A good book can capture the imagination, while very subtly improving our child's knowledge of the world, of grammar and spelling, of vocabulary and a list of other benefits. But more than that, a good book is both entertaining and thought provoking. While there are many great books written today, here you will find the classics.
Most of the books on these lists of classical books or reads were published in the book "A Thomas Jefferson Education" by Oliver Van DeMille. The lists are found in the appendices of the book and are categorized by age group of the reader.
The rest are some of my family's favorites.
These are by no means all of the classics that are worthwhile to read! It's a list to get you started. Each family should choose which books fit their world view, interests and paradigms.
As you go through your home schooling journey, your reads will lead to other books so, I suggest you keep an ongoing list of your own somewhere handy.
Contents
1. Appendix A
2 Appendix B-2
3 Appendix B-1
4 Sources
5 External links
[edit]Appendix A
Appendix A is the 100 classic reads for adults.
Acton, The History of Freedom
John Adams, "Thoughts on Government"[1]
Aquinas, "On Kingship"
Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics
Aristotle, Politics
Aristotle, Rhetoric
Augustine, The City of God
Aurelius, Meditations
Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Austen, Sense and Sensibility
Bacon, Novum Organum
Bhagavad Gita
Bastait, The Law
Bastait, "What is Seen and Not Seen"
Benson, "The Proper Role of Government"
The Bible
Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy
Bronte, Wuthering Heights
Bronte, Jane Eyre
Carson, The American Tradition
Capra, The Tao of Physics
Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Churchill, Collected Speeches
Cicero, The Republic
Cicero, The Laws
Clausewitz, On War
Confucius, Analects
The Constitution of the United States
Copernicus, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
Dante, The Divine Comedy
The Declaration of Independence
DeFoe, Robinson Crusoe
Descartes, A Discourse on Method
Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Dickens, Great Expectations
Douglas, Magnificent Obsession
Durant, A History of Civilization
Einstein, Relativity
Emerson, Collected Essays
Euclid, Elements
Frank, Alas Babylon
Franklin, Letters and Writings
Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents
Galileo, Two New Sciences
Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Goethe, Faust
Hobbes, Leviathan
Homer, The Iliad
Homer, The Odyssey
Hugo, Les Miserables
Hume, Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary
Jefferson, Letters, Speeches, and Writings
Keegan, History of Warfare
Kepler, Epitome
Martin Luther King, Jr., Collected Speeches
Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Lavoisier, Elements of Chemistry
Lewis, Mere Christianity
Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Lewis, The Weight of Glory
Lincoln, Collected Speeches
Locke, Second Treatise of Government
Machiavelli, The Prince
Madison, Hamilton and Jay, The Federalist Papers
Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto
More, Utopia
The Magna Charta
Mill, On Liberty
Milton, Paradise Regained
Mises, Human Action
The Monroe Doctrine
Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws
Newton, Mathematical Principles
Nichomachus, Introduction to Arithmetic
Neitzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
The Northwest Ordinance
Orwell, 1984
Plato, Collected Works
Polybius, Histories
Potok, The Chosen
Plutarch, Lives
Ptolemy, Almagest
Qu’ran
Shakespeare, Collected Works
Skousen, The Five Thousand Year Leap
Skousen, The Majesty of God's Law
Skousen, The Making of America
Smith, The Wealth of Nations
Solzhenitsyn, "A World Split Apart"
Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
Sophocles, Oedipus Trilogy
Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Thackeray, Vanity Fair
Torah
Thoreau, Walden
Tolstoy, War and Peace
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian Wars
Tocqueville, Democracy in America
Washington, Letters, Speeches, and Writings
Weaver, Mainspring of Human Progress
Wister, The Virginian
[edit]Appendix B-2
Appendix B-2 are classics for older youth to read and discuss with their mentors.
Alice in Wonderland - Carroll
Animal Farm - Orwell
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
The Anne of Green Gables series - Montgomery
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
“Battle Hymn of the Republic”
Ben Hur: A Tale of Christ - Wallace
The Bible
Brighty of the Grand Canyon - Henry
Black Beauty - Sewell
The Black Stallion series – Farley
The Bronze Bow, Speare
Caddie Woodlawn, Brink
Calico Bush, Field
The Chronicles of Narnia series - Lewis
The Collected Verse of Edgar A Guest
“Concord Hymn” - Emerson
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court - Samuel Clemens
The Constitution of the United States
David Copperfield - Dickens
Davy Crockett Legends - Irwin Shapiro
The Declaration of Independence
The Deerslayer – Cooper
The Defender, Kalashnikoff
Don Quixote de la Mancha - Miguel de Cervantes
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Stevenson
The Dred Scott Decision
The Education of Henry Adams
Eight Cousins - Alcott
Emily Post’s Etiquette
Ender's Game
“In Flanders Fields”
Flatland - Abbott
The Foundation series - Asimov
Frankenstein - Shelley
“The Gettysburg Address” - Lincoln
“Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” – Henry
The Giver, Lowrey
The Great Brain series - Fitzgerald
Gulliver’s Travels - Swift
Hamilton’s Mythology - Hamilton
Hamlet - Shakespeare
Heidi - Spry
The Hiding Place - Boom
History Reborn
The Hobbit - Tolkien
Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of - Twain
“I Have a Dream” - King
Ivanhoe - Scott
Island of the Blue Dolphins - Scott O'Dell
Joan of Arc - Twain
Jo's Boys - Alcott
A Journey to the Center of the Earth - Verne
Julius Caesar (play) - Shakespeare
The Jungle Book - Kipling
King Arthur and the Round Table - Malory
Laddie - Porter
The Last of the Mohicans - Cooper
“Let America be America Again” - Hughes
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
The Little Britches series - Moody
Little Lord Fauntleroy - Burnett
Little Men - Alcott
Little Women - Alcott
The Lonesome Gods - L'Amour
Lord of the Rings series - Tolkien
“The Man with the Hoe”
Mathematicians are People, Too (2 volumes) - Reimer
Moby Dick - Melville
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - Douglass
National Velvet - Bagnold
Noah Webster’s Original 1828 Dictionary - Webster
North to Freedom - Holm
“O Captain! My Captain!” - Whitman
“Old Ironsides” - Holmes
Old Yeller - Gipson
Oliver Twist - Dickens
On Numbers - Conway
Paul Bunyan – Sheperd
Tales From Shakespeare, Lamb
Tarzan of the Apes, Burroughs
The Phantom Tollbooth - Juster
"The Present Crisis" - Lowell
The Real Benjamin Franklin - Allison
The Real George Washington - Parry and Allison
The Real Thomas Jefferson - Allison
“The Road Not Taken” s:The Road Not Taken - Frost
The Robe - Douglas
Robinson Crusoe - DeFoe
Romeo and Juliet - Shakespeare
The Sackett series - L'Amour
Sarah Bishop, O’Dell
The Saxon Math series - Saxon
The Secret Garden - Burnett
Shipwrecked
Soldiers, Statesmen, and Heroes - Parry
Sonnets of Shakespeare - Shakespeare
Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers - Kavanaugh
Stuart Little - White
The Summer of the Monkeys - Wilson Rawls
The Swiss Family Robinson - Wyss
Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of - Twain
Treasure Island - Stevenson
The Trumpet of the Swans - White
“Ulysses” - Tennyson
The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle - Lofting
The Walking Drum - L'Amour
Where the Red Fern Grows - Rawls
White Fang - London
William Tell
The Yearling - Rawlings
[edit]Appendix B-1
Appendix B-1 are classics to be read to young children.
A Christmas Carrol, Dickens
A Little Princess, Burnett
At the Back of North Wind, Mac Donald
Aesop’s Fables - Aesop
Andersen’s Fairy Tales – Anderson
A Wrinkle in Time, L’Engle
Aladdin and Other Favorite Arabian Night Stories, Smith
Beauty and the Beast
The Bible
The Blind Men and the Elephant
Carry on Mr. Bowditch, Latham
“Casey at Bat”[2] – Thayer
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Dahl
Charlotte’s Web - White
Chicken Little
A Christmas Carol - Dickens
Cinderella
Curious George, Rey
Dinotopia series – Gurney
The Dorr In The Wall, Angeli
Dr. Seuss series
The Emperor's New Clothes - Anderson
The Fourth Wise Man
The Gift of the Magi - Henry
The Giving Tree - Silverstein
“God Save the Flag” – Holmes
The Golden Goblet, McGraw
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg - Aesop
Grimm's Fairy Tales - Grimm
“The Highwayman”[3]
Hansel and Gretel - Grimm
Jack and the Beanstalk,
Johnny Tremain, Forbes
Just So Stories - Kipling
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow - Irving
“Lincoln, The Man of the People” - Markham
“Little Boy Blue”[4] - Field
Little Bea, Minarik
The Little Engine that Could
The Little House on the Prairie series - Wilder
The Little Red Hen
Little Red Riding Hood
The McGuffey Readers
Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes
The Tale of Despereaux, Kate DiCamillo.
“Paul Revere’s Ride”[5] - Longfellow
Peter Pan - Barrie
Peter Rabbit - Potter
The Pied Piper of Hamlin
Pinocchio
The Adventures of Pinocchio – Colladi
The Princess and Curdie, MacDonald
The Princess and the Goblin, MacDonald
The Princess and the Pea
Pollyanna - Porter
The Princess and the Pea - Anderson
Puss-in-Boots - Perrault
Rapunzel - Grimm
Riki Tiki Tavi - Kipling
Rip Van Winkle - Irving
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - Pyle
Rumpelstiltskin - Grimm
Rudyard Kipling Just So Stories
The Sign of the Beaver, Speare
Sleeping Beauty - Perrault
The Song of Hiawatha - Longfellow
Snow White – Grimm
Stewart Little, White
Tales of the Arabian Nights
The Three Billy Goats Gruff
The Three Little Pigs
Toby Tyler, Otis
Tom Thumb
The Trumpet of the Swan, White
The Trumpeter of Krakow, Kelly
"Twas the Night Before Christmas"[6]
The Ugly Duckling - Anderson
The Wind in the Willows - Grahame
Winnie-the-Pooh series – Milne
Winter of Fire, Jordoan
The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Speare
The Wizard of Oz
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - Baum

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