Creating homeschool reading lists for my children is one of my favorite parts of planning a new school year. I want the book choices to be intentional so I start early planning early in the summer. I just finished planning my daughter’s 10th grade reading list and I am very excited to start reading some of these books.
Whenever possible I like to tie in our homeschool lessons with real life. It just helps make more of an impact than keeping school life separate from real life. After all, isn’t one of the benefits of homeschooling being able to teach through real-life circumstances?
Before COVID-19 shut down borders and canceled travel plans, my husband and I had planned to take our children around the world this year. It was something that we had planned, saved for, and dreamed of since our oldest was a tiny baby. I dreamt of spending quiet mornings in locally owned cafes sipping lattes and reading books set in whichever country we happened to be visiting.
Clearly our plans have changed.
We likely won’t be able to actually get on planes and trot across the globe this year, but we can still explore the world through books.
For my daughter’s 10th grade reading list I decided to focus on World Literature. World Literature is on her grand 4-year high school plan and although it doesn’t really matter when this course is completed, it has to happen sometime so it might as well be this year.
Part of me still hopes that we will get to do a little international travel this year, so tackling high school World Literature now makes sense.
Up until this point we have read a lot of books together, but not done much literary analysis. Sure, I would check for comprehension and we would discuss the book, but there was not much in-depth analysis. I want to change that this year as we study the 10th grade reading list.
It has been a long time since my college literary analysis class so I am reading How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines by Thomas Foster over the summer.
It is the perfect refresher for me, but I think high schoolers might get something out of it too. I don’t plan to require my daughter to read the entire book, but I will assign certain chapters next year as they align with what we are reading.
How I created this 10th grade reading list . . .
The very first thing I did to create this 10th grade reading list was start making a list of all the possible World Literature book choices. I spent quite a lot of time searching on GoodReads and Amazon. The list grew to over 30 titles representing countries all around the world.
Next, I started researching the individual titles from my large master list. I asked myself a few questions:
Is this book appropriate for high school in terms of difficulty and content?Does it paint the country in a neutral light or does it make it seem like the country is just full of drugs and prostitutes?Does the author have a connection with the country?Does the plot sound interesting enough to hold my daughter’s interest?
The answers to these questions helped me narrow down my book choices.
Finally, I chose titles from each continent with the exception of Antarctica. I wanted a diverse 10th grade reading list if I was going to use it to teach World Literature.
I chose 7 titles as part of this 10th grade reading list because I want to be able to spend 4-6 weeks with each selection. We typically homeschool for 36 weeks each year, so an average of 5 weeks per book gives us 7 books.
10th Grade Reading List
The Queen of Water by Laura Resau and Maria Virginia Farinango
Continent: South America
Country: Ecuador
The Queen of Water is a young adult novel set in a village in Ecuador. It is based on the true story of a young girl who must leave her home at a very young age to be a housekeeper for a wealthy family.
Virginia, the main character, must deal with discrimination and poverty, but she overcomes those challenges on a journey of self-discovery. Overcoming adversity seems like a great theme for a 10th grade reading list.
One of the authors is from an Indigenous community in the Andes mountains of Ecuador, so I trust that the culture and geography are accurate.
The author’s official website has a tremendous amount of free teaching resources for this book, including a pronunciation guide so we can make sure we are pronouncing new words correctly.
Related: Young Adult Novels for Young Teens
Carmelo by Sandra Cisneros
Continent: North America
Country: Mexico
Every summer Ceyala and her family make the 2,000-mile journey from Chicago to Mexico City. They go to visit Little Grandfather and Awful Grandmother.
This is a story of dealing with a multi-generational family, history, and cultures.
The author has dual citizenship with the United States and Mexico so she is certainly qualified to teach us about the history, culture, and family traditions of a Mexican family.
Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gail Parkin
Continent: Afria
Country: Rwanda
Angel Tungazara is well-known in her community for being a wonderful baker. Her kitchen is a wonderful addition to her neighborhood. We all know that kitchens are not only about the food but also about the connection with others.
This story introduces some tough topics – genocide, AIDs, and female genital mutilation. However, those are second to the story of the community. A 10th grade reading list focusing on world history seems like a good time to start exposing my daughter to these tough topics.
My goal is never to shelter my teenage daughter from some of the harsher aspects of life but to walk beside her as we discuss what we can do to help.
Gaile Parkin, the author, has lived in many parts of Africa. She was born and raised in Zambia, attended university in South Africa, and worked in Rwanda for many years. I trust her writing to be honest, but fair, concerning the culture and geography of Rwanda because she was a part of the community.
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Continent: Europe
Country: England
I have found that homeschooling in December is much more pleasant if I incorporate Christmas into the lesson plans as much as possible. Our minds are already in holiday mode, so we might as well lean into that by reading and analyzing a Christmas story.
A Christmas Carol is a book that can be read over and over again. In this classic novella, Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by 3 ghosts on Christmas Eve. His experiences with these spirits transform his heart and his life.
The story is set in Victorian England, so Charles Dickens, who lived in Victorian England, is the perfect author for this story.
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Continent: Asia
Country: India
Pi is the teenage son of a zookeeper from India. His family is moving from India to America by boat and they brought many of their zoo animals along for the journey.
Unfortunately, the cargo ship sinks and Pi finds himself alone on a lifeboat with just a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra, and a 450 pound Bengal tiger.
Pi needs to use every bit of knowledge and ingenuity in order to survive the transatlantic journey with a wild animal.
The author has spent some time visiting India, but in this particular story, I was not really concerned about authenticity. I mean, has anyone spent time trapped on a small lifeboat with a dangerous tiger?
Throwaway Daughter by Ting-Xing Ye
Continent: Asia
Country: China
This young adult novel tells the story of Grace Dong-mei Parker, a young woman who was adopted by Canadian parents. She was born in China and abandoned at birth due to the one-child per family rule.
She learns Chinese, leaves Canada, and travels to a village in China in search of her birth mother. It takes a lot of hard work, but she eventually locates her birth mother and is able to reclaim a piece of her past.
The author of this book was born in China and had a child under the one-child policy. She also lost contact with her daughter for many years when she moved out of the country. She has direct experience with the subject matter, so I trust her interpretation of Chinese family culture.
The Light Between the Oceans by M.L. Stedman
Continent: Oceania
Country: Australia
Tom works off the coast of Australia as a lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock. His wife, Isabel, joins him with the hopes of building a family in their isolated home.
Years later, still with no children, a boat washes up onshore carrying a deceased man and a crying infant. The couple care for the child as their own but disagree about whether it should be reported. Tom, who keeps meticulous records, wants to alert officials, but Isabel yearns to call this child her own gift from God.
The author lives in Australia, so I feel comfortable with her knowledge of Australian geography and culture.
My goal in studying World Literature through this 10th grade reading list is to gently expose my daughter to new cultures. I’m sure we will add in a little geography practice too.
Have you read any of the world literature titles on this 10th grade reading list?