This list is not exhaustive. Not even close. But to make the cut, titles must have strong writing, solid characters, and something to say beyond the literary equivalent of “See Spot. See Spot run.” Without beating you over the head with it.

Now. To the horror of high school English teachers everywhere, we simply cannot abide ‘stream of consciousness’ prose a la Faulkner.  Ditto Wuthering Heights and The Great Gatsby. Also not on our list is The Most Over-Rated Book in the English Language: Catcher in the Rye. Barf. You’ll also find evidence of our conviction that some of the finest literature ever written can be found in the Children’s Section.

This list includes classic, contemporary, just 4 fun books + some surprises. Selections appear in alpha order by title. And nope, we’re not gonna link to all of these. (Tip: Google is your friend. 🙂

So without any further ado, here’s our 100% subjective, totally unscientific list of Books To Grow By. How many of these have you read?  What are YOUR favorites?

A-B

A Child’s Garden of Verses – Stevenson

A Christmas Carol – Dickens

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court – Twain

A Fine and Pleasant Misery – McManus

A Gentle Thunder – Lucado

A Grief Observed – Lewis

A Path Through Suffering – E. Elliot

A River Runs Through it – Maclean

A Tale of Two Cities – Dickens

A Treasury of David – Spurgeon

A Walk Across America – Jenkins

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Smith

A Year in Paradise – Schmoe

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The – Doyle

A.D. Chronicles, The – Thoene

Alice in Wonderland – Carroll

All Quiet on the Western Front – Remarque

Animal Farm – Orwell

Anna Karenina – Tolstoy

Applause of Heaven, The – Lucado

Atlas Shrugged – Rand

Babette’s Feast – Dinesen

Bambi – Salten (do NOT confuse this with the watered-down Disney version)

Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ – Wallace

Bible, The – God

Black Beauty – Sewell

Bleak House – Dickens

Blueberries for Sal – McCloskey

Book Thief, The – Zusak

Born Free – Adamson

Bridge to Terebithia, The – Katherine Paterson

Bridges at Toko-Ri, The – Michener

Bronze Bow, The – Elizabeth George Speare

C- E

Call it Courage – Sperry

Canterbury Tales – Chaucer

Captivating: Unveiling the Mysteries of a Woman’s Soul – Eldredge

Cat in the Hat, The – Giesel (Seuss)

Cay, The – Taylor

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Dahl

Charlotte’s Web – White

Christmas Box, The – Evans

Chronicles of Narnia, The – Lewis

Cold Tangerines – Niequist

Come Thirsty – Lucado

Count of Monte Cristo, The – Alexandre Dumas

Crime and Punishment – Dostoevsky

Curious George – Rey

Cry, The Beloved Country – Paton

Discovering Biblical Equality – Pierce/Groothius

Doctor Zhivago – Pasternak

Don Quixote – Cervantes

Dream Giver, The – Wilkinson

Epic – Eldredge

Eyre Affair, The – Fforde

F- I

Fairytales and Stories – H.C. Andersen

Farenheit 451 – Bradbury

Ferdinand the Bull

First Drop of Rain, The – Parrott

For Those Who Hurt – Swindoll

Gift of the Magi, The – O. Henry

Giver of Stars, The – Moyes

Giving Tree, The – Silverstein

Godric – Buechner

Gone With the Wind – Mitchell

Goodnight Moon – Brown

Grace Awakening, The – Swindoll

Grand Inquisitor, The – Dostoevsky

Grapes of Wrath, The – Steinbeck

Great Expectations – Dickens

Grimm’s Fairytales

Gulag Archipelago, The – Solzenhitsyn

Gulliver’s Travels – Swift

Hamlet – Shakespeare

Harmony Series – Gulley

Hatchet – Paulsen

Heart of Darkness – Conrad

Hiding Place, The – ten Boom

Homecoming, The – Hamner

Horton Hears a Who – Giesel (Seuss)

How Green Was My Valley – Llewellyn

How the Grinch Stole Christmas – Giesel (Seuss)

Idiot, The – Dostoyevsky

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie – Numeroff

Iliad, The – Homer

Indian in the Cupboard, The – Banks

Inkheart – Funke

In My Father’s House – ten Boom

In the Shadow of the Almighty – Elliot

Inferno, The – Dante

Island of the Blue Dolphins – O’Dell

Ivanhoe – Scott

J – L

Jungle Book, The – Kipling (not to be confused with the Disney flick)

Jane Eyre – Bronte

Kidnapped – Stevenson

King Lear – Shakespeare

Knowledge of the Holy, The – Tozer

Last Place on Earth, The – Huntford

Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The – Irving

Les Miserables – Hugo

Light in the Forest – Richter

Little Engine That Could, The – Piper

Little House on the Prairie series – Wilder

Little Woman, The – Hunter (Biography of Gladys Aylward)

Little Women – Alcott

Lord of the Rings Trilogy – Tolkien

Lords of the Earth – Richardson

M – O

Macbeth – Shakespeare

Make Way for Ducklings – McCloskey

Man and Woman, One in Christ -Payne

Martin Chuzzlewit – Dickens

Mary Poppins series – Travers

Mere Christianity – Lewis

Mike Mulligan & His Steam Shovel – Burton

Mitford Series, The – Karon

Moby Dick – Melville

Morte d’Arthur – Malory

Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes

Mountain Breezes: The Collected Poems of Amy Carmichael

Much Ado About Nothing – Shakespeare

My Antonia – Cather

My Utmost for His Highest – Chambers

1984 – Orwell (world’s most depressing book)

Night – Wiesel

Now We Are Six – Milne

Of Mice and Men – Steinbeck

Old Yeller – Gipson

O Pioneers! – Cather

Out of Africa – Dinesen

Odyssey, The – Homer

Once and Future King, The – T.H. White

Orthodoxy – Chesterton

P – R

Paradise Lost – Milton

Perelandra space trilogy – Lewis

Peter Pan – Barrie

Phantastes – MacDonald

Picture of Dorian Gray, The – Wilde

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek – Dillard

Pilgrim’s Progress, The – Bunyan

Pinocchio, The Adventures of – Collodi

Poetry of Emily Dickinson, The – Dickinson

Polar Express, The – van Allsburg

Prayer of Jabez, The – Wilkinson

Pride and Prejudice – Austen

Prince and the Pauper, The – Twain

Problem of Pain, The – Lewis

Pudd’nhead Wilson – Twain

Purpose-Driven Life, The – Warren

Reckless Grace – DiPasquale (A difficult, heart-wrenching read. But an important one.)

Red Badge of Courage, The – Crane

Rip van Winkle – Irving

River, The – Paulsen

Robe, The – Douglas

Ransom of Red Chief, The – O. Henry

Rip van Winkle – Irving

Robin Hood – Malory

Robinson Crusoe – DeFoe

Romeo and Juliet – Shakespeare

Rose from Brier – Carmichael

Runaway Bunny, The – Wise

S

Scarlet Letter, The – Hawthorne

Scarlet Pimpernel, The – Orcxy

Screwtape Letters, The – Lewis

Secret Garden, The – Burnett

Secret Life of Bees, The – Kidd

Secrets of the Vine – Wilkinson

Sense and Sensibility – Austen

Seven Storey Mountain – Merton

Shack, The – Young

Shiloh – Naylor

Silas Marner – G. Eliot

Sneetches and Other Stories – Giesel (Seuss)

Soul Survivor – Yancey

Sounder – Armstrong

Soup – R.N. Peck

Spencer’s Mountain – Hamner

Stuart Little – White

Subversive – Rood

Surprised by Joy – Lewis

Sylvester and the Magic Pebble – Steig

T-V

Tale of Peter Rabbit, The – Potter

Tales of the Brothers Grimm

Ten Lies the Church Tells Women – Grady

Tess of the D’Ubbervilles – Hardy

These Strange Ashes – Elliot

This Present Darkness – Peretti

Three Musketeers, The – Dumas

Through Gates of Splendor – Elliot

Treasure Island – Stevenson

Trumpet of the Swan, The – White

Tuck Everlasting – Babitt

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea – Vernes

Twilight of Courage – Thoene

Wizard of Oz+, The – Baum

To Kill a Mockingbird – Lee

Velveteen Rabbit, The – Williams

W- Z

Waking the Dead – Eldredge

Walden – Thoreau

Walking With God – Eldredge

Walk West, The – Jenkins

War Horse – Murpurgo

What’s So Amazing About Grace? – Yancey

When God Whispers Your Name – Lucado

Where the Red Fern Grows – Rawls

Where the Wild Things Are – Sendak

Whispers of His Power – Carmichael

Wind in the Willows, The – Grahame

Winnie-the-Pooh – Milne

Winterdance – Paulsen

Woods Runner – Paulsen

Zia – O’Dell

~~~

Pretty much anything by Austen, Dickens, Dumas, Chesterton, Patrick F. McManus (too many to list), and Her Momness.  (Just kiddin’ on the last.  Checking to see if you’re still awake?)

Note: This list was initially created in early 2013. It was updated in 2018. No idea how so many years piled up so fast. But here’s the latest version for 2024. Still not exhaustive. How many have you read?