What High School Students Need to Read

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fifty classics from (almost) everyone'south high school reading list

Inquiry shows that reading fiction encourages empathy. While more high school curriculums should include modern, diverse writers similar Amy Tan and Malala Yousafzai, certain classics—like John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" and Sandra Cisneros's "The House on Mango Street"—endure. George Orwell's "1984," a novel published in 1949 about a dystopian future where the government controls the truth, fifty-fifty surged to the Amazon all-time-sellers listing in 2017, shortly later sometime President Trump's advisor Kellyanne Conway described falsehoods as "alternative facts."

Sometimes parents, teachers and school-board officials disagree on what kids should or shouldn't read in high school. In 2018, "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" were dropped in a Minnesota school district because they contain racial slurs. Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five," a volume well-nigh an American soldier doomed to repeat history, has been controversial for decades. In 2011, a Missouri High School pulled it from library shelves after complaints information technology was anti-American.

Sure books deserve a first, second, or possibly fifty-fifty a third read. Using data from Goodreads, Stacker compiled a list of 50 timeless books, plays, and epic poems normally constitute on high school reading lists. A total of 1,002 voters picked the virtually essential reading required for students. The final ranking takes into account how many times each book was voted on and how highly voters ranked them. Read on to come across which classics made the listing.

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one / fifty

#50. Their Optics Were Watching God

- Author: Zora Neale Hurston
- Score: 3,540
- Average rating: 3.90/v, based on 232,956 ratings

A coming-of-age tome ready in early 1900s Florida, "Their Optics Were Watching God" tackles a multitude of issues: racism, sexism, segregation, poverty, and gender roles. Initially disregarded upon its release, Hurston's best-known work is now considered a modern-American masterpiece, cheers to piece of work done in Black studies programs in the 1970s.

2 / 50

#49. A Raisin in the Lord's day

- Writer: Lorraine Hansberry
- Score: three,550
- Boilerplate rating: iii.76/5, based on 59,314 ratings

The story follows the Youngers, a working-class Black family unit living on the South Side of Chicago who move to an all-white neighborhood during a fourth dimension of desegregation. In 1959, Lorraine Hansberry became the first Blackness playwright to get a play produced on Broadway. The title of the play comes from "Dream Deferred," a verse form by Langston Hughes.

3 / l

#48. Moby-Dick; or, the Whale

- Author: Herman Melville
- Score: 3,750
- Boilerplate rating: 3.49/5, based on 445,669 ratings

Herman Melville uses the narrative of a sailor, Ishmael. He is on board with Captain Ahab who is trying to exact revenge against Moby Dick, the white whale that bit off his leg at the knee. For those who didn't study the tale in loftier school—or couldn't make it through the 135 chapters—critics say it really is worth a read. Some refer to it as the American Bible, better approached later on becoming an adult and not as a student in high school.

4 / 50

#47. The Pearl

- Author: John Steinbeck
- Score: 3,821
- Average rating: 3.45/five, based on 171,505 ratings

John Steinbeck's "The Pearl" tells the story of Kino, a poor diver who is trying to support his family unit past gathering pearls from gulf beds. He is just barely scraping by until he happens upon a giant pearl. Kino thinks this discovery will finally provide him with the financial comfort and security he has been seeking, but it ultimately brings disaster. The story addresses the reader'southward relationship to nature, the homo need for connection, and the consequences of resisting injustice.

five / 50

#46. The Importance of Being Earnest

- Author: Oscar Wilde
- Score: 3,825
- Boilerplate rating: 4.17/v, based on 277,734 ratings

This comedic play by Oscar Wilde takes a satiric look at Victorian social values while following 2 men—Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff—as they tell lies to bring some excitement to their lives. "The Importance of Beingness Earnest" was Wilde's final play, and some consider it his masterpiece.

6 / 50

#45. The Red Bluecoat of Courage

- Author: Stephen Crane
- Score: 3,838
- Average rating: 3.23/v, based on 82,944 ratings

In "The Red Badge of Courage," Henry Fleming enlists in the Union Army, enticed by visions of glory. When the reality of war and battle set up in, Fleming retreats in fright. In the stop, he faces his cowardice and rises to leadership. This American war novel was published in 1895 and is so authentic that it's easy to believe the author—who was born subsequently the Civil War ended—was himself a veteran.

vii / 50

#44. Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes

- Author: Edith Hamilton
- Score: 3,902
- Average rating: iii.99/5, based on xl,876 ratings

Author Edith Hamilton takes the reader on a journey through Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology with tales of the Olympus and Norse gods in Valhalla and the Trojan War in Odysseus. For high schoolhouse students, it can serve as an of import introduction to archetype mythology that can assistance them improve empathize the themes backside other works like "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey." Hamilton'due south book is considered the standard by which all other books on mythology are measured.

8 / 50

#43. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

- Author: Maya Angelou
- Score: 3,971
- Average rating: 4.22/5, based on 351,852 ratings

Maya Angelou, who was raped by her mother's boyfriend when she was 8, writes about her experience with sexual assault and racism while growing up in the Jim Crow Due south in "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." The autobiography, which Angelou wrote at the urging of her friend and beau author James Baldwin, was one of the first written by a Blackness woman to achieve a wide general audition.

nine / 50

#42. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

- Author: Mark Twain
- Score: 4,073
- Boilerplate rating: three.91/5, based on 686,551 ratings

"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" takes place in the fictional town of St. petersburg, Missouri, during the 1840s. Tom Sawyer and his friend Huck Finn witness a murder by Joe. After the boys stay silent, the wrong man is accused of the criminal offense. When they flee, the whole town presumes them dead and the boys end up attention their own funerals. Marking Twain's portrayal of Sawyer and Finn challenge the idyllic American view of childhood, instead showing children as fallible man beings with imperfections like anyone else.

10 / 50

#41. Shambles-Five

- Writer: Kurt Vonnegut
- Score: 4,357
- Average rating: four.07/5, based on 1,025,939 ratings

In "Slaughterhouse-V," Kurt Vonnegut tells the story of Billy Pilgrim—based on a real American soldier—who is "unstuck in time." He travels throughout the timeline of his life in a nonlinear mode, forced to relive certain moments. He is first pulled out after he is drafted and is captured in Germany during World War II. The book, which explores how humankind repeats history, has been banned or challenged in classrooms throughout the U.s.. It even landed in the U.S. Supreme Courtroom in 1982 in Lath of Education v. Pico, and the courtroom held that banning the book violated the First Amendment.

11 / 50

#40. The Taming of the Shrew

- Author: William Shakespeare
- Score: 4,666
- Boilerplate rating: three.80/5, based on 145,421 ratings

This five-human activity one-act tells the story of the courtship of the headstrong Katharine and the money-grubbing Petruchio, who is adamant to subdue Katharine and make her his wife. After the nuptials, Petruchio drags his new wife through the mud to their new home in the state. He proceeds to starve and deprive her of sleep to brand his new bride submissive. The play, 1 of Shakespeare'due south well-nigh popular, has been both criticized for its abusive and misogynistic mental attitude toward women, and praised as a challenging view of how women are supposed to comport.

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12 / l

#39. A Divide Peace

- Author: John Knowles
- Score: 4,859
- Boilerplate rating: iii.57/v, based on 179,467 ratings

In "A Separate Peace," John Knowles explores the friendship of two young men—the serenity, intellectual Gene Forrester and his extroverted, athletic friend Finny. Gene lives vicariously through Finny, but his jealousy ultimately ends in tragedy later he commits a subtle act of violence. The volume examines themes of envy and the need to achieve.

thirteen / 50

#38. The Little Prince

- Author: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- Score: 5,234
- Average rating: iv.30/v, based on 1,120,033 ratings

In "The Little Prince," a airplane pilot whose plane has crashed in the Sahara desert meets a immature boy from outer space. The boy is traveling from planet to planet in search of friendship. On the boy'southward home—an asteroid—he lived alone, accompanied only by a alone rose. One time on Globe, the male child meets a wise play a trick on who tells him he can only come across clearly with his heart. The book's somber themes of imagination and adulthood have resonated with children and adults alike since it published—it is now one of the about-translated books of all fourth dimension.

14 / 50

#37. Offense and Punishment

- Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- Score: 5,245
- Average rating: 4.20/five, based on 543,309 ratings

This Russian classic, published in 1886, tells the story of a old educatee named Rodion Raskolnikov who is now impoverished and on the verge of mental instability. To get money—and to demonstrate his exceptionalness to himself—he comes upwardly with a murderous plan to impale a pawnbroker. Considered i of the get-go psychological novels, the plot is besides a political one that explores the character's pull toward liberal views and his rebellion confronting them.

xv / 50

#36. Expiry of a Salesman

- Author: Arthur Miller
- Score: five,567
- Boilerplate rating: three.50/five, based on 165,933 ratings

Arthur Miller introduces readers to an aging Willy Loman, a traveling salesman nearing the finish of his career. Loman decides he's tired of driving for work and asks for an part job in New York Metropolis, believing he is vital to the company. His boss ends up firing him. Loman is also faced with the fact that his son, Biff, has non turned into the success Loman had hoped for. In the end, Loman commits suicide and then his son tin can have the insurance money to jumpstart a better life. After his death, only Loman'due south family attends his funeral. "Death of a Salesman" won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize in Drama.

16 / 50

#35. The Quondam Homo and the Sea

- Author: Ernest Hemingway
- Score: v,822
- Boilerplate rating: 3.76/five, based on 715,980 ratings

"The Erstwhile Homo and the Bounding main" was Ernest Hemingway's last major work. The story follows an old man who catches a large fish, simply to have information technology eaten by sharks earlier he tin can get it back to shore. Although many may run into symbolism well-nigh life and aging in the volume, Hemingway said there wasn't a deeper pregnant in the prose.

17 / l

#34. Flowers for Algernon

- Author: Daniel Keyes
- Score: five,827
- Boilerplate rating: four.11/5, based on 422,243 ratings

The primary character in "Flowers for Algernon" is Charlie Gordon, a human being of low intelligence who becomes a genius after undergoing an experimental procedure. The experiment has already been performed on a lab mouse named Algernon. Gordon'south intelligence opens his eyes to things he's never understood before, only he eventually loses his newly acquired knowledge. The mouse, who Gordon remembers fondly, dies. Daniel Keyes wrote the book later on realizing that his education was causing a rift between him and his loved ones, making him wonder what it would be like if someone'south intelligence could be increased.

18 / 50

#33. Othello

- Author: William Shakespeare
- Score: 5,992
- Boilerplate rating: 3.89/five, based on 286,333 ratings

Shakespeare wrote "Othello" in the early 17th century. The play tells the tragic story of Othello—a Moor and general in the Venetian army, and Iago—a traitorous low-ranking officer. Shakespeare tackles themes of racism, betrayal, and jealousy. While he refers to Othello as "Black," Shakespeare nearly likely meant he was darker-skinned than most Englishmen at the time and not necessarily of African descent.

xix / 50

#32. The Canterbury Tales

- Author: Geoffrey Chaucer
- Score: 6,040
- Average rating: 3.49/5, based on 175,388 ratings

"The Canterbury Tales," written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century, was one of the showtime major works of English literature. The story follows a grouping of pilgrims who tell tales during their journey from London to Canterbury Cathedral. The cast of characters—including a carpenter, cook, and knight, among others—paint a varied picture of 14th-century society. The stories inspired the mod film "A Knight's Tale," starring Heath Ledger as a poor knight, and Paul Bettany every bit Chaucer.

20 / 50

#31. Beowulf

- Author: Unknown
- Score: 6,572
- Boilerplate rating: iii.43/5, based on 209,182 ratings

"Beowulf" is an epic poem—an original manuscript copy is housed in the British Library—of 3,000 lines. Information technology was written in Former English somewhere between 700 and 1000 A.D., and tells the story of Beowulf, a nobleman, and warrior in Sweden who is sent to Kingdom of denmark to fight a swamp monster called Grendel.

21 / fifty

#30. The Hobbit

- Author: J. R. R. Tolkien
- Score: half-dozen,701
- Boilerplate rating: 4.27/5, based on 2,554,239 ratings

In this prequel to The Lord of the Rings trilogy, readers tag along with Bilbo Baggins, an unassuming hobbit who is convinced to keep an adventure by the wizard Gandalf. Bilbo finds in that location is much more than to himself than he thought—and he finds a sure ring, too. "The Hobbit," written in 1932, contains many of the edifice blocks—an ballsy quest, an unwilling hero, elves, and goblins—that modern fantasy writers nonetheless reference today.

22 / 50

#29. A Tale of Two Cities

- Author: Charles Dickens
- Score: 7,077
- Average rating: three.83/5, based on 750,394 ratings

"A Tale of 2 Cities," famously starts out: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." Fix in the late 1700s, Charles Dickens vividly writes nearly the fourth dimension leading up to and during the French Revolution. The historical novel describes death and despair, but also touches on themes of redemption.

23 / 50

#28. Wuthering Heights

- Author: Emily Brontë
- Score: 7,222
- Average rating: iii.84/v, based on 1,183,188 ratings

"Wuthering Heights," published in 1847, was the first and only novel by Emily Brontë, who died a year later at the historic period of thirty. Brontë tells the tragic beloved story between Heathcliff, an orphan, and Catherine, the daughter of his wealthy distributor. Considered a classic in English literature, the novel shows readers how passionate and destructive honey can be.

24 / 50

#27. The Grapes of Wrath

- Writer: John Steinbeck
- Score: 7,540
- Average rating: 3.95/5, based on 666,190 ratings

"The Grapes of Wrath" is considered a bully American novel partly because it brought to light the destruction and despair acquired by the Dust Bowl and the Swell Depression. The story follows Tom Joad after he is released from prison to notice his family unit's Oklahoma farmstead empty and destroyed. Joad and his family afterward set up off for a new life in California, only to confront struggles along the way. The book, which focuses on the theme of hard work, won the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for Novel (now Fiction).

25 / 50

#26. Frankenstein

- Author: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
- Score: 7,931
- Average rating: 3.78/five, based on 1,032,148 ratings

Mary Shelley wrote "Frankenstein," considered the formative horror text and one of the greatest horror novels of all time, when she was only xix. The story was published in 1818 and introduced readers to Dr. Victor Frankenstein, a scientist who brings to life a creature he assembled from discarded corpse parts. Although Dr. Frankenstein is horrified past his creation and abandons it, the creature manages to educate itself and then seeks revenge on his creator. The novel explores humanity's want for innovation and the fearfulness of change it brings.

26 / fifty

#25. A Midsummer Night's Dream

- Author: William Shakespeare
- Score: 7,999
- Average rating: three.94/5, based on 409,141 ratings

Like many of Shakespeare's plays, "A Midsummer Night'due south Dream" explores the theme of beloved. This one-act shows the events that surround the marriage of Theseus, the knuckles of Athens, to Hippolytus, a former Amazon queen. The play too shares the stories of several other lovers who are influenced by the fairies who alive in the woods near the hymeneals. The play is a favorite for actors and audiences, even today.

27 / 50

#24. Slap-up Expectations

- Author: Charles Dickens
- Score: eight,479
- Boilerplate rating: 3.77/five, based on 590,620 ratings

This Charles Dickens classic tells the story of Pip, an orphan who gets a chance at a better life through an bearding distributor. The plot by and large centers around Pip's regular visits to Miss Havisham, a wealthy recluse, and his love for her adopted girl Estella, who is cold toward Pip until years after. Many consider the novel a bang-up masterpiece.

28 / 50

#23. The Outsiders

- Author: S.E. Hinton (Goodreads Writer)
- Score: 8,480
- Boilerplate rating: 4.08/5, based on 816,572 ratings

Southward.Eastward. Hinton introduced readers to fourteen-year-former Ponyboy Curtis in "The Outsiders," a novel she wrote when she was 15. The plot centers around two rival gangs: the lower-class Greasers and the well-off Socials. It touches on themes of teen angst, including the frustrations young people have when they can't rely on adults to alter things, while also non knowing how to fix things themselves. Hinton's publishers encouraged her to publish nether her initials because they didn't think the public would respect a book about teenage boys past someone with a feminine proper noun.

29 / 50

#22. Dark

- Author: Elie Wiesel
- Score: 9,166
- Boilerplate rating: 4.32/5, based on 868,121 ratings

Elie Wiesel gives a first-hand account of the atrocities experienced in German concentration camps during World State of war II. Wiesel and his family were deported to Auschwitz. His female parent, father, and younger sister all died. In "Night," Wiesel's bright and horrific descriptions of beatings, starving men, and death shine a chilling, personal light on the tragedy of the Holocaust.

xxx / 50

#21. Julius Caesar

- Author: William Shakespeare
- Score: 9,413
- Average rating: iii.67/5, based on 153,978 ratings

Shakespeare takes on history with "Julius Caesar," a tragic story of power and betrayal. Brutus, who worked closely with Caesar, joined his fellow conspirators to electrocute Caesar in order to save the democracy from a tyrannical leader. The events had the reverse result when, but 2 years later, Caesar'south grand nephew was crowned the kickoff emperor of Rome. The play marked a political shift in Shakespeare's writing.

31 / fifty

#xx. Brave New Earth

- Author: Aldous Huxley
- Score: 9,759
- Average rating: three.98/5, based on 1,276,116 ratings

In "Dauntless New World," published in 1932, Aldous Huxley paints a picture of a dystopian future where people consume pills chosen soma to become a sense of instant bliss without side effects. Emotions, individuality, and lasting relationships aren't immune. A preordained form system is decided at the embryonic stage, with sure people getting hormones for peak mental and athletic fitness. Some historians believe the volume's plot could somewhat represent our actual future in the next 100 years.

32 / fifty

#nineteen. The Crucible

- Author: Arthur Miller
- Score: ix,789
- Average rating: iii.57/5, based on 291,382 ratings

This 1953 play is a dramatized version of the Salem witch trials of the late 1600s. In the novel, a grouping of young girls are dancing in the wood. When they're defenseless, they fake illness and shift blame to avoid punishment. Their lies set off witchcraft accusations throughout the town. Arthur Miller wrote "The Crucible" every bit a protestation to the actions of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who fix a commission to investigate and prosecute the Communists he thought had infiltrated the U.S. authorities. It won the 1953 Tony Honour for Best Play.

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33 / fifty

#18. The Giver

- Author: Lois Lowry (Goodreads Author)
- Score: 10,075
- Average rating: 4.xiii/5, based on 1,548,599 ratings

This 1993 young adult dystopian novel tells of a club that values similarity and not individuality. People are discouraged from being different and are given jobs that will best serve the community. Those who don't like their role are "released," which means they are forced to leave social club. One person is assigned the role of the Giver, and tasked with holding onto memories. Immature Jonas becomes the new Giver. With his new memories, his sensation grows and he begins to question life. The motion picture accommodation of the book was released in 2014.

34 / fifty

#17. Fahrenheit 451

- Author: Ray Bradbury
- Score: x,450
- Average rating: 3.98/v, based on 1,437,170 ratings

Ray Bradbury describes a futuristic world where books are banned and burned. Guy Montag, one fireman tasked with extinguishing the books, begins to question the practise. When Bradbury wrote the classic in the 1950s, television sets were condign ubiquitous in American households. The theme of the volume was a warning about how mass media could interfere with people's ability or desire to think critically, a theme that many recollect resonates with the social media-obsessed globe of today.

35 / 50

#xvi. Jane Eyre

- Author: Charlotte Brontë
- Score: 10,629
- Average rating: iv.11/five, based on 1,455,935 ratings

Charlotte Brontë—sister to Emily—speaks directly to the reader in "Jane Eyre." The Victorian novel follows the headstrong Jane, an orphan who lives with her aunt and cousins, on her quest to find her identity and true love. The novel, marketed every bit an autobiography and published in 1847 nether the pen proper noun Currer Bell, is written in outset person and introduced "the concept of the self" in writing.

36 / 50

#15. Pride and Prejudice

- Author: Jane Austen
- Score: xi,884
- Average rating: four.25/5, based on ii,607,645 ratings

Published in 1813, "Pride and Prejudice" was Jane Austen's second novel. The story follows the will-they-won't-they relationship between the wealthy Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett, who comes from meager ways. Throughout the capacity, both change for the ameliorate equally they fall in beloved. The book has inspired at least more a dozen picture show and television adaptations.

37 / 50

#xiv. The Diary of a Immature Girl

- Writer: Anne Frank
- Score: 12,962
- Average rating: iv.xiii/5, based on 2,423,799 ratings

In 1944, a immature Anne Frank recorded her thoughts and feelings equally she and other Jewish citizens hid from the High german Nazis during Earth War 2. The coming-of-age diary, which chronicles Frank's time hiding in the Hole-and-corner Annex while she became a immature adult female, has been translated into 70 languages. While she and virtually of her family were killed, her father survived and helped publish her work, making it possible for millions to larn her story.

38 / 50

#xiii. The Odyssey

- Author: Homer
- Score: 13,345
- Average rating: iii.75/5, based on 791,715 ratings

"The Odyssey," a Greek epic poem, follows Odysseus every bit he travels back to the island of Ithaca after fighting in the state of war at Troy—something addressed in Homer'south poem, "The Iliad." When he returns home, he and his son, Telemachus, impale all the men who are trying to marry Odysseus'southward wife, Penelope. In the end, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, victory, and war, intervenes. Similar many Greek myths, it focuses on themes of love, backbone, and revenge.

39 / 50

#12. 1984

- Author: George Orwell
- Score: 13,721
- Average rating: 4.17/5, based on two,637,484 ratings

George Orwell describes a dystopian time to come rife with war and one where the authorities—led by Big Brother—controls the truth and snuffs out private idea. The protagonist, Winston Smith, becomes disillusioned with the Party, and he rebels confronting it. Although information technology was published in 1949, the novel had a resurgence in 2017.

forty / 50

#11. The Adventures of Blueberry Finn

- Author: Mark Twain
- Score: 14,430
- Average rating: 3.81/5, based on 1,084,798 ratings

Blueberry Finn is the chief character in this follow-upwards novel to "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer." The book explores themes of racism as Huck Finn floats down the Mississippi River with a man escaping slavery. Similar Huck, Twain changed his childhood views and rejected slavery as an institution.

41 / 50

#10. The Ruddy Letter

- Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Score: 15,426
- Boilerplate rating: iii.39/5, based on 642,352 ratings

Nathaniel Hawthorne published "The Cerise Letter" in 1850. In the novel, which is based on historical events, readers follow the story of Hester Prynne, a woman who is forced to wear a carmine "A" on her clothes later on she conceives a kid out of matrimony. She bears the punishment alone when she refuses to proper name the babe's father. Her character marked one of the get-go where a potent woman was the protagonist. Hawthorne too touches on themes of hypocrisy, shame, guilt, and love.

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42 / fifty

#ix. Of Mice and Men

- Author: John Steinbeck
- Score: 17,192
- Average rating: 3.86/5, based on 1,743,236 ratings

"Of Mice and Men" tells the story of George and his uncomplicated-minded friend, Lennie. The two have to get new jobs on a ranch because of some trouble in Lennie'south by. The novel, set during the Great Depression, tackles topics of poverty, sexism, and racism.

43 / 50

#8. Hamlet

- Writer: William Shakespeare
- Score: 17,276
- Average rating: 4.01/v, based on 657,227 ratings

Hamlet, the prince of Denmark, becomes vengeful later attending his begetter's funeral, only to observe his female parent has remarried his uncle, Claudius. The stepfather crowns himself king, a role that should take gone to Hamlet. The prince finds out his father was murdered, afterwards which he kills the new male monarch. Ambivalence runs through the play and the character of Hamlet, with his visions of ghosts up for interpretation—are they real, or a figment of the troubled man's imagination? The tragedy, which launched the famous line "to be, or not to be," shines a light on some of the worst traits of humanity. Some consider the play Shakespeare'southward greatest work.

44 / 50

#7. The Catcher in the Rye

- Author: J. D. Salinger
- Score: 17,633
- Boilerplate rating: 3.80/5, based on 2,451,530 ratings

J. D. Salinger aptly captures teen angst in "The Catcher in the Rye" when the reader gets a look at 3 days in the life of its narrator, the 16-year-onetime Holden Caulfield. The volume was an instant success, but some schools have banned it from their libraries and reading lists, citing vulgarity and sexual content.

45 / 50

#half dozen. Brute Farm

- Author: George Orwell
- Score: 18,315
- Average rating: 3.92/v, based on 2,377,098 ratings

A group of subcontract animals organizes a revolt after they realize their primary, Mr. Jones, is mistreating them and offering them nothing in render for their piece of work. When they challenge the leadership, they are disciplined for speaking out. This classic isn't virtually animal rights. It is a larger critique on Soviet Communism. Orwell wrote it as an attack against Stalinism in Russia.

46 / 50

#v. Macbeth

- Author: William Shakespeare
- Score: 19,153
- Average rating: 3.89/v, based on 605,131 ratings

Another Shakespeare classic, "Macbeth" portrays the weakness of humanity. The graphic symbol of Macbeth receives a prophecy that he will one day become king of Scotland. His unchecked ambition ends in murder; Macbeth kills Male monarch Duncan to steal the throne for himself. It shows the destructive influence of political appetite and pursuing power for its own sake.

47 / 50

#4. Lord of the Flies

- Author: William Golding
- Score: 20,677
- Average rating: iii.67/v, based on ii,002,142 ratings

"Lord of the Flies" tells the alarming story of a grouping of young boys who survive a plane crash, only to descend into tribalism on the island where they landed. Ii of the boys—Ralph and Jack—clash in their pursuit of leadership. The novel, which has been challenged in schools, shows how struggles for ability based on fear and division can upshot in a collapse of social order, themes that might seem relevant today.

48 / 50

#iii. The Great Gatsby

- Writer: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Score: 24,750
- Average rating: 3.91/5, based on 3,322,289 ratings

Nick Carraway, a Midwest transplant and Yale graduate, moves to West Egg, Long Isle. Carraway enters a world of extravagance when he becomes entangled with millionaire Jay Gatsby and socialite Daisy Buchanan. The novel is viewed as a cautionary tale almost achieving the American dream of wealth and backlog.

49 / 50

#ii. Romeo and Juliet

- Author: William Shakespeare
- Score: xxx,769
- Average rating: 3.74/five, based on i,878,322 ratings

Two star-crossed lovers run across and perish in this tragedy. Juliet, a Capulet, falls in love with Romeo, a Montague. Considering their families are rivals, they are forbidden to ally. They secretly wed before misfortune leads to their deaths. Losing their children inspires a peace amid the families. Some critics claim the play's kittenish view of love hasn't stood the test of time, but others retrieve the story is multilayered and deserves its classic status.

50 / fifty

#ane. To Kill a Mockingbird

- Writer: Harper Lee
- Score: 39,482
- Average rating: 4.27/5, based on 3,977,468 ratings

Harper Lee's first novel, which was published in 1960, tackles issues of racial and social injustice in the South. Set in Alabama, it introduces readers to Atticus Finch, a lawyer who defends a Black man defendant of raping a white woman. The signal-of-view comes from Atticcus's daughter, Scout, while Boo Radley, their reclusive neighbour, adds another dimension to this classic story of racism and childhood. Lee's work won her a Pulitzer Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Because of some racial language, the volume has been challenged in many schools throughout America.

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