AP United States History Reading List These books are recommended, but not required, to fulfill the English 9 summer reading requirement as well as giving your son or daughter some historical background coming into the AP US History class. Parents: Due to mature themes in some of these books, please be aware of what your child is reading. You have the final say and authority. Also attached is a Young Adult reading list for consideration/selection. Fiction Puritan America The Scarlett Letter: Nathaniel Hawthorne
French/Indian War Last of the Mohicans: James Fenimore Cooper 1790s American Neutrality Billy Budd: Herman Melville Native Americans Creek Mary’s Blood: Dee Brown Westward Expansion Centennial: James Michener The Octopus: A Story of California: Frank Norris Civil War Little Women: Louisa May Alcott The Red Badge of Courage: Stephen Crane Cold Mountain: Charles Frazier Killer Angels: Michael Shaara Gods and Generals: Jeff Shaara Slavery Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Harriet Beecher Stowe The Confessions of Nat Turner: William Stryton The Color Purple: Alice Walker 1880S O Pioneers: Willa Cather Civil Disobedience: Henry David Thoreau 1900s U.S. Growth In the Beauty of the Lilies: John Updike 1900s American Life Winesburg, Ohio: Sherwood Anderson Prohibition The Maltese Falcon: Dashiell Hammett Immigration My Antonia: Willa Cather African American Migration Another Country: James Baldwin Go Tell It on the Mountain: James Baldwin Urbanization The Jungle: Upton Sinclair Big Business Main Street: Sinclair Lewis Babbitt: Sinclair Lewis Ragtime: E.L. Doctorow WWI Farewell to Arms: Ernest Hemingway The Sun Also Rises: Ernest Hemingway Pale Horse, Pale Rider: Katherine Anne Porter WWI/Depression/Western Expansion Cannery Row: John Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath: John Steinbeck Tortilla Flat: John Steinbeck 1920s Tender is the Night: F. Scott Fitzgerald Depression The Big Sleep: Raymond Chandler Farewell, My Lovely: Raymond Chandler Native Son: Richard Wright All the King’s Men: Robert Penn Warren 1930s Brighton Beach Memoirs: Neil Simon WWII Catch‐22: Joseph Heller A Separate Peace: John Knowles The Joy Luck Club: Amy Tan Snow Falling On Cedars: David Guterson Post‐WWII Invisible Man: Ralph Ellison Franny and Zooey: J.D. Salinger 1950s/60s A Painted House: John Grisham The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit: Sloan Wilson Misc. Utopian Science Fiction Looking Backward: Edward Bellamy Non‐Fiction American Revolution 1776: David McCullough Early America Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation: Joseph J. Ellis His Excellency: George Washington: Joseph J. Ellis Young Patriots: The Remarkable Story of Two Men, Their Impossible Plan, and the Revolution that Created the Constitution: Charles A. Cerami Constitutional Convention Miracle at Philadelphia: Catherine Drinker Bowen Adams John Adams: David McCullough John Marshall John Marshall: Definer of a Nation: Jean Edward Smith Native Americans Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: Dee Brown Jefferson American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson: Joseph J. Ellis Jackson The Age of Jackson: Arthur Schlesinger Expansion/Transcontinental RR Nothing Like it in the World: Stephen Ambrose Slavery Life of an American Slave: Frederick Douglass Up From Slavery: Booker T. Washington Civil War With Malice Toward None: Stephen B. Oates Team of Rivals: Doris Kearns Goodwin California Gold Rush The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream: H.W. Brands 1850s Reform Shame of the Cities: Lincoln Steffens 1880s The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty: Peter Collier The Rise of Silas Lapham: William Dean Howells (Boston society) 1890s/Early 1900s The Reckless Decade: H.W. Brands TR: The Last Romantic: H.W. Brands How the Other Half Lives: Jacob Riis 1900s America The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home: George Howe Colt 1920s Lindbergh: A. Scott Berg The Coming of the New Deal: Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Harding The Shadow of Blooming Grove: Francis Russell WWI Guns of August: Barbara Tuchman American Growth (1880s‐1950) The American Mind: Henry Steele Commager FDR No Ordinary Time: Doris Kearns Goodwin WWII Band of Brothers: Stephen Ambrose The Greatest Generation: Tom Brokaw Farwell to Manzanar: Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston (Japanese Internment) Duty: A Father, His Son, and the Man Who Won the War: Bob Greene (Atom bomb) Truman Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman: Merle Miller 1950s Economic Growth The Affluent Society: John Kenneth Galbraith 1960s/Kennedy/Civil Rights An Unfinished Life: Robert Dalleck Silent Spring: Rachel Carson The Feminine Mystique: Betty Friedan The Autobiography of Malcolm X: Alex Haley 1968: The Year That Rocked the World: Mark Kurlansky Segregation Common Ground: J. Anthony Lukas LBJ The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson: Eric Goldman Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream: Doris Kearns Goodwin Vietnam An American Requiem: James Carroll Watergate All the President’s Men: Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward General U.S. History Profiles in Courage: John F. Kennedy Young Adult Historical FICTION Works Cited Anderson, Laurie Halse. Fever, 1793. New York: Simon, 2000. Print. Early Republic/Yellow
Fever Epidemic Anderson, Laurie Halse, and Lizzy Bromley. Chains. New York: Simon, 2008. Print.
Revolutionary War/Slavery Auch, Mary Jane. Ashes of Roses. New York: H. Holt, 2002. Print. Early
1900's/Immigration/Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Avi. Sophia's War: A Tale of the Revolution. New York: Beach Lane, 2012. Print. Revolutionary
War/Nathan Hale Bruchac, Joseph. Code Talker: A Novel about the Navajo Marines of World War Two. New
York: Dial, 2005. Print. World War II/Navaho Code Talkers
Cooper, Susan. Ghost Hawk. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print. Colonial Period/Native American Life and
relationship with early settlers Davis, Tanita S. Mare's War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009. Print. World War II:
African_Americans and the U.S. Women's Army Corps Draper, Sharon M. Fire from the Rock. New York: Dutton Children's, 2007. Print. 1950s: Civil
Rights and the Integration of Little Rock's Central High School Frost, Helen. Crossing Stones. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009. Print. World War I:
Home Front and Women's Rights Gansworth, Eric L. If I Ever Get out of Here: A Novel with Paintings. New York: Arthur A.
Levine, 2013. Print. 1975 Upstate New York: Race relations with Native Americans and
Vietnam War Howard, Ravi. Like Trees, Walking. New York: Amistad, 2007. Print. 1981: Lynching in an
Alabama town Ingold, Jeanette. Hitch. Orlando: Harcourt, 2005. Print. Great Depression: Young man joins the
Civilian Conservation Corps Magoon, Kekla. Fire in the Streets. New York: Aladdin, 2012. Print. 1968: Civil Rights
movement (Black Panthers vs. Martin Luther King philosophy) - - -. The Rock and the River. New York: Aladdin, 2009. Print. 1968: Civil Rights Movement Myers, Walter Dean. Harlem Summer. New York: Scholastic, 2007. Print. 1920s: Harlem
Renaissance - - -. Riot. New York: Egmont USA, 2009. Print. 1863: New York Federal Draft Riots - - -. Sunrise over Fallujah. New York: Scholastic, 2008. Print. Iraq War 2003: Young man from
Harlem Otsuka, Julie. When the Emperor Was Divine. New York: Knopf, 2002. Print. World War II:
Japanese Internment Rinaldi, Ann. Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons: The Story of Phillis Wheatley. San Diego:
Harcourt Brace, 1996. Print. Colonial America: Phyllis Wheatley Salisbury, Graham. Eyes of the Emperor. New York: Wendy Lamb, 2005. Print. World War II:
Japanese help U.S. army train K9 units at risk of their own lives Smith, Sherri L. Flygirl. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2008. Print. World War II:
African_American girl in Flying Corps Taylor, Theodore. The Bomb. San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1995. Print. 1945: Atomic bomb
testing in Bikini islands Winters, Cat. In the Shadow of Blackbirds. New York: Amulet, 2013. Print. 1918: Themes of the
time including interest in spiritualism, PTSD for soldiers, Spanish flu. Wolf, Allan. The Watch That Ends the Night: Voices from the Titanic. Somerville: Candlewick,
2011. Print. 1912: Recreation of the sinking of the Titanic Young Adult Non-Fiction Works Cited Allen, Thomas B., and Roger MacBride Allen. Mr. Lincoln's High-tech War: How the North
Used the Telegraph, Railroads, Surveillance Balloons, Ironclads, High-powered
Weapons, and More to Win the Civil War. Washington: National Geographic, 2009.
Print. Bartoletti, Susan Campbell. They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American
Terrorist Group. Boston: Houghton, 2010. Print. Fradin, Dennis B. Samuel Adams: The Father of American Independence. New York: Clarion,
1998. Print. Fradin, Dennis B., and Judith Bloom Fradin. Ida B. Wells: Mother of the Civil Rights Movement.
New York: Clarion, 2000. Print. Fradin, Judith Bloom, and Dennis B. Fradin. Jane Addams: Champion of Democracy. New
York: Clarion, 2006. Print. Giblin, James. The Rise and Fall of Senator Joe McCarthy. Boston [Mass.]: Clarion, 2009. Print. Levinson, Cynthia. We've Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children's March. Atlanta:
Peachtree, 2012. Print. Marrin, Albert. The Great Adventure: Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of Modern America. New
York: Dutton Children's, 2007. Print. - - -. Old Hickory: Andrew Jackson and the American People. New York: Dutton Children's,
2004. Print. - - -. Sitting Bull and His World. New York: Dutton Children's, 2000. Print. Murphy, Jim. An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic
of 1793. New York: Clarion, 2003. Print. - - -. The Real Benedict Arnold. New York: Clarion, 2007. Print. Oppenheim, Joanne. Dear Miss Breed: True Stories of the Japanese American Incarceration
during World War II and a Librarian Who Made a Difference. New York: Scholastic,
2006. Print. Sheinkin, Steve. The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism, &
Treachery. New York: Roaring Brook, 2010. Print. Swanson, James L. Bloody Times: The Funeral of Abraham Lincoln and the Manhunt for
Jefferson Davis. New York: Collins, 2011. Print. - - -. Chasing Lincoln's Killer. New York: Scholastic, 2009. Print.