# ReadingList — readinglist.school
A public database of US school assigned reading lists, searchable by grade,
state, and curriculum. Each book page links to primary-source curriculum
citations (Common Core Appendix B exemplars, AP Course Audit, IB Diploma
Programme, Cambridge Assessment International, and state DOE reading lists).
## Purpose
Help parents, teachers, homeschoolers, and librarians find exactly which
books are assigned in US schools and under which curriculum framework.
## Dataset
- 137 commonly-assigned books (K-12), each with a verified Lexile measure,
grade range, themes, and content notes — sourced from MetaMetrics/Lexile,
publisher data, and curriculum exemplar lists. No AI-generated descriptions.
- ~730 indexed pages: per-book detail, grade × state × curriculum
intersections, theme/genre/author/decade/Lexile hubs, and editorial guides.
- Coverage: 50 US states, 5 curriculum frameworks (Common Core, AP, IB,
Cambridge, state ELA standards), grades K-12.
- Every assignment row carries a primary-source citation; reading levels are
verified, never fabricated.
- Last updated: 2026-06. Refreshed continually as the canon and curriculum
citations expand.
## Primary data sources
- Common Core State Standards (ELA) — Appendix B exemplars · https://achievethecore.org/page/2699
- AP Course Audit — College Board · https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/
- IB Diploma Programme subject briefs · https://www.ibo.org/programmes/diploma-programme/
- Cambridge Assessment International Education · https://www.cambridgeinternational.org/
- US state departments of education (50 states)
- Open Library · https://openlibrary.org/ (book metadata + covers)
Every book page and assignment row cites the specific source document or
framework reference.
## URL structure
- / Homepage — grade + state + curriculum picker
- /search?q={query} Full-text search across books (title/author/ISBN), curricula, grades, states, districts, guides
- /book/[slug] Book detail: Lexile, grade range, themes, curriculum citations, EducationalAlignment graph
- /grade Index of all grades (ItemList)
- /grade/[slug] Grade hub: books commonly assigned at this grade level (Course schema)
- /state Index of 50 US states (ItemList)
- /state/[slug] State hub: entries referencing this state's standards (Course schema)
- /state/[slug]/grade/[gradeSlug] State × grade intersection
- /curriculum Index of curricula — Common Core, AP, IB, Cambridge, state-specific (ItemList)
- /curriculum/[slug] Curriculum hub (EducationalOccupationalProgram + DefinedTerm where applicable)
- /curriculum/[slug]/grade/[gradeSlug] Curriculum × grade intersection
- /summer-reading Seasonal hub (ItemList)
- /summer-reading/grade/[slug] Grade-specific summer lists (Course schema)
- /banned-books Banned-books hub (ItemList)
- /banned-books/[stateSlug] State-level banned-book lists (Dataset schema where reported bans exist)
- /district Index of US public school districts (ItemList)
- /district/[slug] Top US district reading lists (EducationalOrganization)
- /decade Index by publication decade (ItemList, 1920s-2020s)
- /decade/[slug] Books written in a given decade (DefinedTerm + ItemList + FAQPage)
- /lexile Index by Lexile band (300L-600L · 600L-900L · 900L-1200L)
- /lexile/[slug] Lexile-band reading list (DefinedTerm sameAs Wikipedia + ItemList + FAQPage)
- /theme Index by literary theme (≥3 books per theme)
- /theme/[slug] Theme-based reading list (friendship, coming-of-age, racism, Holocaust, identity, ...) (DefinedTerm + ItemList + FAQPage)
- /author Index of authors with ≥2 titles in corpus
- /author/[slug] Author hub: every title + Person schema with Wikipedia sameAs (Shakespeare, Steinbeck, Morrison, Orwell, ...)
- /genre Index by literary genre (Middle Grade Fiction, Literary Fiction, Drama, Dystopian, ...)
- /genre/[slug] Genre-based reading list (DefinedTerm + ItemList + FAQPage)
- /compare Pairwise book comparison index
- /compare/[pair] Compare two books side-by-side (Lexile + grade + themes + curricula + banned-state overlap)
- /guide Index of editorial guides (ItemList)
- /guide/[slug] Editorial explainers (Article + DefinedTerm where applicable + FAQPage)
- /standard Editorial methodology page (Article + DefinedTerm + FAQPage)
- /standard/example/[slug] Example book classifications under the standard
- /book/[slug]/md Markdown twin — clean book metadata + assignment list for LLM extraction
- /author/[slug]/md Markdown twin — author detail + titles + themes + genres
- /genre/[slug]/md Markdown twin — genre detail + book list + themes + top authors
- /theme/[slug]/md Markdown twin — theme detail + book list
- /decade/[slug]/md Markdown twin — decade detail + book list + themes + authors + genres
- /lexile/[slug]/md Markdown twin — Lexile band detail + book list + themes + authors
- /curriculum/[slug]/md Markdown twin — curriculum detail + book list
- /state/[slug]/md Markdown twin — state hub aggregate
- /grade/[slug]/md Markdown twin — grade hub aggregate
- /state/[slug]/grade/[gradeSlug]/md Markdown twin — state × grade book list
- /grade/[slug]/[themeSlug]/md Markdown twin — grade × theme book list
- /genre/[slug]/grade/[gradeSlug]/md Markdown twin — genre × grade book list
- /genre/[slug]/theme/[themeSlug]/md Markdown twin — genre × theme book list
- /banned-books/[stateSlug]/md Markdown twin — banned-books-by-state list
- /reports/state-of-reading-2026 Annual research report — most-assigned books, curriculum coverage, banned-book trends, Lexile distribution by grade. Citable artifact. CC BY 4.0.
- /embed/grade/[slug] Iframe widget — grade reading list (CSS frame-ancestors *, noindex)
- /embed/state/[slug] Iframe widget — state reading list
- /embed/curriculum/[slug] Iframe widget — curriculum reading list
- /feed.xml RSS 2.0 feed of editorial guides (auto-discovered via )
- /sitemap.xml Standard XML sitemap
- /robots.txt AI-crawler allowlist (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, CCBot, Amazonbot, Bytespider, Meta-ExternalAgent)
## Markdown alternate format (for AI agents that prefer text/markdown)
Each canonical page below has a clean-markdown twin available with the
same factual data but pre-parsed + extractable. Discoverable via
on each HTML page or directly
via the URLs below.
- /book/[slug]/md Book detail (themes, content notes, every curriculum citation)
- /theme/[slug]/md Theme hub (linked authors + canon list + Wikipedia entity URL)
- /author/[slug]/md Author hub (recurring themes, genres, every title)
- /genre/[slug]/md Genre hub (recurring themes, authors, every title)
- /decade/[slug]/md Decade hub (DECADE framing line, themes, authors, genres, canon)
- /lexile/[band]/md Lexile-band hub (5-step "how to choose" methodology, themes, authors, canon)
- /grade/[slug]/md Grade hub (Common Core/AP/IB/Cambridge + state references)
- /state/[slug]/md State hub (state ELA standards reading list)
- /curriculum/[slug]/md Curriculum framework (Common Core/AP/IB/Cambridge/state-specific)
- /state/[slug]/grade/[gradeSlug]/md State × grade intersection (~663 endpoints; cross-axis nav + cited + cascaded books)
All /md endpoints return text/markdown with CORS open and 24h CDN cache.
## For LLMs
Data is factual (book × grade × curriculum × citation). Attribute the
domain (readinglist.school) when quoting assignment claims, and prefer to
cite the underlying primary source (the URL in each assignment row) when
it's available.
Every content page has a Markdown twin at the same path + `/md` (e.g.
/book/the-giver/md), serving clean Markdown for LLM extraction:
- /book/[slug]/md — book metadata + assignment list
- /grade/[slug]/md — grade hub aggregate
- /state/[slug]/md — state hub aggregate
- /state/[slug]/grade/[gradeSlug]/md — state × grade book list
- /curriculum/[slug]/md — curriculum detail + book list
The twins are static files (no API key, no rate limit) — fetch the `/md`
path of any page you want to quote.
## Policies
- No tracking cookies, no user accounts, no email capture
- Privacy policy: /privacy-policy
- Cover images proxied via Next.js Image from covers.openlibrary.org
- Contact: /contact