Reading Lists

Respect

Picture Books | Juvenile Fiction | Young Adult Fiction | Juvenile Non-Fiction

Picture Books & Easy Readers

Backstein, Karen
The Blind Men and the Elephant (JE READ BAC)
A retelling of the fable from India about six blind men who each get a limited understanding of what an elephant is by feeling only one part of it.

Bianco, Margery Williams
The Velveteen Rabbit (JE BIA)
By the time the velveteen rabbit is dirty, worn out, and about to be burned, he has almost given up hope of ever finding the magic called Real.

Brown, Marc
Arthur’s Eyes (JE BRO)
His friends tease Arthur when he gets glasses, but he soon learns to wear them with pride.

Brown, Marc
Arthur’s Nose (JE BRO)
Unhappy with his nose, Arthur visits the rhinologist to get a new one.

Carle, Eric
The Grouchy Ladybug (JE CAR)
A grouchy ladybug who is looking for a fight challenges everyone she meets regardless of their size or strength.

Caudill, Rebecca
Pocketful of Cricket (JE CAU)
Jay learns a lesson in sharing when he takes his pet cricket to class on the first day of school.

Cohen, Miriam
Best Friends (JE COH)
When the light in the classroom incubator burns out, two friends are brought together again as they act to save the lives of the unhatched chickens.

Cohen, Miriam
No Good in Art (JE COH)
A first-grader is convinced he can't draw, but when encouraged, demonstrated he can.

Cherry, Lynne
The Great Kapok Tree (JE CHE)
The many different animals that live in a great kapok tree in the Brazilian rainforest try to convince a man with an ax of the importance of not cutting down their home.

Ets, Marie Hall
Play With Me (JE ETS)
A little girl goes to the meadow to play, but each animal she tries to catch runs away from—until she sits still by the pond, and they all come back.

Fleming, Virginia
Be Good to Eddie Lee (JE FLE)
Although Christy considered him a pest, when Eddie Lee, a boy with Down's Syndrome, follows her into the woods, he shares several special discoveries with her.

Henkes, Kevin
Chester's Way (JE HEN)
Chester and Wilson share the same exact way of doing things, until Lilly moves into the neighborhood and shows them that new ways can be just as good.

Hoose, Phillip
Hey Little Ant (JE HOO)
A song in which an ant pleads with the kid who is tempted to squish it.

Lasker, Joe
Nick Joins In (JE LAS)
When Nick, confined to a wheelchair, enters a regular classroom for the first time, he and his new classmates must resolve their initial apprehensions about mainstreaming.

Lobel, Arnold
Frog and Toad Are Friends (JE READ LOB)
Five tales recounting the adventures of two best friends - Frog and Toad.

Lobel, Arnold
Frog and Toad Together (JE READ LOB)
Five further adventures of two best friends as they share cookies, plant a garden, and test their bravery.

Marshall, James
George and Martha (JE MAR)
Relates several episodes in the friendship of two hippopotamuses.

Marshall, James
George and Martha One Fine Day (JE MAR)
Five new episodes in the friendship of the two hippopotamuses.

Nunes, Susan
The Last Dragon (JE NUN)
While spending the summer in Chinatown with great-aunt, a young boy finds an old ten-man dragon in a shop and gets a number of people to help him repair it.

Polacco, Patricia
Mrs. Katz and Tush (JE POL)
A long-lasting friendship develops between Larnel, a young African-American, and Mrs. Katz, a lonely Jewish widow, when Larnel presents Mrs. Katz with a scrawny kitten without a tail.

Rathman, Peggy
Ruby the Copycat (JE RAT)
Ruby insists on copying Angela, until her teacher helps her discover her own creative resources.

Ross, Pat
Meet M and M (JE READ ROS)
Best friends Mandy and Mini do everything together until they have a falling out.

Seuss, Dr.
The Butter Battle Book (JE SEU)
Engaged in a long-running battle, the Yooks and the Zooks develop more and more sophisticated weaponry as they attempt to outdo each other.

Sharmat, Marjorie Weinman
I'm Terrific (JE SHA)
Jason Bear thinks he's terrific and even awards himself gold stars for superior performance in his chores. His friends don't like to be around him.

Yolen, Jane
Owl Moon (JE YOL)
On a winter's night under a full moon, a father and daughter trek into the woods to see the Great Horned Owl.

Juvenile Fiction

Armstrong, William Howard
Sounder (JUV FIC ARMSTRONG)
Angry and humiliated when his sharecropper father is jailed for stealing food for his family, a young black boy grows in courage and understanding by learning to read and with the help of the devoted dog Sounder.

Byars, Betsy
The Pinballs (JUV FIC BYARS)
Three lonely foster children learn to care about themselves and each other.

Cleary, Beverly
Ramona the Brave (JUV FIC CLEARY)
Six-year-old Ramona tries to cope with an unsympathetic first-grade teacher.

DeClements, Barthe
Nothing’s Fair in 5^th Grade (JUV FIC DeCLEMENTS)
A fifth grade class, repelled by the overweight new student who has serious home problems, finally learns to accept her.

George, Jean Craighead
My Side of the Mountain (JUV FIC GEORGE)
A young boy relates his adventures during the year he spends living alone in the Catskill Mountains including his struggle for survival, his dependence on nature, his animal friends, and his ultimate realization that he needs human companionship.

Greene, Bette
Philip Hall Likes Me: I Reckon Maybe (JUV FIC GREENE)
Eleven-year-old Beth thinks that Philip Hall likes her, but their on-again, off-again relationship sometimes makes her wonder.

Greene, Constance
I and Sproggy (JUV FIC GREENE)
The meeting between a ten-year-old boy and Sproggy, his English stepsister who comes to New York City, is less than idyllic, but time, events, and other people help to change that.

Hurwitz, Johanna
Superduper Teddy (JUV FIC HURWITZ)
Encouraged by his gregarious sister and his trusty Superman cape, five-year-old Teddy takes his first steps toward independence.

Konigsburg, E.L.
Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and MeElizabeth (JUV FIC KONIGSBURG)
Two fifth-grade girls, one of whom is the first black child in a middle-income suburb, play at being apprentice witches.

Lawson, Robert
Rabbit Hill (JUV FIC LAWSON)
New folks are coming to live in the Big House. The animals of Rabbit Hill wonder if they will plant a garden and thus be good providers.

MacLachlan, Patricia
Sarah, Plain and Tall (JUV FIC MACLACHLAN)
When their father invites a mail-order bride to come live with them in their prairie home, Caleb and Anna are captivated by their new mother and hope that she will stay.

Mathis, Sharon Bell
The Hundred Penny Box (JUV FIC MATHIS)
Michael's love for his great-great-aunt who lives with them leads him to intercede with his mother who wants to toss out all her old things.

Paterson, Katherine
Bridge to Terabithia (JUV FIC PATERSON)
The life of a ten-year-old boy in rural Virginia expands when he becomes friends with a newcomer who subsequently meets an untimely death trying to reach their hideaway, Terabithia, during a storm.

Selden, George
The Cricket in Times Square (JUV FIC SELDEN)
The adventures of a country cricket who unintentionally arrives in New York and is befriended by Tucker Mouse and Harry Cat.

Speare, Elizabethe
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.

Stolz, Mary
The Bully of Barkham Street (JUV FIC STO)
A fat 11-year-old bully trying to reform his behavior continually meets with failure until a school program, an argument with his sister and a lost fight help him to change both his feelings and his thoughts.

Stolz, Mary
Noonday Friends (JUV FIC STO)
Two young friends stop speaking to each other even though they can't remember why they argued in the first place, and this is just one more on top of the other problems that each has with her own family.

Taylor, Theodore
The Cay (JUV FIC TAYLOR)
When the freighter on which they are traveling is torpedoed by a German submarine during World War II, an adolescent white boy, blinded by a blow on the head, and an old black man are stranded on a tiny Caribbean island where the boy acquires a new kind of vision, courage, and love from his old companion.

Young Adult Fiction

Butterworth, William
Leroy and the Old Man (YA FIC BUTTERWORTH)
Fleeing from a neighbor's assailants, who believe he has identified them to the police, LeRoy leaves his Chicago housing project to live with his grandfather, a shrimp fisherman, in Mississippi. When the Chicago police come for him, LeRoy must decide if he is going to risk his life testifying.

Danziger, Paula
The Cat Ate My Gymsuit (YA FIC DANZIGER)
When the unconventional English teacher who helped her conquer many of her feelings of insecurity is fired, a junior high student uses her new found courage to campaign for the teacher's reinstatement.

DeFelice, Cynthia
Lostman's River (YA FIC DEFELICE)
In the early 1900s, thirteen-year-old Tyler encounters vicious hunters whose actions threaten to destroy the Everglades ecosystem, and as a result joins the battle to protect that fragile environment.

Lipsyte, Robert
The Contender (YA FIC LIPSYTE)
A Harlem high school dropout escapes from a gang of punks into a boxing gym, where he learns that being a contender is hard and often discouraging work, but that you don't know anything until you try.

Paterson, Katherine
Jacob Have I Loved (YA FIC PATERSON)
Feeling deprived all her life of schooling, friends, mother, and even her name by her twin sister, Louise finally begins to find her identity.

Juvenile Non-Fiction

Bourgeois, Paulette
Police Officers (JUV 363.2 BOURGEOIS)
The duties of police officers are outlined in this entry in the In My Neighborhood series.

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.

Kyle, Kathryn
Respect (JUV 179 KYLE)
Suggests ways of showing respect for your school, friends, country, family, the environment, and others.

Raatma, Lucia
Respect (JUV 177.1 RAATMA)
Describes respect as a virtue and suggests ways in which children can recognize and practice being respectful.

Ryder, Joanne
Earthdance ( [OVERSIZE] JUV 811 RYDER)
Readers are asked to picture themselves as the earth, turning in space, facing the light, feeling the green things growing and the oceans shifting.