I’ve googled this many times for my own high schooler so I thought I’d put together a list for you!
My method for high school reading varies. Some books are so widely popular for high school reading that you can find assignments online that have already been pre-made, usually by teachers.
For example: google “Lord of the Flies questions by chapter,” and you will find questions for your high schooler to answer about each chapter.
Having an assignment to accompany reading is a good way to check reading comprehension off of your homeschool requirements list.
If I don’t have questions by chapter, I simply have my 9th grader read a chapter or two (depending on length and difficulty) and then I have him fill out the following worksheet:
Click Below To Download For Free!
Obviously a very simple worksheet but it works for us!
I give this worksheet only AFTER my kiddo has actually read the assigned amount of pages to be sure he doesn’t just skim the reading to fill out the worksheet. (We’ve all been teenagers in high school, let’s be real, we’ve all skimmed!)
Sometimes I even have him give me a quick oral summary of what he read before I’ll give him the worksheet.
Here is your comprehensive high school reading list:
Literature and Fiction
“A controversial tale of friendship and tragedy during the Great Depression” – Amazon
Written in 1937
“Kino is a poor diver, gathering pearls from the gulf beds… Then, on a day like any other, Kino emerges from the sea with a pearl as large as a sea gull’s egg, as “perfect as the moon.” With the pearl comes hope, the promise of comfort and of security…” – Amazon
Written in 1947
“A Comedy Fiction Literary Classic by Oscar Wilde…A celebrated satire classic.” – Amazon
Written in 1895
“A Tale of Two Cities is an 1859 historical novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution.” – Amazon
Written in 1859
“At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate.” -Amazon
Written in 1954
“Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South—and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred“ – Amazon
Witten in 1960
“Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, the novel depicts narrator Nick Carraway’s interactions with mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and Gatsby’s obsession to reunite with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan.” – Amazon
“A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality.” – Amazon
Written in 1945
“…a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order–all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls…” – Amazon
Written in 1932
“…epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family…” -Amazon
Written in 1939
“…chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, his dystopian vision of a government that will do anything to control the narrative is timelier than ever…“ – Amazon
Written in 1949
“…a classic novel set in Puritanical Boston in the mid-17th century. It tells the story of Hester Prynne, a young woman who is publicly shamed and ostracized for having a child out of wedlock.” – Amazon
Written in 1850
“…a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling.” – Amazon
Written in 1990
“…In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope…” – Amazon
Written in 1989
“…narrated by Charles Marlow, recalling his obsessive quest to locate the ivory trader Kurtz, who has become ensconced deep in the jungle managing a remote outpost. As he ventures further and further down the Congo, Marlow finds himself and his surroundings become increasingly untethered.” – Amazon
Written in April 1899
“…Shakespeare creates a violent world, in which two young people fall in love. It is not simply that their families disapprove; the Montagues and the Capulets are engaged in a blood feud.” – Amazon
Written in 1597
“…the gripping story of a dystopian world transformed by courage, self-sacrifice, and love.” -Amazon
Written in 2011
“Told in short, fierce staccato narrative verse, Long Way Down is a fast and furious, dazzlingly brilliant look at teenage gun violence…” – Amazon
Written in 2017
“Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel’s story is about to be completely rewritten.” – Amazon
Written in 2012
“In the ruins of…North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called, “The Hunger Games,” a fight to the death on live TV.” – Amazon
Written in 2008
“…twelve-year-old Jonas lives in a seemingly ideal world. Not until he is given his life assignment as the Receiver does he begin to understand the dark secrets behind his fragile community.” – Amazon
Written in 1993
“…a classic masterpiece of religious satire that entertains readers with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life and foibles from the vantage point of Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to “Our Father Below.” – Amazon
Written in 1942
“The masterpiece of the German experience during World War I, considered by many the greatest war novel of all time…” – Amazon
Written in 1929
Coming of Age
“…Ponyboy is pretty sure that he’s got things figured out…he knows that he can count on his friends…But not on much else besides trouble with the Socs, a vicious gang of rich kids whose idea of a good time is beating up on “greasers” like Ponyboy. At least he knows what to expect—until the night someone takes things too far.” – Amazon
Written in 1967
“…a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant.” – Amazon
Written in 2005
“Through Charlie, Stephen Chbosky has created a deeply affecting coming-of-age story, a powerful novel that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller coaster days known as growing up.” -Amazon
Written in 1999
“The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero, a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who and what she will become.” – Amazon
Written in 1983
“The hero-narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caulfield…Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days.” – Amazon
Written in 1951
“Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words—and tired of his safe life at home. He leaves for boarding school to seek what the dying poet François Rabelais called the “Great Perhaps.”” – Amazon
Written in 2005
“Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily’s fierce-hearted Black “stand-in mother,” Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides to spring them both free.” – Amazon
Written in 2001
“Lovely Meg, talented Jo, frail Beth, spoiled Amy: these are hard lessons of poverty and of growing up in New England during the Civil War.” – Amazon
Written in 1868
“The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father’s servant, caught in the tragic sweep of history, The Kite Runner transports readers to Afghanistan at a tense and crucial moment of change and destruction.” – Amazon
Written in 2003
“Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books.” – Amazon
Written in 2005
“Huckleberry takes off on a raft down the Mississippi with Jim, a slave seeking his freedom.” – Amazon
Written in 1884
“Considered by many to be Dickens’ finest novel, Great Expectations traces the growth of the book’s narrator, Philip Pirrip (Pip), from a boy of shallow dreams to a man with depth of character.” – Amazon
Written in 1861
“When Margo Roth Spiegelman beckons Quentin Jacobsen in the middle of the night—dressed like a ninja and plotting an ingenious campaign of revenge—he follows her. Margo’s always planned extravagantly, and, until now, she’s always planned solo.” – Amazon
Written in 2008
Fantasy
“Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely traveling any farther than his pantry or cellar. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard Gandalf and a company of dwarves arrive on his doorstep one day to whisk him away on an adventure.” -Amazon
Written in 1937
“Begin your journey into Middle-earth…” -Amazon
Written in 1954
“Percy Jackson is a good kid, but he can’t seem to focus on his schoolwork or control his temper. And lately, being away at boarding school is only getting worse…When Percy’s mom finds out, she knows it’s time that he knew the truth about where he came from…” -Amazon
Written in 2005
“Ged was the greatest sorcerer in Earthsea, but in his youth he was the reckless Sparrowhawk. In his hunger for power and knowledge, he tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon the world.” – Amazon
Written in 1968
“When fifteen-year-old Eragon finds a polished blue stone in the forest, he thinks it is the lucky discovery of a poor farm boy. But when the stone brings a dragon hatchling, Eragon soon realizes he has stumbled upon a legacy nearly as old as the Empire itself.” – Amazon
Written in 2002
“It was a dark and stormy night; Meg Murry, her small brother Charles Wallace, and her mother had come down to the kitchen for a midnight snack when they were upset by the arrival of a most disturbing stranger” -Amazon
Written in 1962
“So begins a tale unequaled in fantasy literature—the story of a hero told in his own voice. It is a tale of sorrow, a tale of survival, a tale of one man’s search for meaning in his universe, and how that search, and the indomitable will that drove it, gave birth to a legend.” -Amazon
Written in 2007
“When Bastian happens upon an old book called The Neverending Story, he’s swept into the magical world of Fantastica–so much that he finds he has actually become a character in the story!” -Amazon
Written in 1979
Poetry
“The epic Anglo-Saxon poem, Beowulf, is a story of a hero’s adventure to defeat evil and save his people. This story takes place in ancient Denmark, where there lived a monster called Grendel.” -Amazon
“Undoubtedly the most famous verse written by Edgar Allan Poe…The Raven depicts Poe’s overwrought narrator and that most infamous of all fowls, the titular croaking Raven.” – Amazon
Written in 1845
“A RICHLY TOLD FABLE of love, lies and redemption that isn’t too far from the truth.” -Amazon
Written in 1907
“In Alfred Noyes’s thrilling poem, charged with drama and tension, we ride with the highwayman and recoil from the terrible fate that befalls him and his sweetheart Bess, the landlord’s daughter.” -Amazon
“…a poem in the form of a villanelle by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, and is one of his best-known works.” -Wikipedia
Witten in 1947
“These poems are powerful, distinctive, and fresh—and, as always, full of the lifting rhythms of love and remembering.” -Amazon
Witten in 1976
“This compelling collection showcases Brooks’s technical mastery, her warm humanity, and her compassionate and illuminating response to a complex world.” -Amazon
Witten in 1959
“Lyrical and pungent, passionate and polemical, the result is a treasure of a book, the essential collection of a poet whose words have entered our common language.” -Amazon
Written in 1922
“Emily Dickinson scorned the conventions of her day in her approach to writing, religion, and society.” -Amazon
Written in 1863
Non-Fiction
“In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself.” -Amazon
Written in 1996
“…Miller takes readers along as she investigates a brutal crime: the August 4, 1892, murders of wealthy and prominent Andrew and Abby Borden. The accused? Mild-mannered and highly respected Lizzie Borden, daughter of Andrew and stepdaughter of Abby.” -Amazon
“What does it mean to be American? Who gets to decide? When the world is against you, what can one person do?” -Amazon
Written in 2019
“…the first book to portray contemporary North Korea to a young audience, is the intense memoir of a North Korean boy named Sungju who was forced at age twelve to live on the streets and fend for himself.” -Amazon
Written in 2016
“…the story of a former Olympian’s courage, cunning, and fortitude following his plane crash in enemy territory.” -Amazon
Written in 2010
“…what was life really like for Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker in the early 1930s? How did two dirt-poor teens from west Texas morph from vicious outlaws to legendary couple? And why?” – Amazon
Written in 2018
“It’s the winter of 1952 and a ferocious Nor’easter is pounding New England with howling winds and seventy-foot seas. Two oil tankers get caught in the violent storm off Cape Cod, its fury splitting the massive ships in two. Back on shore are four young Coast Guardsmen who are given a suicide mission.” – Amazon
Written in 2011
WOW! That was a lot of books.
I love physical books so much but we often use the Amazon Kindle for reading. I love the Kindle because it’s super easy to put parental controls on.
Both my older kids have one and with Kindle Unlimited, there’s a lot of free books to choose from!
Also, check your local library website, they probably offer free ebooks to rent that can go directly to your child’s Kindle!
If you are still deciding whether or not to start homeschooling or are just curious about the process, or maybe you know you want to but don’t know where to start, check out my post:
How to Begin Homeschooling, A Step-by-Step Guide
Thank you so much for stopping by! Comment below with your favorite books for high school reading!
