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All of the booklists come from the curriculum Build Your Library

Grade 9

Grade 10

Grade 11

History

Prehistoric Life: The Definitive Visual History of Life on Earth by DK

Evolution: The Human Story by Dr. Alice Roberts

The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years, from Stardust to Living Planet by Robert M. Hazen

The Ancestor’s Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution by Robert Dawkins

The Story of Life in 25 Fossils: Tales of Intrepid Fossil Hunters and the Wonders of Evolution by Donald R. Prothero

Science

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

The Practical Geologist: The Introductory Guide to the Basics of Geology and to Collecting and Identifying Rocks by Dougal Dixon

The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson

The Stuff of Life: A Graphic Guide to Genetics and DNA by Mark Schultz 

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert

Literature

The Last of the Sandwalkers by Jay Hosler

Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta

The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakspeare

Ashfall by Mike Mullen

Raptor Red by Robert T. Bakker

Evolution, Me & Other Freaks of Nature by Robin Brande

A Bone from a Dry Sea by Peter Dickinson

The Inheritors by William Golding

Eva by Peter Dickinson

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

The Kin by Peter Dickinson

The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel

Poetry

Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry by Billy Collins

A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver

Intro. to Lit. Analysis

How to Read Literature like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster

Figuratively Speaking by Delana Heidrich

Art

You Can Draw in 30 Days by Mark Kistler

History

Cartoon History of the Universe v. 1 by Larry Gonick

Cartoon History of the Universe v. 2 by Larry Gonick

Cartoon History of the Universe v. 3 by Larry Gonick

Atlas of World History by Patrick O’Brien

World History in Documents by Peter N. Stearns

Africa by John Reader

The Ancient Near East by Amanda H. Podany

The Woman Who Would Be King by Kara Cooney

The Life of Alexander the Great by Victor Davis Hanson

1066: The Year of the Conquest by David Howarth

A Distant Mirror by Barbara W. Tuchman

Biology

The Curious Naturalist by Sy Montgomery

I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong

The Violinist’s Thumb by Sam Kean

Climate Changed by Philippe Squarzoni

What a Plant Knows by Daniel Chamovitz

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Literature

Scythe by Neal Shusterman

Gilgamesh the King by Robert Silverberg

Mara, Daughter of the Nile by Eloise Jarivs McGraw

The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

Mother of the Believers by Kamran Pasha

Enchantress from the Stars by Sylvia Engdahl

Norse Mythology by Niel Gaiman

Grendel by John Gardner

The Inquisitor’s Tales by Adam Gidwitz

The Outlaws of Sherwood by Robin McKinley

Small Gods by Terry Pratchett 

Poetry

The Epic of Gilgamesh by N. K. Sanders

The Iliad by Homer

Julius Cesar by Willian Shakespeare

Beowulf by Seamus Heaney

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffery Chaucer

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by J. R. R. Tolkien

Mythology and World Religion 

The Illustrated World’s Religion by Huston Smith

Myths & Legends by Philip Wilkinson

A History of God by Karen Armstrong

History

Cartoon History of the Modern World v. 1 by Larry Gonick

Cartoon History of the Modern World v. 2 by Larry Gonick

The History Book by DK

Atlas of World History by Patrick O’Brien

World History in Documents by Peter N. Stearns

Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann

The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli

The Tudor Tutor by Barb Alexander

Shakespeare: The World as a Stage by Bill Bryson

Galileo’s Daughter by Dava Sobel

The Lost King of France by Deborah Cadbury

King Lepold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild

Tesla vs. Edison by Nigel Cawthorne

The War to End All Wars by Russell Freedman

Night by Elie Wiesel

The Boys Who Challenged Hitler by Phillip Hoose

Hiroshima by John Hersey

Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick

Chemistry

Periodic Tales by Hugh Aldersey-Williams

Napoleon’s Buttons by Penny LeCouteur & Jay Burreson

Caesar’s Last Breath by Sam Kean

Radium Girls by Kate Moore

Literature

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

The Gold Eaters by Ronald Wright 

Queen’s Own Fool by Jane Volen & Robert J. Harris

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Rebel Queen by Michelle Moran

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe

Barefoot Gen by Keiji Nakazawa

Revolution is not a Dinner Party by Ying Chang Compestine

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaimen

Poetry

Why Poetry by Mathew Zapruder

The Making of a Poem by Mark Strand & Eavan Boland

History of the English Language

Excavating English by Ruth A. Johnston

Eats, Shoots, and Leaves by Lynne Truss

The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson

The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

Word by Word: Secret Lives of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper

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