Reading Lists

Picture Books & Easy Readers

Babbitt, Natalie                     
Bub, or The Very Best Thing            (JE BAB)
A young king and queen want the one and only very best thing for their son, but a dispute arises over what exactly that would be.

Fox, Mem                    
Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge (JE FOX)
A small boy tries to discover the meaning of "memory" so he can restore that of an elderly friend.

Freeman, Don                       
Corduroy (JE FRE)
A toy bear in a department store wants a number of things, but when a little girl finally buys him he finds what he has always wanted most of all.

Hutchins, Pat                         
The Best Train Set Ever (JE READ HUT)
Three stories about a little boy's birthday, a Halloween party, and a Fourth of July Christmas party.

Lionni, Leo                  
Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse (JE LIO)
Alexander, the mouse, makes friends with Willy, a toy mouse, and wants to be just like him until he discovers that Willy is to be thrown away.

Viorst, Judith                         
Rosie and Michael (JE VIO)
Two friends tell what they like about each other - even the bad things.

Williams, Vera B.                  
A Chair for My Mother (JE WIL)
A child, her waitress mother, and her grandmother save dimes to buy a comfortable armchair after all their furniture is lost in a fire.

Yashima, Taro                       
The Crow Boy (JE YAS)
A shy mountain boy in Japan leaves his home at dawn and returns at sunset to go to the village school. Pictures and text of moving and harmonious simplicity.

Juvenile Fiction

Atwater, Richard             
Mr. Popper's Penguins (JUV FIC ATWATER)
The unexpected delivery of a large crate containing an Antarctic penguin changes the life and fortunes of Mr. Popper, a house painter obsessed by dreams of the Polar regions.

Burch, Robert               
Ida Early Comes Over the Mountain (JUV FIC BURCH)
Tough times in rural Georgia during the Depression take a lively turn when spirited Ida Early arrives to keep house for the Suttons.

Carson, Natalie Savage        
The Family Under the Bridge (JUV FIC CARSON)
An old tramp, adopted by three fatherless children when their mother hides them under a bridge on the Seine, finds a home for mother and children and a job for himself.

Cohen, Barbara                     
Molly’s Pilgrim (JUV FIC COHEN)
Told to make a doll like a Pilgrim for the Thanksgiving display at school, Molly's Jewish mother dresses the doll as she herself dressed before leaving Russia to seek religious freedom --much to Molly's embarrassment.

Estes, Eleanor             
The Hundred Dresses (JUV FIC ESTES)
In winning a medal she is no longer there to receive, a tight-lipped little Polish girl teaches her classmates a lesson.

Hamilton, Virginia   
Willie Bea & the Time the Martians Landed (JUV FIC HAM)
In October of 1938, on their farm homestead in Ohio, a black family is caught up in the fear generated by the Orson Welles "Martians have landed" broadcast.

Kerr, Judith               
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (JUV FIC  KERR)
Recounts the adventures of a nine-year-old Jewish girl and her family in the early 1930's as they travel from Germany to England.

Robinson, Barbara       
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (JUV FIC ROB)
The six mean Herdman kids lie, steal, smoke cigars (even the girls) and then become involved in the community Christmas pageant.

Sachar, Louis            
Marvin Redpost: Is He a Girl? (JUV FIC SACHAR)
After Casey Happleton tells him that if he kisses his elbow he will turn into a girl, nine-year-old Marvin experiments and finds himself very confused about his identity.

Speare, Elizabeth George     
The Sign of the Beaver (JUV FIC SPEARE)
Left alone to guard the family's wilderness home in eighteenth-century Maine, a boy is hard-pressed to survive until local Indians teach him their skills.

Uchida, Yoshiko                    
Journey Home (JUV FIC UCH)
A young Japanese girl and her family have just been released from a west coast relocation center after World War II and find a hostile world greeting them.

Young Adult Fiction

Kerr, M. E.                
Little Little (YA FIC KER)
The shenanigans of two dwarfs as they compete for the heart of Little Little, a dwarf heiress who's tired of being treated like a pretty doll.

Juvenile Non-Fiction

Cherry, Lynne                       
A River Ran Wild (JUV 974.44 CHERRY)
An environmental history of the Nashua River, from its discovery by Indians through the polluting years of the Industrial Revolution to the ambitious clean-up that revitalized it.

Finn, Margaret L.     
Christopher Reeve : Actor & Activist (JUV 921 REEVE)
A biography of the actor who found fame playing Superman in the movies and took on a new role as activist after becoming a quadriplegic.