Please note that there are two lists below. The first is the full list with the core readings in bold; the second is the core list separated out. Students are responsible for all core readings and may incorporate readings from the full list into their tailored exam list. They may also substitute a few texts, as long as they receive permission of the committee prior to the examination.
Primary Texts
“Classic”/Historical
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), Mark Twain
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), Lewis Carroll
Anne of Green Gables (1908), Lucy Maud Montgomery
A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885), Robert Louis Stevenson
The Classic Fairy Tales (1999), Maria Tartar
Peter Pan (1903), JM Barrie
Ragged Dick; or, Life in New York with the Boot Blacks (1868), Horatio Alger, Jr.
Little Pretty Pocket-Book (1744), John Newbery
Little Women (1868), Louisa May Alcott
The Secret Garden (1909), Frances Hodgson Burnett
Sing-Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book (1893), Christina G. Rossetti
The Wind in the Willows (1903), Kenneth Grahame
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), Frank L Baum
Picture Books
The Arrival (2006), Shaun Tan
Aunt Harriet’s Underground Railroad in the Sky (1992), Faith Ringgold
Black and White (1990), David Macaulay
The Cat in the Hat (1957) or The Lorax (1971), Theodor Seuss Geisel
Goodnight Moon (1947), Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd
Harold and the Purple Crayon (1955), Crockett Johnson
Heart and Soul (2011) or We Are The Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball (2009), Kadir Nelson
The Invention of Hugo Cabret (2007), Brian Selznick
Jumanji (1981) or The Polar Express (1985), Chris Van Allsburg
The Little House (1942), Virginia Lee Burton
Madeline (1939), Ludwig Bemelmans
Make Way for Ducklings (1941), Robert McCloskey
Martin’s Big Words (2001), Bryan Collier
Snowy Day (1963), Ezra Jack Keats
The Story of Babar: The Little Elephant (1931), Jean de Brunhoff
The Story of Ferdinand (1936), Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson
Sylvester and the Magic Pebble (1969), William Steig
The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902), Beatrix Potter
The Three Pigs (2001), David Wiesner
The Very Hungry Caterpiller (1969), Eric Carle
Where the Wild Things Are (1963), Maurice Sendak
Realistic/Historical Children’s Fiction
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret (1970), Judy Blume
Becoming Naomi Leon (2005) or Esperanza Rising (2000), Pam Muñoz Ryan
The Birchbark House (1999), Louise Edrich
The Book Thief (2005), Markus Zusak
The Breadwinner (2000), Deborah Ellis
The Devil’s Arithmetic (1988), Jane Yolen
Harriet the Spy (1964), Louise Fitzhugh
Little House on the Prairie (1932), Laura Ingalls Wilder
Maniac McGee (1990) or Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key (1998), Jerry Spinelli
Ramona Quimby, Age 8 (1981), Beverly Cleary
Rules (2006), Cynthia Lord
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (1975), Mildred Taylor
The Secret of the Old Clock (1930), Carolyn Keene
To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), Harper Lee
The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963 (1995), Christopher Paul Curtis
Fantasy/Science Fiction
A Bear Called Paddington (1958)
The Blue Sword (1982) or The Hero and the Crown (1984), Robin McKinley
Bridge to Terabithia (1977), Katherine Paterson
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964), Roald Dahl
Charlotte’s Web (1952), E.B. White
Coraline (2002), Neil Gaiman
The Giver (1993), Lois Lowry
The Golden Compass (1995), Philip Pullman
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (1997), J.K. Rowling
The Hobbit (1937), J.R.R. Tolkien
Holes (1998), Louis Sacher
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), C.S. Lewis
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (1971), Robert C. O’Brien
The One and Only Ivan (2012), Katherine Applegate and Patricia Castelao
A Series of Unfortunate Events: A Bad Beginning (1999), Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler)
The Tale of Despereaux (2003), Kate DiCamillo
Watership Down (1972), Richard Adams
Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), A. A. Milne
A Wrinkle in Time (1963), Madeleine L’Engle
Poetry/Verse Novels
Be Glad Your Nose Is On Your Face (2008), Jack Prelutsky
Brown Girl Dreaming (2014), Jacqueline Woodson
Crank (2004), Ellen Hopkins
Crossover (2015), Kwame Alexander
Love That Dog (2001), Sharon Creech
Neighborhood Odes (1992), Gary Soto
Out of the Dust (1997), Karen Hesse
This Same Sky: A Collection of Poems from Around the World (2002), Naomi Shihab Nye
Where the Sidewalk Ends (1974), Shel Silverstein
Non-Fiction
An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 (2003), Jim Murphy
The Diary of a Young Girl (1952), Anne Frank
Farewell to Manzanar (1973), Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston
The Invisible Thread (1987), Yoshiko Uchida
It’s Perfectly Normal: Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health (2009), Robie H. Harris and Michael Emberley
The Librarian of Basra: A True Story from Iraq (2005), Jeanette Winter
Locomotive (2013), Brian Floca
A Long Walk to Water (2011), Linda Sue Park
Richard Wright and the Library Card (1997), William Miller and R. Gregory Christie
Through My Eyes (1999), Ruby Bridges
A Token for Children (1671), James Janeway
The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain (2007), Peter Sis
We’ve Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children’s March (2012), Cynthia Levinson.
When Marian Sang (2002) Pam Munoz Ryan and Brian Selznick
Young Adult Literature
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007), Sherman Alexie
American Born Chinese (2006), Gene Luen Yang
Boy Meets Boy (2003) or Every Day (2013), David Levithan
The Catcher in the Rye (1951), J.D. Salinger
The Chocolate War (1974), Robert Cormier
Eleanor & Park (2012), Rainbow Rowell
The Fault in Our Stars (2012), John Green
Feed (2002), M.T. Anderson
Forever (1975), Judy Blume
The House on Mango Street (1984), Sandra Cisneros
how i live now (2004), Meg Rosoff
The Hunger Games (2008), Suzanne Collins
The Kite Runner (2003), Khaled Hosseini
Locomotion (2003), Jacqueline Woodson
Monster (1999), Walter Dean Myers
The Outsiders (1967), S.E. Hinton
Seventeenth Summer (1942), Maureen Daly
Speak (1999), Laurie Halse Anderson
A Step From Heaven (2001), An Na
The First Part Last (2003), Angela Johnson
Twilight (2005), Stephanie Meyer
Weetzie Bat (1989), Francesca Lia Block
Critical Texts
Abate, Michelle Ann, and Kenneth Kidd, eds. Over the Rainbow: Queer Children’s and Young Adult Literature (2011)
Bang, Molly. Picture This: How Pictures Work (1991)
Bell, Elizabeth, and Lynda Haas. From Mouse to Mermaid: The Politics of Film, Gender, and Culture (2008)
Bernstein, Robin. Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights (2011)
Capshaw, Katharine. Civil Rights Childhood: Picturing Liberation in African American Photobooks (2014)
Clark, Beverly Lyon. Kiddie Lit: The Cultural Construction of Children’s Literature in America (2003)
Cadden, Michael, ed. Telling Children’s Stories: Narrative Theory and Children’s Literature (2011)
Coats, Karen. Looking Glasses and Neverlands: Lacan, Desire, and Subjectivity in Children’s Literature (2004)
Coats, Karen, Shelby A. Wolf, Patricia Enciso, and Christine A. Jenkins. Handbook of Research on Children’s and Young Adult Literature (2011)
Coats, Karen, Anna Jackson, and Roderick Gillis, eds. The Gothic in Children’s Literature: Haunting the Borders (2007)
Gubar, Marah. Artful Dodgers: Reconceiving the Golden Age of Children’s Literature (2010)
Kidd, Kenneth. Freud in Oz: At the Intersections of Psychoanalysis and Children’s Literature (2011)
Lukens, Rebecca J., Jacquelin J. Smith, and Cynthia Miller Coffel. A Critical Handbook of Children’s Literature, 9th edition (2012)
Lurie, Alison. Don’t Tell the Grown-ups: The Subversive Power of Children’s Literature (1998)
Martin, Michelle. Brown Gold: Milestones of African American Children’s Picture Books, 1845-2002 (2006)
Nel, Philip, and Lissa Paul, eds. Keywords for Children’s Literature (2011)
Nikolajeva, Maria, and Carole Scott. How Picturebooks Work (2001)
Nikolajeva, Maria. Power, Voice and Subjectivity in Literature for Young Readers (2009)
Nodelman, Perry. The Hidden Adult: Defining Children’s Literature (2008)
Nodelman, Perry, and Mavis Reimer. The Pleasures of Children’s Literature, 3rd edition (2003)
Nodelman, Perry. Words About Pictures (1988)
Reynolds, Kimberley. Radical Children’s Literature: Future Visions and Aesthetic Transformations in Juvenile Fiction (2010)
Rose, Jacqueline. The Case of Peter Pan, or the Impossibility of Children’s Fiction (1992)
Sanders, Joe Sutliff. Disciplining Girls: Understanding the Origins of the Classic Orphan Girl Story (2011)
Tribunella, Eric. Melancholia and Maturation: The Use of Trauma in American Children’s Literature (2010)
Tribunella, Eric, and Carrie Hintz. Reading Children’s Literature: A Critical Introduction (2013)
Trites, Roberta Seelinger. Disturbing the Universe: Power and Repression in Adolescent Literature (2000)
Wannamaker, Annette. Boys in Children’s Literature and Popular Culture: Masculinity, Abjection, and the Fictional Child (2012)
Warner, Marina. From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers (1996)
Zipes, Jack. Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairytales (1979)
Core Primary Texts
- The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007), Sherman Alexie
- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), Lewis Carroll
- American Born Chinese (2006), Gene Luen Yang
- Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret (1970), Judy Blume
- The Arrival (2006), Shaun Tan
- The Birchbark House (1999), Louise Edrich
- Black and White (1990), David Macaulay
- The Book Thief (2005), Markus Zusak
- Boy Meets Boy (2003) or Every Day (2013), David Levithan
- Brown Girl Dreaming (2014), Jacqueline Woodson
- The Cat in the Hat (1957) or The Lorax (1971), Theodor Seuss Geisel
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964), Roald Dahl
- Charlotte’s Web (1952), E.B. White
- The Chocolate War (1974), Robert Cormier
- The Classic Fairy Tales (1999), Maria Tartar
- Coraline (2002), Neil Gaiman
- The Diary of a Young Girl (1952), Anne Frank
- Feed (2002), M.T. Anderson
- Forever (1975), Judy Blume
- The Giver (1993), Lois Lowry
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (1997), J.K. Rowling
- The Hunger Games (2008), Suzanne Collins
- The Invention of Hugo Cabret (2007), Brian Selznick
- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), C.S. Lewis
- The Little House (1942), Virginia Lee Burton
- Little House on the Prairie (1932), Laura Ingalls Wilder
- Little Pretty Pocket-Book (1744), John Newbery
- Little Women (1868), Louisa May Alcott
- Monster (1999), Walter Dean Myers
- Out of the Dust (1997), Karen Hesse
- The Outsiders (1967), S.E. Hinton
- Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (1975), Mildred Taylor
- Snowy Day (1963), Ezra Jack Keats
- Speak (1999), Laurie Halse Anderson
- The Story of Babar: The Little Elephant (1931), Jean de Brunhoff
- The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902), Beatrix Potter
- The Three Pigs (2001), David Wiesner
- The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963 (1995), Christopher Paul Curtis
- Through My Eyes (1999), Ruby Bridges
- Where the Sidewalk Ends (1974), Shel Silverstein
- Where the Wild Things Are (1963), Maurice Sendak
- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), Frank L Baum
- A Wrinkle in Time (1963), Madeleine L’Engle
Core Critical Texts
- Bernstein, Robin. Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights (2011)
- Clark, Beverly Lyon. Kiddie Lit: The Cultural Construction of Children’s Literature in America (2003)
- Cadden, Michael, ed. Telling Children’s Stories: Narrative Theory and Children’s Literature (2011)
- Coats, Karen, Shelby A. Wolf, Patricia Enciso, and Christine A. Jenkins. Handbook of Research on Children’s and Young Adult Literature (2011)
- Martin, Michelle. Brown Gold: Milestones of African American Children’s Picture Books, 1845-2002 (2006)
- Nel, Philip, and Lissa Paul, eds. Keywords for Children’s Literature (2011)
- Nikolajeva, Maria, and Carole Scott. How Picturebooks Work (2001)
- Nikolajeva, Maria. Power, Voice and Subjectivity in Literature for Young Readers (2009)
- Nodelman, Perry. The Hidden Adult: Defining Children’s Literature (2008)
- Tribunella, Eric, and Carrie Hintz. Reading Children’s Literature: A Critical Introduction (2013)
- Trites, Roberta Seelinger. Disturbing the Universe: Power and Repression in Adolescent Literature (2000)
