
25 Must-reads
1. The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
2. Northern Lights trilogy by Philip Pullman
3. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
4. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
5. The Crossing by Manjeet Mann
6. The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
7. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
8. The Hobbit by J.R. R. Tolkien
9. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
10. The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
11. Firekeeper's daughter by Angeline Boulley
12. The Song of Achilles by Madeleine Miller (U4)
13. Dawn by Octavia E. Butler (U4)
14. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
15. Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson
16. Refugee Boy by Benjamin Zephaniah
17. Scythe by Neal Shusterman
18. Things a bright girl can do by Sally Nicholls
19. The places I've cried in public by Holly Bourne
20. A sky painted gold by Laura Wood
21. Kemosha of the Caribbean by Alex Wheatle
22. A monster calls by Patrick Ness
23. The lie tree by Frances Hardinge
24. One by Sarah Crossan
25. The giver by Lois Lowry
Light(-ish) Reads
1. One of Us is Lying series by Karen M. McManus
2. The Inheritance Games trilogy by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
3. Shadow and Bone trilogy by Leigh Bardugo
4. Medusa: The Girl Behind the Myth by Jessie Burton
5. A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series by Holly Jackson
6. Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron
7. The Agathas by Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson
8. Happy girl lucky by Holly Smale
9. They both die at the end by Adam Silvera
10. Children of blood and bone by Tomi Adeyemi
11. The reluctant vampire queen by Jo Simmons
12. Neverworld Wake by Marisha Pessl
13. Slay by Brittney Morris
14. Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu
15. I must betray you by Ruta Sepetys
16. Girl, goddess, queen by Bea Fitzgerald
17. Ellie Pillai Is Brown by Christine Pillainayagam
18. HappyHead by Josh Silver
19. Code name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
Classics
1. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
2. Animal Farm by George Orwell
3. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
4. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
5. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
6. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
7. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
8. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
9. Silas Marner by George Eliot
10. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
11. Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier
12. A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines
13. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
14. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
15. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
16. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Happy reading!
Recommended Reading for L5 and U5
25 Must-reads
1. Atonement by Ian McEwan
2. Black Rabbit Summer by Kevin Brooks
3. Empire of the Sun by J. G. Ballard
4. Exposure by Mal Peet
5. Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender
6. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
7. Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
9. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
10.Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
11.Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
12.The Awakening by Kate Chopin
13.The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
14.The Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness
15.The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
16.The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
17.The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
18.The Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley
19.The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
20.The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
21.The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
22.The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
23.The Song of Achilles by Madeleine Miller
24.The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
25.To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Classics
1. Emma by Jane Austen
2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
3. Nicholas Nickelby by Charles Dickens
4. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
5. Middlemarch by George Eliot
6. A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
7. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
8. Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
9. Vanity Fair by William Thackeray
10.Alice Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
11.The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
12.Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
13.The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov
14.Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges
15.Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain
16.The Outsider by Albert Camus
17.The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
18.Howards End by E. M. Forster
19.Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
20.The Sun also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
21.A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
22.The Trial by Franz Kafka
23.Beloved by Toni Morrison
24.The Raj Quartet by Paul Scott
25.Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
26.Dracula by Bram Stoker
27.Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut
28.A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
29.The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
30.Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Light(-ish) reading
1. The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake
2. Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross
3. Grown by Tiffany D. Jackson
4. Run, Rebel by Manjeet Mann
5. If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio
6. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
7. Fire Keeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley
8. A calamity of mannerings by Joanna Nadin
9. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
10.Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
11.Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid
12.His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie
13.The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
14.Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
15.The Appeal by Janice Hallett
16.The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
17.The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell
18.The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
19.The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
20.Room by Emma Donoghue
21.The Cicero trilogy by Robert Harris
Non-Fiction:
1. What If? and How To? by Randall Munroe
2. Black Tudors by Miranda Kaufmann
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
4. Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall
5. Stasiland by Anna Funder
6. Pandora’s Jar by Natalie Haynes
7. Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig
8. A History of Histories by John Burrow
9. Black and British: A short, essential history by David Olusoga
10.The Story of Art Without Men by Katy Hessel
11.It’s Not About the Burqa edited by Mariam Khan
12.Mythos and Heroes by Stephen Fry
