What 13,258 reading-list assignments say about the books U.S. schools assign
Surveys can tell you how many books teachers assign; this page counts the assignments themselves. Every statistic below is computed from source-verified assignment records — each row in the underlying dataset carries the URL of the state list, award program or curriculum it came from. No survey recall, no recycled blog numbers.
The 25 most-assigned books
| # | Title | Author | Year | Assignments | States |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wonder | R.J. Palacio | 2012 | 148 | 29 |
| 2 | New Kid | Jerry Craft | 2019 | 109 | 20 |
| 3 | Shiloh | Phyllis Reynolds Naylor | 1991 | 104 | 25 |
| 4 | Holes | Louis Sachar | 1998 | 96 | 22 |
| 5 | Maniac Magee | Jerry Spinelli | 1990 | 87 | 20 |
| 6 | Because of Winn-Dixie | Kate DiCamillo | 2000 | 84 | 26 |
| 7 | Refugee | Alan Gratz | 2017 | 83 | 18 |
| 8 | Diary of a Wimpy Kid | Jeff Kinney | 2007 | 81 | 16 |
| 9 | Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library | Chris Grabenstein | 2013 | 80 | 23 |
| 10 | The Tale of Despereaux | Kate DiCamillo | 2003 | 78 | 17 |
| 11 | Frindle | Andrew Clements | 1996 | 71 | 15 |
| 12 | Out of My Mind | Sharon M. Draper | 2010 | 62 | 14 |
| 13 | When Stars Are Scattered | Victoria Jamieson | 2020 | 62 | 14 |
| 14 | Smile | Raina Telgemeier | 2010 | 61 | 10 |
| 15 | The Giver | Lois Lowry | 1993 | 61 | 20 |
| 16 | Roller Girl | Victoria Jamieson | 2015 | 60 | 14 |
| 17 | The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane | Kate DiCamillo | 2009 | 60 | 14 |
| 18 | Swim Team | Johnnie Christmas | 2022 | 59 | 11 |
| 19 | The War That Saved My Life | Kimberly Brubaker Bradley | 2015 | 58 | 12 |
| 20 | Restart | Gordon Korman | 2017 | 57 | 14 |
| 21 | The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1) | Rick Riordan | 2005 | 57 | 14 |
| 22 | There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom | Louis Sachar | 2004 | 57 | 19 |
| 23 | The Crossover | Kwame Alexander | 2014 | 56 | 12 |
| 24 | Superfudge | Judy Blume | 2014 | 55 | 14 |
| 25 | Wait Till Helen Comes | Mary Downing Hahn | 2022 | 53 | 12 |
The full ranked table (top 50, with shares and grade bands) lives at most-assigned books, ranked.
The 10 most-assigned authors
| # | Author | Assignments | Distinct books | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kate DiCamillo | 263 | 8 | 2.0% |
| 2 | Louis Sachar | 186 | 5 | 1.4% |
| 3 | Alan Gratz | 173 | 8 | 1.3% |
| 4 | R.J. Palacio | 160 | 2 | 1.2% |
| 5 | Judy Blume | 155 | 6 | 1.2% |
| 6 | Phyllis Reynolds Naylor | 138 | 4 | 1.0% |
| 7 | Mary Downing Hahn | 133 | 8 | 1.0% |
| 8 | Gordon Korman | 132 | 10 | 1.0% |
| 9 | Victoria Jamieson | 128 | 3 | 1.0% |
| 10 | Jerry Spinelli | 120 | 6 | 0.9% |
Assignments by grade band
| Grade band | Assignments | Share | Median pages | Median pub. year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| K-2 | 1,029 | 7.8% | 40 | 2013 |
| 3-5 | 5,417 | 40.9% | 193 | 2011 |
| 6-8 | 4,725 | 35.6% | 233 | 2012 |
| 9-12 | 2,087 | 15.7% | 281 | 2015 |
Median pages / median year computed over assignments whose book has a known page count / publication year (page counts known for 11,719 of 13,258 assignments; unknowns omitted, never guessed).
When were assigned books published?
| Publication era | Assignments | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Before 1950 | 342 | 2.6% |
| 1950–1999 | 2,568 | 19.4% |
| 2000–2009 | 2,250 | 17.0% |
| 2010 or later | 8,098 | 61.1% |
The full decade-by-decade distribution — and why "schools only assign dusty classics" doesn't survive contact with list data — is at assigned book age statistics.
Coverage and provenance
- 47 states have state-linked assignments; 6,347 assignments (47.9%) attach to national curricula (e.g. CCSS exemplar lists) rather than one state.
- 13,258 of 13,258 assignment rows (100%) carry a source URL, drawn from 121 distinct published sources.
- Assignment types: recommended: 13,214 (99.7%) · required: 41 (0.3%) · supplementary: 3 (0.0%) — most state lists are recommendation lists, which is what this corpus measures.
Questions this page answers
What are the most commonly assigned books in U.S. schools?
By assignment count in this corpus: Wonder, New Kid, Shiloh, Holes, Maniac Magee — see the full ranked table at /most-assigned-books/.
Are school reading lists mostly classics?
No — not on state reading lists. 61.1% of assignments are of books published in 2010 or later, and the median assigned book dates from 2012. Classroom-taught high-school canon (measured by teacher surveys such as NCTE's) is older; state lists, which this corpus measures, lean contemporary.
How many books does the average student read for school?
That's a survey question, not a list question — this corpus measures what appears on published lists, not per-student completion. For teacher-reported counts see RAND's American Instructional Resources Survey; we deliberately publish only what we can compute from list data.
Sources referenced above: the full ranked table on this site, and RAND's American Instructional Resources Survey.
Download the data
- assigned-books-statistics.csv This page's computed tables in one long-format CSV. Free, CORS-enabled, CC BY 4.0 — reuse with a link.
- assigned-books.csv The full (book × state × grade) assignment join.
- All data downloads →
Cite this page
<a href="https://bookstatistics.com/assigned-books-statistics/">Assigned Books Statistics</a>. Book Statistics, a Figures Bureau site. [Assigned Books Statistics](https://bookstatistics.com/assigned-books-statistics/). Book Statistics, a Figures Bureau site. [url=https://bookstatistics.com/assigned-books-statistics/]Assigned Books Statistics[/url]. Book Statistics, a Figures Bureau site. Method note
All figures computed at build time from the 13,258-row assignment corpus (snapshot 2026-07-21) joined to its book, state and grade reference tables — see the methodology. The narrative companions live on readinglist.school: Reading Statistics 2026, The Most-Assigned Books and How Old Are Assigned Books?.
Related reference pages
- Most-assigned books, ranked The living top-50 table.
- School reading list statistics List sizes, state coverage and sources.
- Book length statistics Median pages by grade band.
Data + analysis: bookstatistics.com, CC BY 4.0. A Figures Bureau study.