Texas Reading List

Browse the complete Texas public school reading list — the first state-mandated K–12 literature requirement in the country, taking effect in 2030. Filter by grade, discover which titles you can read for free right here on Ririro, and explore the full list in our article below.

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Texas Public School Reading List: Complete K–12 Guide (2030)

In June 2026, the Texas State Board of Education approved the country’s first mandatory statewide reading list, requiring public school students in grades K–12 to read dozens of specific titles. The list, which takes effect in 2030, covers nearly 200 works spanning classic literature, American history, folklore, poetry, and Biblical passages. Many of the classics on this list — from Aesop’s fables to Treasure Island — are available to read free on Ririro; look for the links below. Bible passages and stories are shown in bold, as required by the board.

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Elementary School Reading List (Kindergarten – Fifth Grade)

Kindergarten

  1. April Rain Song by Langston Hughes
  2. The Bald Eagle by Norman Pearl
  3. The Berenstain Bears and the Golden Rule by Stan Berenstain
  4. Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey
  5. The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
  6. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault
  7. Cinderella/Cenicienta by Francesca Boada (adapted by)
  8. Classic Nursery Rhymes by Nicola Baxter (compiler) — selected excerpts:
  9. George Washington and the Cherry Tree (excerpt from The Children’s Book of Virtues) by William J. Bennett (editor)
  10. Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Jim Aylesworth
  11. The Grasshopper and the Ants by Jerry Pinkney (retold from Aesop)
  12. How Grandmother Spider Brought Fire (A Choctaw Story) by Angela McAllister
  13. The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco
  14. L is for Lone Star: A Texas Alphabet by Carol Crane
  15. The Little Red Hen (excerpt from The Children’s Book of Virtues) by William J. Bennett (editor)
  16. The Lion and the Mouse (excerpt from The Children’s Book of Virtues) by William J. Bennett (editor)
  17. Luna Loves Art by Joseph Coelho
  18. A Picture Book of George Washington by David A. Adler
  19. A Picture Book of Thomas Alva Edison by David A. Adler
  20. The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown
  21. The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
  22. The Three Little Pigs / Los tres cerditos Bilingual Storybook by Patricia Seibert
  23. The Tortoise and the Hare (excerpt from The Children’s Book of Virtues) by William J. Bennett (editor)
  24. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
  25. You Are Special by Max Lucado

First Grade

  1. Abe Lincoln: The Boy Who Loved Books by Kay Winters
  2. Abuela by Arthur Dorros
  3. Ada Twist, Scientist by Andrea Beaty
  4. Amelia Bedelia’s First Day of School by Herman Parish
  5. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (selected excerpts) by Fred Rogers
  6. The Boy Who Cried Wolf (excerpt from The Children’s Book of Virtues) by William J. Bennett (editor)
  7. Classic Nursery Rhymes by Nicola Baxter — selected excerpts:
  8. Curious About the White House by Kate Waters
  9. Daniel Boone (excerpt from A Book of Americans) by Stephen Vincent Benét and Rosemary Benét
  10. Davy Crockett by Emma E. Haldy
  11. Invitation (excerpt from Where the Sidewalk Ends) by Shel Silverstein
  12. Jack and the Beanstalk by Thomas Nelson
  13. Jonah and the Whale (Jonah 1:1–5, 10–17, 2:10)
  14. The Legend of the Bluebonnet by Tomie dePaola
  15. The Life of Paul Revere by Maria Nelson
  16. The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper
  17. Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans
  18. Medio Pollito/Half Chicken: A Folktale in Spanish and English by Alma Flor Ada
  19. Now and Ben: The Modern Inventions of Benjamin Franklin by Gene Barretta
  20. A Picture Book of Frederick Douglass by David A. Adler
  21. Amazing Americans: Pocahontas by Sharon Cohen
  22. Red Riding Hood by James Marshall
  23. The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
  24. The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen (adapted and illustrated by Jerry Pinkney)
  25. Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing (excerpt from Aesop’s Fables: The Classic Edition) by Aesop

Second Grade

  1. America Is… by Louise Borden
  2. Beauty and the Beast by Marianna Mayer
  3. Bluebonnet at the Alamo by Mary Brooke Casad
  4. The Courage of Sarah Noble by Alice Dalgliesh
  5. David and Goliath (excerpt from The Children’s Book of Heroes) by William J. Bennett (editor)
  6. The Donkey in the Lion’s Skin (excerpt from Aesop’s Fables) by Aesop
  7. Falling Up (excerpt from Falling Up) by Shel Silverstein
  8. James Madison: The 4th President by Josh Gregory
  9. John Henry by Julius Lester
  10. Johnny Appleseed by Steven Kellogg (retold and illustrated by)
  11. The Legend of the Dipper (excerpt from The Children’s Book of Virtues) by William J. Bennett (editor)
  12. Paul Bunyan by Steven Kellogg (retold and illustrated by)
  13. Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom by Carole Boston Weatherford
  14. The Patchwork Quilt by Valerie Flournoy
  15. Sam: The Minuteman by Nathaniel Benchley
  16. Stellaluna by Janell Cannon
  17. Susan B. Anthony by Laura K. Murray
  18. The Swing by Robert Louis Stevenson
  19. Teammates by Peter Golenbock
  20. The Thanksgiving Story by Alice Dalgliesh
  21. Try, Try Again (excerpt from The Children’s Book of Virtues) by William J. Bennett (editor)
  22. We the Kids: The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States by David Catrow
  23. Winnie-the-Pooh (Chapter 1 and Chapter 2) by A. A. Milne

Third Grade

  1. Abraham Lincoln (excerpt from A Book of Americans) by Stephen Vincent Benét and Rosemary Benét
  2. Archimedes and the Door of Science (Chapters 1, 4, 9) by Jeanne Bendick
  3. Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
  4. Enemy Pie by Derek Munson
  5. The Fisherman and His Wife by Rachel Isadora
  6. George Washington (excerpt from A Book of Americans) by Stephen Vincent Benét and Rosemary Benét
  7. Icarus and Daedalus (excerpt from Classic Myths to Read Aloud) by William F. Russell
  8. King Midas and the Golden Touch by Charlotte Craft
  9. ROAR! – Daniel and the Lion’s Den – Children’s Adapted Version by CBN
  10. Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney
  11. Seeker of Knowledge: The Man Who Deciphered Egyptian Hieroglyphs by James Rumford
  12. Smart (excerpt from Where the Sidewalk Ends) by Shel Silverstein
  13. The Shepherd Boy and the Wolf (excerpt from Aesop’s Fables) by Aesop
  14. Stone Soup by Marcia Brown
  15. Benjamin Franklin (Life Stories/Biografías Bilingual Edition) by Gillian Gosman
  16. Stuart Little by E.B. White
  17. Thomas Jefferson (excerpt from A Book of Americans) by Stephen Vincent Benét and Rosemary Benét
  18. Tomas and the Library Lady by Pat Mora
  19. Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto
  20. The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse (excerpt from Aesop’s Fables) by Aesop
  21. What Do You Do with a Problem? by Kobi Yamada
  22. The Wind in the Willows (Chapters: The River Bank, The Open Road, The Wild Wood, Mr. Badger) by Kenneth Grahame

Fourth Grade

  1. The Ant and the Dove (excerpt from Aesop’s Fables) by Aesop
  2. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (Picture Book Edition) by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer
  3. Brave Irene by William Steig
  4. Dreams by Langston Hughes
  5. Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
  6. Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow by Geraldine McCaughrean
  7. Sea Fever by John Masefield
  8. Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner
  9. The Story of King Arthur and His Knights (Part 1, Chapters 1 and 2) by Howard Pyle (adapted by Tania Zamorsky)
  10. Sundiata: The Lion King of Mali by David Wisniewski
  11. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (adapted by Jacqueline Dembar Greene)
  12. Who Was Leonardo Da Vinci? (Chapters 1–4) by Roberta Edwards
  13. The Necessity of Humility (Book of Luke, Chapter 14, Verses 7–11)

Fifth Grade

  1. Adventures of Don Quixote (Dover Children’s Thrift Classics) by Argentina Palacios
  2. Casey at the Bat by Ernest Lawrence Thayer
  3. The Colonization of Texas: Missions and Settlers by Stephanie Kuligowski
  4. Declaration of Independence in Translation: What It Really Means by Amy Jane Leavitt
  5. “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” (speech to the Second Virginia Convention) by Patrick Henry
  6. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
  7. Independence Bell – July 4, 1776 by Anonymous
  8. The Mayflower Compact by William Brewster, William Bradford, Edward Winslow
  9. The Monkey as King (excerpts from Aesop’s Fables) by Aesop
  10. A More Perfect Union: The Story of Our Constitution by Betsy Maestro
  11. Moses (Book of Exodus, Chapter 3: The Burning Bush and Chapter 14: The Parting of the Red Sea)
  12. Paul Revere’s Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
  13. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
  14. Sam Houston: A Fearless Statesman by Joanne Mattern
  15. Thomas Jefferson Third President 1801–1809 by Mike Venezia
  16. Who was Davy Crockett? (selected excerpts) by Gail Herman

Middle School Reading List (Sixth – Eighth Grade)

Sixth Grade

  1. Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt
  2. Abraham Lincoln, a Man of Faith and Courage (Chapter 7: “The Road Back to God”) by Joe Wheeler
  3. The Blue and The Gray by Francis Miles Finch
  4. The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln
  5. General Order 108 to the “Soldiers of the Armies of the United States” by Ulysses S. Grant
  6. All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot
  7. The Power of the Dog by Rudyard Kipling
  8. A White Heron by Sarah Orne Jewett
  9. Do Not Be Anxious (Book of Matthew, Chapter 6, Verses 25–34)
  10. The Peace of the Wild Things by Wendell Berry

Seventh Grade

  1. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
  2. Blessed is the Match by Hannah Szenes
  3. Letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport by George Washington
  4. The Shepherd’s Psalm (Book of Psalms, Chapter 23)
  5. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
  6. The Eight Beatitudes (Book of Matthew, Chapter 5, Verses 1–12)
  7. Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas
  8. Mother to Son by Langston Hughes
  9. Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost
  10. The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
  11. Thank You, M’am by Langston Hughes

Eighth Grade

  1. The Giver by Lois Lowry
  2. Harrison Bergeron (excerpt from Welcome to the Monkey House) by Kurt Vonnegut
  3. The Man in the Arena (excerpt from Citizenship in a Republic, 1910) by Teddy Roosevelt
  4. O Me! O Life! by Walt Whitman
  5. To Everything There is a Season (Book of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3)
  6. Night by Elie Wiesel
  7. Book of Lamentations, Chapter 3
  8. The Perils of Indifference (excerpt) by Elie Wiesel
  9. The Survivor by Primo Levi

High School Reading List (English I – IV)

High School Freshman (English I)

  1. Animal Farm by George Orwell
  2. The Clever Teens’ Guide to the Russian Revolution by Felix Rhodes
  3. I, Pencil by Leonard E. Read
  4. Lyceum Address by Abraham Lincoln
  5. Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley
  6. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
  7. A Brief History of Life in Victorian Britain (Chapters 1, 2, and 6) by Michael Paterson
  8. Love is not all by Edna St. Vincent Millay
  9. Parable of the Prodigal Son (Book of Luke, Chapter 15, Verses 11–32)

High School Sophomore (English II)

  1. The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
  2. General Douglas MacArthur’s Farewell Speech to the Corps of Cadets at West Point (excerpt: Duty, Honor, Country) by Douglas MacArthur
  3. Eulogy for President Reagan by Margaret Thatcher
  4. Pericles’ Funeral Oration (excerpt from History of the Peloponnesian War) by Thucydides
  5. The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
  6. The Inferno by Dante Alighieri
  7. The Book of Job (Chapters 1–7, 11, 14, 19, 28, 38–42)
  8. I’ve Been to the Mountaintop by Martin Luther King, Jr.
  9. The Middle Ages: A Very Short Introduction (Chapters 1–4, excerpts) by Miri Rubin

High School Junior (English III)

  1. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
  2. Dear Mr. McCarthy, I am very real (excerpt from Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage) by Kurt Vonnegut
  3. What is Capitalism? (excerpt from Capitalism, The Unknown Ideal) by Ayn Rand
  4. Flattering Unction (excerpt from The Vision of the Anointed) by Thomas Sowell
  5. The Veldt (excerpt from The Illustrated Man) by Ray Bradbury
  6. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
  7. Adam and Eve (Book of Genesis, Chapters 2 and 3)
  8. The Minister’s Black Veil by Nathaniel Hawthorne
  9. We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar

High School Senior (English IV)

  1. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
  2. Hamlet and His Problems (excerpt from The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism) by T. S. Eliot
  3. If by Rudyard Kipling
  4. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot
  5. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
  6. The Definition of Love (Book of 1 Corinthians, Chapter 13)
  7. Hope is the thing with feathers by Emily Dickinson
  8. The Parson’s Daughter of Oxney Colne by Anthony Trollope
  9. When I Was One-and-Twenty by A. E. Housman