The most-assigned books in U.S. schools, ranked
This is a ranked count of actual reading-list assignments — not a survey, not a vote. Each row below aggregates source-verified assignments from U.S. state reading lists, award programs and published curricula (13,258 assignment records covering 1,664 distinct books). The table refreshes with every dataset snapshot.
Top 50 most-assigned books
| # | Title | Author | Year | Assignments | Share | States | Typical band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wonder | R.J. Palacio | 2012 | 148 | 1.1% | 29 | 3-5 |
| 2 | New Kid | Jerry Craft | 2019 | 109 | 0.8% | 20 | 6-8 |
| 3 | Shiloh | Phyllis Reynolds Naylor | 1991 | 104 | 0.8% | 25 | 3-5 |
| 4 | Holes | Louis Sachar | 1998 | 96 | 0.7% | 22 | 3-5 |
| 5 | Maniac Magee | Jerry Spinelli | 1990 | 87 | 0.7% | 20 | 3-5 |
| 6 | Because of Winn-Dixie | Kate DiCamillo | 2000 | 84 | 0.6% | 26 | 3-5 |
| 7 | Refugee | Alan Gratz | 2017 | 83 | 0.6% | 18 | 6-8 |
| 8 | Diary of a Wimpy Kid | Jeff Kinney | 2007 | 81 | 0.6% | 16 | 3-5 |
| 9 | Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library | Chris Grabenstein | 2013 | 80 | 0.6% | 23 | 3-5 |
| 10 | The Tale of Despereaux | Kate DiCamillo | 2003 | 78 | 0.6% | 17 | 3-5 |
| 11 | Frindle | Andrew Clements | 1996 | 71 | 0.5% | 15 | 3-5 |
| 12 | Out of My Mind | Sharon M. Draper | 2010 | 62 | 0.5% | 14 | 6-8 |
| 13 | When Stars Are Scattered | Victoria Jamieson | 2020 | 62 | 0.5% | 14 | 6-8 |
| 14 | Smile | Raina Telgemeier | 2010 | 61 | 0.5% | 10 | 6-8 |
| 15 | The Giver | Lois Lowry | 1993 | 61 | 0.5% | 20 | 6-8 |
| 16 | Roller Girl | Victoria Jamieson | 2015 | 60 | 0.5% | 14 | 3-5 |
| 17 | The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane | Kate DiCamillo | 2009 | 60 | 0.5% | 14 | 3-5 |
| 18 | Swim Team | Johnnie Christmas | 2022 | 59 | 0.4% | 11 | 3-5 |
| 19 | The War That Saved My Life | Kimberly Brubaker Bradley | 2015 | 58 | 0.4% | 12 | 6-8 |
| 20 | Restart | Gordon Korman | 2017 | 57 | 0.4% | 14 | 6-8 |
| 21 | The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1) | Rick Riordan | 2005 | 57 | 0.4% | 14 | 6-8 |
| 22 | There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom | Louis Sachar | 2004 | 57 | 0.4% | 19 | 3-5 |
| 23 | The Crossover | Kwame Alexander | 2014 | 56 | 0.4% | 12 | 6-8 |
| 24 | Superfudge | Judy Blume | 2014 | 55 | 0.4% | 14 | 3-5 |
| 25 | Wait Till Helen Comes | Mary Downing Hahn | 2022 | 53 | 0.4% | 12 | 3-5 |
| 26 | Bud, Not Buddy | Christopher Paul Curtis | 1999 | 51 | 0.4% | 10 | 3-5 |
| 27 | El Deafo | Cece Bell | 2014 | 51 | 0.4% | 13 | 3-5 |
| 28 | The Hunger Games | Suzanne Collins | 2008 | 51 | 0.4% | 14 | 6-8 |
| 29 | Ghost | Jason Reynolds | 2016 | 47 | 0.4% | 10 | 6-8 |
| 30 | Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone | J.K. Rowling | 1997 | 47 | 0.4% | 12 | 3-5 |
| 31 | 11 Birthdays | Wendy Mass | 2011 | 46 | 0.3% | 13 | 3-5 |
| 32 | The One and Only Ivan | Katherine Applegate | 2012 | 44 | 0.3% | 8 | 3-5 |
| 33 | Hatchet | Gary Paulsen | 1987 | 43 | 0.3% | 11 | 6-8 |
| 34 | Mick Harte Was Here | Barbara Park | 2011 | 42 | 0.3% | 9 | 6-8 |
| 35 | Number the Stars | Lois Lowry | 1989 | 40 | 0.3% | 9 | 3-5 |
| 36 | Bunnicula | Deborah Howe | 2006 | 39 | 0.3% | 9 | 3-5 |
| 37 | Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing | Judy Blume | 1972 | 38 | 0.3% | 10 | 3-5 |
| 38 | Front Desk | Kelly Yang | 2018 | 37 | 0.3% | 8 | 3-5 |
| 39 | The Dollhouse Murders | Betty Ren Wright | 1983 | 37 | 0.3% | 9 | 3-5 |
| 40 | Matilda | Roald Dahl | 1988 | 36 | 0.3% | 8 | 3-5 |
| 41 | The Indian in the Cupboard | Lynne Reid Banks | 2010 | 35 | 0.3% | 9 | 3-5 |
| 42 | When You Reach Me | Rebecca Stead | 2009 | 34 | 0.3% | 4 | 6-8 |
| 43 | The Invention of Hugo Cabret | Brian Selznick | 2015 | 33 | 0.2% | 5 | 3-5 |
| 44 | Among the Hidden | Margaret Peterson Haddix | 1998 | 32 | 0.2% | 8 | 6-8 |
| 45 | Ella Enchanted | Gail Carson Levine | 1997 | 32 | 0.2% | 7 | 3-5 |
| 46 | Fudge-a-Mania | Judy Blume | 2014 | 32 | 0.2% | 8 | 3-5 |
| 47 | Old Yeller | Fred Gipson | 1956 | 32 | 0.2% | 8 | 6-8 |
| 48 | Rascal | Sterling North | 1963 | 32 | 0.2% | 8 | 6-8 |
| 49 | Dog Man | Dav Pilkey | 2016 | 31 | 0.2% | 8 | 3-5 |
| 50 | King of the Wind | Marguerite Henry | 1948 | 30 | 0.2% | 5 | 3-5 |
Share = share of all 13,258 assignments in the corpus. States counts state-linked lists only; assignments attached to national curricula (e.g. CCSS exemplar lists) count toward the total but not the state column.
The most-assigned book by school level
- Elementary (grades 3–5): Wonder by R.J. Palacio (89 assignments in the band)
- Middle school (grades 6–8): New Kid by Jerry Craft (65 assignments in the band)
- High school (grades 9–12): The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo (24 assignments in the band)
Questions this table answers
What is the most assigned book in U.S. schools?
Wonder by R.J. Palacio — 148 of 13,258 reading-list assignments (1.1%), on lists in 29 states, typically grades 3-5. #2 is New Kid (Jerry Craft, 109) and #3 is Shiloh (Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, 104).
What is the most assigned book in American high schools?
In this corpus, the most-assigned book among grade 9–12 assignments is The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo (24 assignments in the band). Note that most rows in the corpus come from state recommended-reading lists and curricula, which skew toward elementary and middle grades — see the methodology for what is and isn't covered.
Where does To Kill a Mockingbird rank?
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee ranks #448 with 8 assignments (0.1% of the corpus) across 3 states, typically grades 9-12. Surveys of what teachers teach in class (e.g. NCTE's) put the classics higher — state reading lists, which this corpus measures, lean newer.
Why do these rankings differ from "most taught books" surveys?
Teacher surveys measure what gets taught in classrooms, usually in high school English; this table counts appearances on published state reading lists, award programs and curricula across all grades. Both are real — they measure different things. We compute ours from 13,258 assignment records with per-row source provenance rather than survey recall.
What the corpus does and doesn't cover: methodology.
Download the data
- most-assigned-books.csv Top 100 ranked books — rank, title, author, year, pages, assignments, share, states, band. Free, CORS-enabled, CC BY 4.0 — reuse with a link.
- assigned-books.csv The full (book × state × grade) assignment join behind this ranking.
- All data downloads →
Cite this page
<a href="https://bookstatistics.com/most-assigned-books/">The Most Assigned Books in U.S. Schools, Ranked</a>. Book Statistics, a Figures Bureau site. [The Most Assigned Books in U.S. Schools, Ranked](https://bookstatistics.com/most-assigned-books/). Book Statistics, a Figures Bureau site. [url=https://bookstatistics.com/most-assigned-books/]The Most Assigned Books in U.S. Schools, Ranked[/url]. Book Statistics, a Figures Bureau site. Method note
Rank = count of assignment rows per book across the whole corpus (snapshot 2026-07-21). An "assignment" is one appearance of a book on one source-verified list (state reading list, award program, curriculum or district list) for one grade. Every row carries its source URL and verification date. Full detail: methodology. The narrative version of this ranking, with commentary, lives at readinglist.school's Most-Assigned Books study.
Related reference pages
- Assigned books statistics The full corpus in reference form.
- Assigned book age statistics How old the books schools assign really are.
- Book length statistics Median pages by grade — and the 3rd-grade cliff.
Data + analysis: bookstatistics.com, CC BY 4.0. A Figures Bureau study.