OUR FAMILY’S BOOK BUCKET LIST: 90 MUST-READ CLASSICS
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again (and again, and again)...
the single most important aspect of our family’s homeschool is, hands down, reading books.
We believe that good literature is the best possible medium for learning any subject. Storytelling is one of humanity’s oldest and most powerful forms of education. It brings lessons to life in a way that truly nothing else can. It plants seeds of creativity and imagination in our minds, establishes emotional connections deep within our hearts, inspires and fortifies our personal character, and has the potential to shape who we become. Good books have the power to reverberate through our hearts, minds, and lives forever.
This is why we started compiling a list of “must-read” literature when our kids were young. We began listing the most important books we wanted our children to experience with us before they leave the nest -- the books we want to shape our family culture, and inform our children’s ideas about life and the world around them.
As of today, there are 90 books on our list, and it just continues to grow! As our kids have gotten older, they’ve chosen to read some of them independently, but I’m so proud to say that we’ve read almost all of these books together as a family. No matter how old our children get, one of the most treasured aspects of our home is (and will always be) reading together -- settling down with a pot of tea and some baked treats by the fireside and reveling in the classics. We adventure to far off places in our imaginations, befriend beloved characters, and share in the experience of a living story that knits our hearts and memories together for a lifetime.
May these books become your lifelong friends and teachers, enriching your family for generations to come.
Please keep in mind:
1) This is not an exhaustive list, it’s simply our family’s reading legacy
2) It is in no particular order
3) You will need to deem reading level / age appropriateness for your family. The order in which we read these books was based on our own interests, the themes of our homeschool explorations, and our kids’ readiness
4) Whenever possible, we suggest trying to read the original unabridged version of these classics
90 Classic Books To Experience as a Family
The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
Winnie the Pooh, A. A. Milne
Frog and Toad: The Complete Collection, Arnold Lobel
The Call of the Wild, Jack London
The Borrowers, Mary Norton
Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White
Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
The Little House Series, Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Chronicles of Narnia Series, C.S. Lewis
The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkein
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, J.R.R. Tolkein
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, Howard Pyle
Abel’s Island, William Steig
The Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling
Swiss Family Robinson, Johann David Wyss
Fablehaven Series, Brandon Mull
Bunnicula, Deborah Howe
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Fantastic Mr. Fox, Roald Dahl
Magic Tree House Series, Mary Pope Osborne
White Fang, Jack London
The Iliad, Homer
The Odyssey, Homer
The World of Peter Rabbit Series, Beatrix Potter
The Giver, Lois Lowry
The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Elizabeth George Speare
A Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Black Cauldron, Lloyd Alexander
Watership Down, Richard Adams
The Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper
Harry Potter Series, J.K. Rowling
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian Selznick
The Princess Bride, William Goldman
Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, Robert O’Brien
The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank
The Golden Compass Series, Philip Pullman
The Enchanted Wood, Enid Blyton
A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle
Coraline, Neil Gaiman
The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
Stuart Little, E.B. White
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum
Matilda, Roald Dahl
The BFG, Roald Dahl
My Side of the Mountain, Jean Craighead George
The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
The Boxcar Children Series, Gertrude Chandler Warner
Where the Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
Sign of the Beaver, Elizabeth George Speare
The Outsiders, S.E. Hinton
Redwall, Brian Jacques
The Tale of Despereaux, Kate DiCamillo
Beowulf, Michael Morpurgo
Moby Dick, Herman Melville
Don Quixote, John Rutherford
Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
Macbeth, William Shakespeare
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain
James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
Pinocchio, Carlo Collodi
Bambi: A Life in the Woods, Felix Salten
Island of the Blue Dolphins, Scott O’Dell
The Hounds of Baskervilles, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Little Britches, Ralph Moody
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe
Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery
Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
Johnny Tremain, Esther Forbes
Around the World in 80 Days, Jules Verne
Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift
The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
Lord of the Flies, William Goldling
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl
1984, George Orwell
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne