Library Books for developing readers
A reviewed reading listBooks that build what children know
Knowledge-rich books for developing readers, from picture books to books for older teens. Each has a short review from the teacher, educator or parent who recommended it.
Most are nonfiction that children enjoy, such as comic-book histories. The novels teach something real too, such as what happened during a historical event. Many are books you may not know yet.
Stories, poems and myths help us understand American civic life. We include enduring fables—like Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed and John Henry—because they shape who we are as a nation, and we do not shy away from tough topics.
Age and category
Choose a category, or
Ages are based on content, such as violence and mature themes.
40 books
All ages
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Actual Size
“Animals and animal parts printed at their real size, from a tiny shrew to a gorilla's hand and a crocodile's jaws. Children learn scale by putting their own hands against the page.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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Alligators and Crocodiles
Part of a series: Explore the World with Gail Gibbons ·
“How to tell alligators from crocodiles, where each lives, what they eat and how they raise their young. Labeled drawings teach young readers how to read a nonfiction book.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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Blizzard!
“The blizzard of March 1888 buried New York and the Northeast. Readers learn how the storm formed, how people lived through it, and how it pushed cities to put wires and trains underground.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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The Boy on the Wooden Box
“Leon Leyson, the youngest person on Oskar Schindler's list, tells how he survived the Holocaust. A first memoir of the Holocaust for readers not yet ready for Night.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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Changes for Felicity
Part of a series: American Girl ·
“As the Revolutionary War begins in Williamsburg, Virginia, Felicity's friends and family divide between patriots and loyalists. Children learn why colonists took different sides.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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Changes for Molly
Part of a series: American Girl ·
“Molly waits for her father to come home from the Second World War. Shows what the war meant for families on the home front.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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Chasing Vermeer
Part of a series: Chasing Vermeer
“Two sixth graders in Chicago hunt for a stolen Vermeer painting. Readers learn about Vermeer's art and solve puzzles with pentominoes and codes along the way.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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Chocolate Wars: The 150-Year Rivalry Between the World's Greatest Chocolate Makers
“The history of Cadbury, Fry, Rowntree, Hershey, Nestle and Mars, and how Quaker families tried to run businesses with a conscience. Readers learn how competition and industry shaped what we eat.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World
“How one fish fed the Vikings and the Basques, built New England's economy and set off wars between nations, until overfishing collapsed the fisheries. Readers learn how one natural resource shaped history.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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Code Talker
“Ned Begay is punished at boarding school for speaking Navajo, then joins the Marines, where Navajo becomes a code the Japanese never broke. Readers learn about the Navajo code talkers of World War II.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths
“The Greek gods, goddesses and heroes in one illustrated volume. Children learn the stories that later books, art and everyday words refer back to.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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Earthquakes
Part of a series: Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science ·
“What happens underground when the earth's plates move, why the ground shakes, and how scientists measure earthquakes.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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Fly Guy Presents: Castles
Part of a series: Fly Guy Presents ·
“Fly Guy and Buzz visit castles to learn how they were built and defended, and who lived and worked inside. Photographs and simple facts for beginning readers.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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Fly Guy Presents: Space
Part of a series: Fly Guy Presents ·
“Fly Guy and Buzz travel through the solar system to learn about the sun, the planets and astronauts. Photographs and simple facts for beginning readers.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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Fly Guy Presents: The White House
Part of a series: Fly Guy Presents ·
“Fly Guy and Buzz tour the White House: its history, its rooms, the people who work there and what a president does. Photographs and simple facts for beginning readers.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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Great Battles for Boys: The American Revolution
Part of a series: Great Battles for Boys
“The major battles of the Revolutionary War, from Lexington and Concord to Yorktown, with maps. Readers learn how the Continental Army fought and won.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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Hana's Suitcase
“A Holocaust education center in Tokyo receives a suitcase with a girl's name on it, and its director traces the life of Hana Brady. Shows how history is pieced together from a few objects.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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Henry's Freedom Box
“Henry Brown escaped slavery in 1849 by mailing himself in a wooden crate from Richmond to Philadelphia. A true story that shows children what slavery took from families and what one man risked to get free.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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Hurricanes
Part of a series: Explore the World with Gail Gibbons ·
“How hurricanes form over warm ocean water, how scientists track and rate them, and how people get ready for one.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, 1912
Part of a series: I Survived
“Ten-year-old George is aboard the Titanic the night it hits the iceberg. Children learn what happened that night through a story, with historical facts at the end.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
“Cells taken from Henrietta Lacks in 1951 without her knowledge became the HeLa cell line, used in research on polio vaccines and cancer. Readers learn cell biology, medical ethics and what her family went through.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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Independent Dames
“The women and girls of the American Revolution: spies, soldiers, writers and fundraisers. A timeline runs along the bottom of the pages, so children learn the war's events along with the people.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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It's a Good Thing There Are Ladybugs
“What ladybugs eat, how they grow, and why gardeners and farmers are glad to have them. An early lesson in how insects help people.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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John Henry
“The steel-driving man who raced a steam drill through a mountain and won. The legend is set during the building of the railroads, so children learn a piece of American folklore and the real work behind it.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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Magic Tree House Fact Tracker Graphic Novel: Space
Part of a series: Magic Tree House Fact Tracker ·
“The facts behind Jack and Annie's trip to the moon: the solar system, the stars, and how astronauts travel and live in space. A short guide young readers can use for reports.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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Magic Tree House Fact Tracker: Twisters and Other Terrible Storms
Part of a series: Magic Tree House Fact Tracker ·
“How tornadoes, hurricanes and blizzards form, how scientists track them, and how to stay safe. A short guide young readers can use for reports.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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Meet Addy
Part of a series: American Girl ·
“Addy and her mother escape slavery in North Carolina during the Civil War. The first Addy book in the American Girl series, which follows girls through real periods of American history.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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Mr. Ferris and His Wheel
“George Ferris built the first Ferris wheel for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, to outdo the Eiffel Tower. Children learn how an engineer solved a problem of size and weight that many people said could not be solved.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales: Big Bad Ironclad!
Part of a series: Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales
“The race between the Union and the Confederacy to build iron warships, ending in the battle of the Monitor and the Merrimack. Told as a comic, with the history and engineering kept accurate.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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The Notorious Benedict Arnold
“Benedict Arnold was one of the Revolution's best generals before he became its most famous traitor. Readers learn how the war was fought and why Arnold changed sides.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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The Omnivore's Dilemma (Young Readers Edition)
“Michael Pollan traces four meals back to where the food came from: industrial farms, large organic farms, a small local farm, and food he hunted and gathered himself. Readers learn how food is produced in the United States.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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Packing for Mars
“What happens to the human body in space, and how scientists study eating, sleeping and going to the bathroom without gravity. Readers learn what it would take for people to travel to Mars.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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The People Could Fly
“A folk tale told by enslaved African Americans about people who remembered how to fly and flew away to freedom. Children learn how stories carried hope and memory through slavery.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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The Radium Girls (Young Readers Edition)
“Young women who painted watch dials with glowing radium paint in the 1910s and 1920s were slowly poisoned. Readers learn how their court cases changed worker safety law.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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The Story of Salt
“How salt shaped history: preserving food, paying soldiers, founding cities and sparking Gandhi's Salt March. Children learn that everyday things have a history.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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Sugar Changed the World
“How sugar drove slavery and empire, and how the fight against slavery grew alongside it. Readers learn how one crop shaped world history.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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Symphony for the City of the Dead
“Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his Seventh Symphony during the Nazi siege of Leningrad. Readers learn about Stalin's terror, the siege, and what music meant to a starving city.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team
“Jim Thorpe and coach Pop Warner made the Carlisle Indian School a football power. Readers learn about the federal boarding schools built to erase Native culture, and about the early history of American football.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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The Warmth of Other Suns
“Six million Black Americans left the South between 1915 and 1970. Wilkerson follows three of them to Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, and readers learn about the Great Migration and Jim Crow.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
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Why Frogs Are Wet
Part of a series: Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science ·
“Why a frog's skin has to stay damp, and how frogs breathe and take in water through their skin. An early lesson in how an animal's body fits where it lives.”
Review by an educator · Approved by CEP
What’s on the list
You won’t find The Giver, Bridge to Terabithia or The Hobbit here. We love those books, and they are great for building vocabulary, but this list is for books that build knowledge of the world.
Subjects
- Biology, chemistry, earth science, physics and engineering. Biology books may describe reproduction and anatomy in factual terms.
- Past peoples and events. These books may show violence, slavery and war.
- How people govern themselves: laws, rights and citizenship.
- Places, maps, and how people live around the world.
- Money, trade and work: how people make, buy and sell things.
- Myths, legends and fables from around the world.
- True stories of real lives.
- Novels, stories and poems.
- Numbers, shapes and patterns.
- How art and music are made, and who made them.
Kinds of book
- Factual books about real people, events and ideas.
- Stories that teach something real, such as a historical event, a scientific idea or a work of art.
- Poems and verse.
- Books to look things up in, such as atlases.
Know a book that belongs here?
Tell us the title and what a reader will learn from it. We publish your review with the book and credit it to your role. CEP may edit it for clarity and content.
Suggest a book- You suggest a book using a short form.
- CEP reviews it before it appears here.
- It’s published with your review, credited like this: “Review by a parent.”
Looking for the books and research that shaped CEP’s own thinking about education? That’s a different list: The Education Reading List.