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Books for Birth through Kindergarten
Books for 1st through 5th Grade, ages 6-12:
Books for 6th through 8th Grade, ages 11-13:
Books for 9th through 12th Grade, ages 14-18:
More K-12 Good Books are suggested by the Veterans of Foreign Wars Auxiliary.
More Good Books and Historical Information for K through 12th Grade may be found through books/stories of those recommended to the National Garden of American Heroes by the President's Executive Order (Section 3(c)(i) of Executive Order 13934). MLC Resources, including the MAGNOLIA Database, is a great place ot find more information.
Ansel Adams
John Adams*
Samuel Adams
Muhammad Ali
Luis Walter Alvarez
Susan B. Anthony*
Hannah Arendt
Louis Armstrong
Neil Armstrong
Crispus Attucks
John James Audubon
Lauren Bacall
Clara Barton*
Todd Beamer
Alexander Graham Bell
Roy Benavidez
Ingrid Bergman
Irving Berlin
Humphrey Bogart
Daniel Boone*
Norman Borlaug
William Bradford
Herb Brooks
Kobe Bryant
William F. Buckley Jr.
Sitting Bull
Frank Capra
Andrew Carnegie
Charles Carroll
John Carroll
George Washington Carver
Johnny Cash
Joseph H. De Castro
Joshua Chamberlain*
Whittaker Chambers
Johnny “Appleseed” Chapman
Ray Charles
Julia Child
Gordon Chung-Hoon
William Clark
Henry Clay*
Roberto Clemente
Grover Cleveland
Red Cloud
William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody
Nat King Cole
Samuel Colt
Christopher Columbus
Calvin Coolidge
James Fenimore Cooper
Davy Crockett*
Benjamin O. Davis Jr.
Miles Davis
Dorothy Day
Emily Dickinson
Walt Disney
William J. Donovan
Jimmy Doolittle
Desmond Doss
Frederick Douglass*
Herbert Henry Dow
Katharine Drexel
Peter Drucker
Amelia Earhart*
Thomas Edison
Jonathan Edwards
Albert Einstein
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Duke Ellington
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Prince Estabrook
Medgar Evers
David Farragut
Mary Fields
Henry Ford
George L. Fox
Aretha Franklin
Benjamin Franklin*
Milton Friedman
Robert Frost
Gabby Gabreski
Bernardo de Gálvez
Lou Gehrig
Theodor Seuss Geisel
Cass Gilbert
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
John Glenn
Barry Goldwater
Samuel Gompers
Alexander D. Goode
R. C. Gorman
Billy Graham*
Ulysses S. Grant
Nellie Gray
Nathanael Greene
Woody Guthrie
Nathan Hale
William Halsey Jr.
Alexander Hamilton*
Ira Hayes
Hans Christian Heg
Ernest Hemingway
Patrick Henry
Charlton Heston
Alfred Hitchcock
Billie Holiday
Bob Hope
Johns Hopkins
Grace Hopper
Sam Houston
Whitney Houston
Julia Ward Howe
Edwin Hubble
Daniel Inouye
Andrew Jackson
Robert H. Jackson
Mary Jackson
John Jay
Thomas Jefferson*
Steve Jobs
Katherine Johnson
Barbara Jordan
Chief Joseph
Elia Kazan
Helen Keller
John F. Kennedy
Francis Scott Key
Martin Luther King Jr.*
Coretta Scott King
Russell Kirk
Jeane Kirkpatrick
Henry Knox
Tadeusz Kościuszko
Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette
Harper Lee
Pierre Charles L’Enfant
Meriwether Lewis
Abraham Lincoln*
Vince Lombardi
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Clare Boothe Luce
Douglas MacArthur*
Dolley Madison*
James Madison*
George C. Marshall
Thurgood Marshall
William Mayo
Christa McAuliffe*
William McKinley
Louise McManus
Herman Melville
Thomas Merton
Billy Mitchell
George P. Mitchell
Maria Mitchell
Samuel Morse
Lucretia Mott
John Muir
Audie Murphy*
Edward R. Murrow
John Neumann
John von Neumann
Annie Oakley
Jesse Owens
Rosa Parks
George S. Patton Jr.*
Charles Willson Peale
William Penn
Oliver Hazard Perry
John J. Pershing
Edgar Allan Poe
Clark V. Poling
John Russell Pope
Elvis Presley
Jeannette Rankin
Ronald Reagan*
Walter Reed
William Rehnquist
Paul Revere
Henry Hobson Richardson
Hyman G. Rickover
Sally Ride
Matthew Ridgway
Jackie Robinson*
Norman Rockwell
Caesar Rodney
Eleanor Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Betsy Ross*
Babe Ruth
Sacagawea
Jonas Salk
John Singer Sargent
Antonin Scalia*
Norman Schwarzkopf Jr.
Junípero Serra
Elizabeth Ann Seton
Robert Gould Shaw
Fulton J. Sheen
Alan Shepard
Frank Sinatra
Bessie Smith
Margaret Chase Smith
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
James Stewart
Harriet Beecher Stowe*
Gilbert Stuart
Anne Sullivan
William Howard Taft
Maria Tallchief
Maxwell D. Taylor
Tecumseh
Kateri Tekakwitha
Shirley Temple
Nikola Tesla
Jefferson Thomas
Henry David Thoreau
Jim Thorpe
Augustus Tolton
Alex Trebek
Harry S. Truman
Sojourner Truth
Harriet Tubman*
Mark Twain
Dorothy Vaughan
C. T. Vivian
Thomas Ustick Walter
Sam Walton
John P. Washington
Booker T. Washington*
George Washington*
John Wayne
Ida B. Wells-Barnett
Phillis Wheatley
Walt Whitman
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Roger Williams
John Winthrop
Frank Lloyd Wright
Orville Wright*
Wilbur Wright*
Alvin York
Cy Young
Lorenzo de Zavala
Books for Adults may be found on the America 250 List posted on Good Reads
Some of these Adult titles, which may also be suitable for high school students, include:
Click here for a GENERAL OVERVIEW READING LIST that aligns to Ken Burns THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Carefully curated by PBS Books, the filmmakers and partner organizations, this booklist is designed to complement THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION and to spark meaningful exploration of the series, the historical events surrounding the founding of the United States, and the enduring ideas of liberty, freedom, democracy, and independence. Themes include union, empire, civic conflict, possibility, and more—providing multiple entry points for discussion, research, and engagement. Whether you are planning a library event, book discussion, or classroom activity, these books can help guide thoughtful conversations and highlight diverse perspectives.
Additional Titles and Opportunities are avaiable at your local libraries through:
