Reading a rich variety of texts is one of the most valuable things to do in preparation for the 11+. It is essential that children read broadly across a wide range of genres and from different time periods. This will expose them to a broader vocabulary, new subject matters, and complex sentence structures that they otherwise may not experience.

Extracts from a vast variety of text types appear in 11+ papers each year, and our recommended reading list is designed to prepare your child to feel confident with any material that may come up. Our 11+ reading list is not exhaustive, but will offer young readers a useful and enjoyable starting point on their reading journey.

A wide range of vocabulary is one of the most important things for 11+ candidates to develop. We would recommend keeping a vocabulary book handy whilst reading to allow you to note down any new and unfamiliar words you might come across. You can then look these words up and log a definition to secure your knowledge and revise later.

The Classics

Louisa May Alcott - Little Women

Hans Christian Andersen — The Complete Fairy Tales

J.M. Barrie — Peter Pan

Frances Hodgson Burnett — The Secret Garden

Lewis Carroll — Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Charles Dickens — A Christmas Carol

William Golding - Lord of the Flies

Thomas Hardy - Tess of the D’Urbervilles

Rudyard Kipling — The Jungle Book

C.S Lewis — The Chronicles of Narnia

Robert Louis Stevenson — Treasure Island

E. Nesbit - The Railway Children

George Orwell - Animal Farm

Jonathan Swift — Gulliver’s Travels

J. R. R. Tolkien — The Hobbit

Mark Twain - Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn

Adventure & Fantasy Stories

David Almond — Skellig

Holly Black — The Spiderwick Chronicles

Malorie Blackman — Hacker & The Noughts and Crosses Series

Orson Scott Card — Ender’s Game

Eoin Colfer - Artemis Fowl

Frank Cottrell Boyce — Millions

James Dashner — The Maze Runner

Ross Mackenzie - The Nowhere Emporium

Edith Nesbit — Five Children and It

Philippa Pearce — Tom's Midnight Garden

Philip Pullman — His Dark Materials Trilogy

Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons

Rick Riordan - Percy Jackson Series

Katherine Rundell - Impossible Creatures

Louis Sachar — Holes

Lemony Snicket — A Series of Unfortunate Events

Kate DiCamillo - The Miraculous Story of Edward

Pádraig Kenny - Tin

Mystery Stories

Agatha Christie — And Then There Were None

Siobhan Dowd — The London Eye Mystery

Arthur Conan Doyle — Sherlock Holmes

Cornelia Funke — The Thief Lord

Julia Golding — The Diamonds of Drury Lane

Mark Haddon — The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time

Anthony Horowitz — The Diamond Brothers

Erich Kaster — Emil and the Detectives

Carolyn Keene — Nancy Drew

M.G. Leonard — The Highland Falcon Thief

War Stories

Nina Bawden — Carrie’s War

Catherine Burton - No Ballet Shoes in Syria

Anne Holm — I am David

Judith Kerr - When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit

Caroline Lawrence — The Roman Mysteries

Michelle Magorian — Goodnight Mister Tom

Hilary McKay - The Swallows’ Flight

Michael Morpurgo - Private Peaceful

Michael Morpurgo — War Horse

Ian Serrallier — The Silver Sword

Nature Stories

Richard Adams — Watership Down

Zizou Corder - Lionboy

Roald Dahl — Fantastic Mr. Fox

Kenneth Grahame — The Wind in the Willows

Hugh Lofting — Dr Dolittle

Anna Sewell — Black Beauty

Michael Rosen - The Incredible Adventures

of Gaston le Dog

Dick King Smith - The Sheep-Pig

Dodie Smith — The Hundred and One Dalmatians

E.B. White — Charlotte’s Web

Poetry

William Black — The Tyger

Robert Browning — The Pied Piper of Hamlin

Lewis Carroll — Jabberwocky

Carol Ann Duffy - New and Collected Poems for

Children

Allie Esiri - Shakespeare for Every Day of the Year

Robert Frost — The Road Not Taken

Mary Howitt — The Spider And The Fly

Rudyard Kipling — If

Edward Lear — The Owl and the Pussycat

Alfred Noyes — The Highwayman

Michael Rosen - On the Move: Poems About Migration

Alfred Tennyson — The Charge of the Light Brigade

Various - Favourite Poems: 101 Children’s Classics

Non Fiction

Sarah Albee — Accidental Archaeologists: True Stories of Unexpected Discoveries

Terry Dreary - Horrible Histories

Anne Frank - The Diary of Anne Frank

Naoki Higashida - The Reason I Jump

Christopher Lloyd — Britannica All New Children’s Encyclopedia

David Long and Simon Tyler — The World's Most Magnificent Machines

Guy Raz and Mindy Thomas — The How and Wow of the Human Body: From Your Tongue to Your Toes and all the Guts in Between

Usborne - Big Subjects for Beginners (Money, Economics, Business, Politics & Philosophy)