best books to do a book report on

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The Best Book-Report Books for Middle Schoolers

No need to dread a book report! When kids find titles that are engaging, interesting, and thought-provoking, they're hooked. If it's fiction, students can dissect plot, theme, and characters. If it's nonfiction, they can plunge into a subject that fascinates them or learn a lot about something they've never heard of before. Here's a list of surefire selections for students in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. For even more ideas, check out 50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12 .

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

Inspiring wartime journal reveals teen's inner life.

The Apothecary, Book 1

Cold War kids use magic to save world in brilliant novel.

Everything Sad Is Untrue: (A True Story)

Young refugee's story is told in memories, myths, fables.

Goodbye Stranger

Bittersweet, lovely story of friendship and social media.

Genesis Begins Again

Teen learns to love herself in uplifting tale of misfits.

Hold on tight for an intense tale of survival.

A Long Walk to Water

Touching take on Lost Boys of Sudan, based on true story.

One Crazy Summer

A gem, with strong girl characters, '60s black history.

Poverty, being unhoused explored in hopeful tale.

The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights

Little-known disaster gets overdue, in-depth treatment.

The Red Badge of Courage

Compelling Civil War novel questions morality of battle.

Uglies: Uglies Quartet, Book 1

Thoughtful sci-fi about the price of beauty.

Interned girl, Native boy find common ground in moving tale.

All-American Muslim Girl

Captivating coming-of-age tale explores identity, racism.

American Ace

Moving, fast-paced novel-in-verse; great for teen boys.

Bomb: The Race to Build -- and Steal -- the World's Most Dangerous Weapon

Complex, suspenseful story of developing The Bomb.

The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Pedersen and the Churchill Club

Thrilling true story of teenagers who stood up to the Nazis.

Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings

Poignant memoir-in-verse recalls Cuban American's childhood.

Long Way Down

Gripping, unnerving story of teen boy contemplating revenge.

My Name Is Not Easy

Fascinating story of Alaskan kids growing up in the 1960s.

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• Coming-of-Age Books
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A Beginner's Guide to Writing a Book Report (with Examples)

Last Updated: June 25, 2024 Fact Checked

• Researching
• Drafting the Report
• Reviewing & Revising

Sample Book Reports & Summaries

Expert q&a.

This article was co-authored by Jake Adams and by wikiHow staff writer, Raven Minyard, BA . Jake Adams is an academic tutor and the owner of Simplifi EDU, a Santa Monica, California based online tutoring business offering learning resources and online tutors for academic subjects K-College, SAT & ACT prep, and college admissions applications. With over 14 years of professional tutoring experience, Jake is dedicated to providing his clients the very best online tutoring experience and access to a network of excellent undergraduate and graduate-level tutors from top colleges all over the nation. Jake holds a BS in International Business and Marketing from Pepperdine University. There are 8 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 1,419,625 times.

A book report is a short essay that summarizes and analyzes a work of fiction or nonfiction. Writing a book report may not seem fun at first, but it gives you a great chance to fully understand a work and its author. In this article, we’ll teach you everything you need to know about how to write a book report, from choosing a book and outlining to drafting and editing your final paper.

Things You Should Know

• Read the entire book and take notes on important themes, characters, and events. Use your notes to create an outline with evidence that supports your analysis.
• Include the title and author in your intro, then summarize the plot, main characters, and setting of the book.
• Analyze the author’s writing style, as well as the main themes and arguments of the book. Include quotes and examples to support your statements.

Researching Your Book Report

• For example, find out if your teacher wants you to include citations, such as page numbers from the book, in your report.
• Ask your teacher how much of your paper to devote to summary versus analysis. Most book reports are direct summaries with objective analysis rather than your personal opinions. In contrast, a book review or commentary is more opinion-driven.

• Some popular books for book reports include To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Animal Farm by George Orwell, and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Choose a book at your grade level.

• Author: Who wrote the book? Do you know any other works by this author?
• Genre: Is the book fiction or nonfiction? If it’s fiction, is it historical, fantasy, horror, etc.? If it’s nonfiction, is it a biography, memoir, science, etc.?
• Audience: Who would find this book appealing? Is it intended for a specific age range or gender? Do you typically enjoy books like this?
• Title: Does the title catch your interest? Does it fit well with the book’s content?
• Book Cover/Illustrations: What does the book cover convey and does it accurately represent the book? How do you feel when you look at it? If the book has illustrations, what are they and do they hold your interest?

• Take breaks while reading to keep your attention sharp. Try to find a pace that is comfortable for you. If you get distracted after 15 minutes, read in 15-minute intervals. If you can go an hour, read for an hour at a time.
• Give yourself enough time to read the entire book. It’s very difficult to write a book report if you’ve just skimmed over everything. Don’t procrastinate!
• Don’t trust online book summaries. You can’t guarantee that they are accurate or true to the text.

• For example, look for a sentence that clearly describes a main setting in the book, such as “The castle was gloomy and made out of large black stones.”

Outlining Your Book Report

• Introduction: Introduce the title, author, and publication information. Include a brief overview of the book’s genre and main theme, and state your purpose for writing the report.
• Summary: Concisely summarize the plot or central idea, highlighting main events, characters, and conflicts. Focus on important aspects while avoiding spoilers.
• Analysis and Evaluation: Evaluate the author’s writing style and use of literary devices, like foreshadowing, metaphors, imagery, etc. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the book and use quotes and examples from the text.
• Themes and Messages: Identify the book’s main themes or messages and how they develop through the course of the book. Provide specific quotes and examples.
• Character Analysis: Analyze the main characters in the book, their development, and their relationships. Explain their motivations, personalities, and significance to the story. Provide examples and quotes to support your analysis.
• Personal Reflection: Depending on your teacher’s instructions, you might share your personal opinions and discuss what you liked and disliked about the book. Reflect on how the book relates to broader themes or issues.
• Conclusion: Summarize your main points and conclude with your final thoughts or reflections on the book.
• Bibliography: If required, include a works cited page or bibliography listing all the sources you used to write your book report.
• Outlining takes time, but it saves you more time once you reach the editing stage.
• Some people prefer to outline with pen and paper, while others just type up a list on the computer. Choose the method that works best for you.

• Be careful not to overuse quotes. If it seems like every other line is a quote, try to dial back. Aim to include a maximum of one quotation per paragraph. Quotes and examples should still take a backseat to your summary.

• For example, you’ll likely need to focus primarily on discussing the most important characters or the characters that appear most frequently in the text.
• When you are finished with your outline, go back through it to see if it makes sense. If the paragraphs don’t flow into one another, move them around or add/delete new ones until they do.
• Also, check to see if your outline covers all of the major elements of the book, such as the plot, characters, and setting.

Writing Your Book Report

• For example, a sentence summary might state, “This book is about the main character’s journey to Africa and what she learns on her travels.”
• Don’t take up too much space with your introduction. In general, an introduction should be 3-6 sentences long, though in rare cases, they may be longer or shorter.

• Use vivid language when you can and include plenty of details. For example, you might write, “The farm was surrounded by rolling hills.”

• For instance, if the main character moves to Africa, you might describe what happens before the move, how the move goes, and how they settle in once they arrive.

• For example, you might write that the main character is “a middle-aged woman who enjoys the finer things in life, such as designer clothes.” Then, connect this description to the plot summary by describing how her views change after her travels, if they do.
• Expect to introduce the characters in the same sentences and paragraphs as the plot introduction.

• You might write, “The author argues that travel gives you a new perspective. That is why her main characters all seem happier and more grounded after visiting new places.”
• For fiction, determine if the author is using the story to pass along a certain moral or lesson. For example, a book about an underdog athlete could encourage readers to take chances to pursue their dreams.

• For example, an author who uses lots of slang terms is probably going for a hip, approachable style.

• Some teachers require, or strongly suggest, that you include the author’s name and the book title in your concluding paragraph.
• When writing a conclusion , don’t introduce any new thoughts. Any important points should be made in your body paragraphs. Save the space for your recap.

Reviewing and Revising Your Book Report

• Before you submit your paper, make sure that you’ve spelled the author’s name and any character names correctly.
• Don’t trust your computer’s spell check to catch all the errors for you. Spell check can be helpful, but it isn’t perfect and can make mistakes.

• If you’re nervous about asking, try saying something like “It would be great if you could go over my book report and make sure that it reads smoothly.”
• Remember, no one’s first draft is perfect, so don’t get upset if someone suggests you do something differently. They want to help make your report the best it can be, so don’t take constructive criticism personally.

• For example, double-check that you are using the correct font, font size, and margins.
• Once you've finished proofreading, revising, and checking that you've addressed all the requirements, you're ready to submit your book report!

• Even though your book report is your own work, avoid using “I” too much. It can make your writing feel choppy. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• It might be tempting to watch the movie or read the online notes instead of reading the book. Resist this urge! Your teacher will be able to tell the difference. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

Tips from our Readers

• Calm down and walk around if you get too frustrated while writing. If you write a book report while angry, you're more likely to misspell things!
• Choose a unique book. Harry Potter or Percy Jackson is an absolute no. Everyone chooses those. Try something different!
• Write when anything comes to mind! You don't want to lose your ideas!

• Give yourself plenty of time to write your report. Don’t wait until the last minute or you may feel rushed. Thanks Helpful 2 Not Helpful 0
• Stealing or using another person’s work is considered plagiarism and academic dishonesty. Make sure that the work you submit is all your own. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.aresearchguide.com/write-book-report.html
• ↑ Jake Adams. Academic Tutor & Test Prep Specialist. Expert Interview. 24 July 2020.
• ↑ https://grammark.org/how-to-write-a-book-report/
• ↑ https://takelessons.com/blog/steps-to-writing-a-book-report
• ↑ https://www.infoplease.com/homework-help/homework-center-writing-book-report
• ↑ https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf/what-setting
• ↑ https://www.tcc.edu/wp-content/uploads/archive/writing-center-handouts/essay-types-plot-summary.pdf
• ↑ https://www.cornerstone.edu/blog-post/six-steps-to-really-edit-your-paper/

About This Article

To write a book report, start by introducing the author and the name of the book and then briefly summarizing the story. Next, discuss the main themes and point out what you think the author is trying to suggest to the reader. Finally, write about the author’s style of writing, paying particular attention to word choice and the overall tone of the book. For tips on editing and polishing your paper before turning it in, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How to Write a Book Report

Use the links below to jump directly to any section of this guide:

Book Report Fundamentals

Preparing to write, an overview of the book report format, how to write the main body of a book report, how to write a conclusion to a book report, reading comprehension and book reports, book report resources for teachers .

Book reports remain a key educational assessment tool from elementary school through college. Sitting down to close read and critique texts for their content and form is a lifelong skill, one that benefits all of us well beyond our school years. With the help of this guide, you’ll develop your reading comprehension and note-taking skills. You’ll also find resources to guide you through the process of writing a book report, step-by-step, from choosing a book and reading actively to revising your work. Resources for teachers are also included, from creative assignment ideas to sample rubrics.

Book reports follow general rules for composition, yet are distinct from other types of writing assignments. Central to book reports are plot summaries, analyses of characters and themes, and concluding opinions. This format differs from an argumentative essay or critical research paper, in which impartiality and objectivity is encouraged. Differences also exist between book reports and book reviews, who do not share the same intent and audience. Here, you’ll learn the basics of what a book report is and is not.

What Is a Book Report?

"Book Report" ( ThoughtCo )

This article, written by a professor emeritus of rhetoric and English, describes the defining characteristics of book reports and offers observations on how they are composed.

"Writing a Book Report" (Purdue OWL)

Purdue’s Online Writing Lab outlines the steps in writing a book report, from keeping track of major characters as you read to providing adequate summary material.

"How to Write a Book Report" ( Your Dictionary )

This article provides another helpful guide to writing a book report, offering suggestions on taking notes and writing an outline before drafting. 

"How to Write a Successful Book Report" ( ThoughtCo )

Another post from ThoughtCo., this article highlights the ten steps for book report success. It was written by an academic advisor and college enrollment counselor.

What’s the Difference Between a Book Report and an Essay?

"Differences Between a Book Report & Essay Writing" ( Classroom)

In this article from the education resource Classroom,  you'll learn the differences and similarities between book reports and essay writing.

"Differences Between a Book Report and Essay Writing" (SeattlePi.com)

In this post from a Seattle newspaper's website, memoirist Christopher Cascio highlights how book report and essay writing differ.

"The Difference Between Essays and Reports" (Solent Online Learning)

This PDF from Southampton Solent University includes a chart demonstrating the differences between essays and reports. Though it is geared toward university students, it will help students of all levels understand the differing purposes of reports and analytical essays.

What’s the Difference Between a Book Report and a Book Review?

"How to Write a Book Review and a Book Report" (Concordia Univ.)

The library at Concordia University offers this helpful guide to writing book report and book reviews. It defines differences between the two, then presents components that both forms share.

"Book Reviews" (Univ. of North Carolina)

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s writing guide shows the step-by-step process of writing book reviews, offering a contrast to the composition of book reports.

Active reading and thoughtful preparation before you begin your book report are necessary components of crafting a successful piece of writing. Here, you’ll find tips and resources to help you learn how to select the right book, decide which format is best for your report, and outline your main points.

Selecting and Finding a Book

"30 Best Books for Elementary Readers" (Education.com)

This article from Education.com lists 30 engaging books for students from kindergarten through fifth grade. It was written by Esme Raji Codell, a teacher, author, and children's literature specialist.

"How to Choose a Good Book for a Report (Middle School)" (WikiHow)

This WikiHow article offers suggestions for middle schoolers on how to choose the right book for a report, from getting started early on the search process to making sure you understand the assignment's requirements.

"Best Book-Report Books for Middle Schoolers" (Common Sense Media)

Common Sense Media has compiled this list of 25 of the best books for middle school book reports. For younger students, the article suggests you check out the site's "50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12."

"50 Books to Read in High School" (Lexington Public Library)

The Lexington, Kentucky Public Library has prepared this list to inspire high school students to choose the right book. It includes both classics and more modern favorites.

The Online Computer Library Center's catalogue helps you locate books in libraries near you, having itemized the collections of 72,000 libraries in 170 countries.

Formats of Book Reports

"Format for Writing a Book Report" ( Your Dictionary )

Here, Your Dictionary supplies guidelines for the basic book report format. It describes what you'll want to include in the heading, and what information to include in the introductory paragraph. Be sure to check these guidelines against your teacher's requirements.

"The Good Old Book Report" (Scholastic)

Nancy Barile’s blog post for Scholastic lists the questions students from middle through high school should address in their book reports.

How to Write an Outline

"Writer’s Web: Creating Outlines" (Univ. of Richmond)

The University of Richmond’s Writing Center shows how you can make use of micro and macro outlines to organize your argument.

"Why and How to Create a Useful Outline" (Purdue OWL)

Purdue’s Online Writing Lab demonstrates how outlines can help you organize your report, then teaches you how to create outlines.

"Creating an Outline" (EasyBib)

EasyBib, a website that generates bibliographies, offers sample outlines and tips for creating your own. The article encourages you to think about transitions and grouping your notes.

"How to Write an Outline: 4 Ways to Organize Your Thoughts" (Grammarly)

This blog post from a professional writer explains the advantages of using an outline, and presents different ways to gather your thoughts before writing.

In this section, you’ll find resources that offer an overview of how to write a book report, including first steps in preparing the introduction. A good book report's introduction hooks the reader with strong opening sentences and provides a preview of where the report is going.

"Step-by-Step Outline for a Book Report" ( Classroom )

This article from Classroom furnishes students with a guide to the stages of writing a book report, from writing the rough draft to revising.

"Your Roadmap to a Better Book Report" ( Time4Writing )

Time4Writing offers tips for outlining your book report, and describes all of the information that the introduction, body, and conclusion should include.

"How to Start a Book Report" ( ThoughtCo)

This ThoughtCo. post, another by academic advisor and college enrollment counselor Grace Fleming, demonstrates how to write a pithy introduction to your book report.

"How to Write an Introduction for a Book Report" ( Classroom )

This brief but helpful post from Classroom  details what makes a good book report introduction, down to the level of individual sentences.

The body paragraphs of your book report accomplish several goals: they describe the plot, delve more deeply into the characters and themes that make the book unique, and include quotations and examples from the book. Below are some resources to help you succeed in summarizing and analyzing your chosen text.

Plot Summary and Description

"How Do You Write a Plot Summary?" ( Reference )

This short article presents the goals of writing a plot summary, and suggests a word limit. It emphasizes that you should stick to the main points and avoid including too many specific details, such as what a particular character wears.

"How to Write a Plot for a Book Report" ( The Pen & The Pad )

In this article from a resource website for writers, Patricia Harrelson outlines what information to include in a plot summary for a book report. 

"How to Write a Book Summary" (WikiHow)

Using Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone as an example, this WikiHow article demonstrates how to write a plot summary one step at a time.

Analyzing Characters and Themes

"How to Write a Character Analysis Book Report" ( The Pen & The Pad )

Kristine Tucker shows how to write a book report focusing on character. You can take her suggestions as they are, or consider  incorporating them into the more traditional book report format.

"How to Write a Character Analysis" (YouTube)

The SixMinuteScholar Channel utilizes analysis of the film  Finding Nemo to show you how to delve deeply into character, prioritizing inference over judgment.

"How to Define Theme" ( The Editor's Blog )

Fiction editor Beth Hill contributes an extended definition of theme. She also provides examples of common themes, such as "life is fragile."

"How to Find the Theme of a Book or Short Story" ( ThoughtCo )

This blog post from ThoughtCo. clarifies the definition of theme in relation to symbolism, plot, and moral. It also offers examples of themes in literature, such as love, death, and good vs. evil.

Selecting and Integrating Quotations

"How to Choose and Use Quotations" (Santa Barbara City College)

This guide from a college writing center will help you choose which quotations to use in your book report, and how to blend quotations with your own words.

"Guidelines for Incorporating Quotes" (Ashford Univ.)

This PDF from Ashford University's Writing Center introduces the ICE method for incorporating quotations: introduce, cite, explain.

"Quote Integration" (YouTube)

This video from The Write Way YouTube channel illustrates how to integrate quotations into writing, and also explains how to cite those quotations.

"Using Literary Quotations" (Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison)

This guide from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Writing Center helps you emphasize your analysis of a quotation, and explains how to incorporate quotations into your text.

Conclusions to any type of paper are notoriously tricky to write. Here, you’ll learn some creative ways to tie up loose ends in your report and express your own opinion of the book you read. This open space for sharing opinions that are not grounded in critical research is an element that often distinguishes book reports from other types of writing.

"How to Write a Conclusion for a Book Report" ( Classroom )

This brief article from the education resource  Classroom illustrates the essential points you should make in a book report conclusion.

"Conclusions" (Univ. of North Carolina)

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Writing Center lays out strategies for writing effective conclusions. Though the article is geared toward analytical essay conclusions, the tips offered here will also help you write a strong book report.

"Ending the Essay: Conclusions" (Harvard College Writing Center)

Pat Bellanca’s article for Harvard University’s Writing Center presents ways to conclude essays, along with tips. Again, these are suggestions for concluding analytical essays that can also be used to tie up a book report's loose ends.

Reading closely and in an engaged manner is the strong foundation upon which all good book reports are built. The resources below will give you a picture of what active reading looks like, and offer strategies to assess and improve your reading comprehension. Further, you’ll learn how to take notes—or “annotate” your text—making it easier to find important information as you write.

How to Be an Active Reader

"Active Reading Strategies: Remember and Analyze What You Read" (Princeton Univ.)

Princeton University’s McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning recommends ten strategies for active reading, and includes sample diagrams.

"Active Reading" (Open Univ.)

The Open University offers these techniques for reading actively alongside video examples. The author emphasizes that you should read for comprehension—not simply to finish the book as quickly as possible.

"7 Active Reading Strategies for Students" ( ThoughtCo )

In this post, Grace Fleming outlines seven methods for active reading. Her suggestions include identifying unfamiliar words and finding the main idea. 

"5 Active Reading Strategies for Textbook Assignments" (YouTube)

Thomas Frank’s seven-minute video demonstrates how you can retain the most important information from long and dense reading material.

Assessing Your Reading Comprehension

"Macmillan Readers Level Test" (MacMillan)

Take this online, interactive test from a publishing company to find out your reading level. You'll be asked a number of questions related to grammar and vocabulary.

"Reading Comprehension Practice Test" (ACCUPLACER)

ACCUPLACER is a placement test from The College Board. This 20-question practice test will help you see what information you retain after reading short passages.

"Reading Comprehension" ( English Maven )

The English Maven site has aggregated exercises and tests at various reading levels so you can quiz your reading comprehension skills.

How to Improve Your Reading Comprehension

"5 Tips for Improving Reading Comprehension" ( ThoughtCo )

ThoughtCo. recommends five tips to increase your reading comprehension ability, including reading with tools such as highlighters, and developing new vocabulary.

"How to Improve Reading Comprehension: 8 Expert Tips" (PrepScholar)

This blog post from PrepScholar provides ideas for improving your reading comprehension, from expanding your vocabulary to discussing texts with friends.

CrashCourse video: "Reading Assignments" (YouTube)

This CrashCourse video equips you with tools to read more effectively. It will help you determine how much material you need to read, and what strategies you can use to absorb what you read.

"Improving Reading Comprehension" ( Education Corner )

From a pre-reading survey through post-reading review, Education Corner  walks you through steps to improve reading comprehension.

Methods of In-text Annotation

"The Writing Process: Annotating a Text" (Hunter College)

This article from Hunter College’s Rockowitz Writing Center outlines how to take notes on a text and provides samples of annotation.

"How To Annotate Text While Reading" (YouTube)

This video from the SchoolHabits YouTube channel presents eleven annotation techniques you can use for better reading comprehension.

"5 Ways To Annotate Your Books" ( Book Riot )

This article from the Book Riot  blog highlights five efficient annotation methods that will save you time and protect your books from becoming cluttered with unnecessary markings.

"How Do You Annotate Your Books?" ( Epic Reads )

This post from Epic Reads highlights how different annotation methods work for different people, and showcases classic methods from sticky notes to keeping a reading notebook.

Students at every grade level can benefit from writing book reports, which sharpen critical reading skills. Here, we've aggregated sources to help you plan book report assignments and develop rubrics for written and oral book reports. You’ll also find alternative book report assessment ideas that move beyond the traditional formats.

Teaching Elementary School Students How to Write Book Reports

"Book Reports" ( Unique Teaching Resources )

These reading templates courtesy of Unique Teaching Resources make great visual aids for elementary school students writing their first book reports.

"Elementary Level Book Report Template" ( Teach Beside Me )

This   printable book report template from a teacher-turned-homeschooler is simple, classic, and effective. It asks basic questions, such as "who are the main characters?" and "how did you feel about the main characters?"

"Book Reports" ( ABC Teach )

ABC Teach ’s resource directory includes printables for book reports on various subjects at different grade levels, such as a middle school biography book report form and a "retelling a story" elementary book report template.

"Reading Worksheets" ( Busy Teacher's Cafe )

This page from Busy Teachers’ Cafe contains book report templates alongside reading comprehension and other language arts worksheets.

Teaching Middle School and High School Students How to Write Book Reports

"How to Write a Book Report: Middle and High School Level" ( Fact Monster)

Fact Monster ’s Homework Center discusses each section of a book report, and explains how to evaluate and analyze books based on genre for students in middle and high school.

"Middle School Outline Template for Book Report" (Trinity Catholic School)

This PDF outline template breaks the book report down into manageable sections for seventh and eighth graders by asking for specific information in each paragraph.

"Forms for Writing a Book Report for High School" ( Classroom )

In this article for Classroom,  Elizabeth Thomas describes what content high schoolers should focus on when writing their book reports.

"Forms for Writing a Book Report for High School" ( The Pen & The Pad )

Kori Morgan outlines techniques for adapting the book report assignment to the high school level in this post for The Pen & The Pad .

"High School Book Lists and Report Guidelines" (Highland Hall Waldorf School)

These sample report formats, grading paradigms, and tips are collected by Highland Hall Waldorf School. Attached are book lists by high school grade level.

Sample Rubrics

"Book Review Rubric Editable" (Teachers Pay Teachers)

This free resource from Teachers Pay Teachers allows you to edit your book report rubric to the specifications of your assignment and the grade level you teach.

"Book Review Rubric" (Winton Woods)

This PDF rubric from a city school district includes directions to take the assignment long-term, with follow-up exercises through school quarters.

"Multimedia Book Report Rubric" ( Midlink Magazine )

Perfect for oral book reports, this PDF rubric from North Carolina State University's Midlink Magazine  will help you evaluate your students’ spoken presentations.

Creative Book Report Assignments

"25 Book Report Alternatives" (Scholastic)

This article from the Scholastic website lists creative alternatives to the standard book report for pre-kindergarteners through high schoolers.

"Fresh Ideas for Creative Book Reports" ( Education World )

Education World offers nearly 50 alternative book report ideas in this article, from a book report sandwich to a character trait diagram.

"A Dozen Ways to Make Amazingly Creative Book Reports" ( We Are Teachers )

This post from We Are Teachers puts the spotlight on integrating visual arts into literary study through multimedia book report ideas.

"More Ideas Than You’ll Ever Use for Book Reports" (Teachnet.com)

This list from Teachnet.com includes over 300 ideas for book report assignments, from "interviewing" a character to preparing a travel brochure to the location in which the book is set.

"Fifty Alternatives to the Book Report" (National Council of Teachers of English)

In this PDF resource from the NCTE's  English Journal,  Diana Mitchell offers assignment ideas ranging from character astrology signs to a character alphabet.

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42 Creative Book Report Ideas for Students

Inspire your students to share their love of books.

Responding to what you read is an important literacy skill. Reading about other people’s experiences and perspectives helps kids learn about the world. And although students don’t need to dive deeply into every single book they read, occasionally digging into characters, settings, and themes can help them learn to look beyond the prose. Here are 42 creative book report ideas designed to make reading more meaningful.

1. Concrete Found Poem

This clever activity is basically a shape poem made up of words, phrases, and whole sentences found in the books students read. The words come together to create an image that represents something from the story.

2. Graphic Novel

Have students rewrite the book they are reading, or a chapter of their book, as a graphic novel. Set parameters for the assignment such as including six scenes from the story, three characters, details about the setting, etc. And, of course, include detailed illustrations to accompany the story.

3. Book Snaps

Book Snaps are a way for students to visually show how they are reacting to, processing, and/or connecting with a text. First, students snap a picture of a page in the book they are reading. Then, they add comments, images, highlights, and more.

4. Diary Entry

Have your students place themselves in the shoes of one of the characters from their book and write a first-person diary entry of a critical moment from the story. Ask them to choose a moment in the story where the character has plenty of interaction and emotion to share in a diary entry.

5. Character To-Do List

This fun activity is an off-the-beaten-path way to dive deep into character analysis. Get inside the head of the main character in a book and write a to-do list that they might write. Use actual information from the text, but also make inferences into what that character may wish to accomplish.

6. Mint Tin Book Report

There are so many super-creative, open-ended projects you can use mint tins for. This teacher blogger describes the process of creating book reports using them. There’s even a free template for cards that fit inside.

7. Fictional Yearbook Entries

Ask your students to create a yearbook based on the characters and setting in the book. What do they look like? Cut out magazine pictures to give a good visual image for their school picture. What kind of superlative might they get? Best looking? Class clown? What clubs would they be in or lead? Did they win any awards? It should be obvious from their small yearbooks whether your students dug deep into the characters in their books. They may also learn that who we are as individuals is reflected in what we choose to do with our lives.

8. Book Report Cake

This project would be perfect for a book tasting in your classroom! Each student presents their book report in the shape of food. See the sandwich and pizza options above and check out this blog for more delicious ideas.

9. Current Events Comparison

Have students locate three to five current events articles a character in their book might be interested in. After they’ve found the articles, have them explain why the character would find them interesting and how they relate to the book. Learning about how current events affect time, place, and people is critical to helping develop opinions about what we read and experience in life.

10. Sandwich Book Report

Yum! You’ll notice a lot of our creative book report ideas revolve around food. In this oldie but goodie, each layer of this book report sandwich covers a different element of the book—characters, setting, conflict, etc. A fun adaptation of this project is the book report cheeseburger.

11. Book Alphabet

Choose 15 to 20 alphabet books to help give your students examples of how they work around themes. Then ask your students to create their own Book Alphabet based on the book they read. What artifacts, vocabulary words, and names reflect the important parts of the book? After they find a word to represent each letter, have them write one sentence that explains where the word fits in.

12. Peekaboo Book Report

Using cardboard lap books (or small science report boards), students include details about their book’s main characters, plot, setting, conflict, resolution, etc. Then they draw a head and arms on card stock and attach them to the board from behind to make it look like the main character is peeking over the report.

13. T-Shirt Book Report

Another fun and creative idea: Create a wearable book report with a plain white tee. Come up with your own using Sharpie pens and acrylic paint. Get step-by-step directions .

14. Book Jacket

Have students create a new book jacket for their story. Include an attractive illustrated cover, a summary, a short biography of the author, and a few reviews from readers.

15. Watercolor Rainbow Book Report

This is great for biography research projects. Students cut out a photocopied image of their subject and glue it in the middle. Then, they draw lines from the image to the edges of the paper, like rays of sunshine, and fill in each section with information about the person. As a book report template, the center image could be a copy of the book cover, and each section expands on key information such as character names, theme(s), conflict, resolution, etc.

16. Act the Part

Have students dress up as their favorite character from the book and present an oral book report. If their favorite character is not the main character, retell the story from their point of view.

17. Pizza Box Book Report

If you’re looking for creative book report ideas that use upcycled materials, try this one using a pizza box. It works well for both nonfiction and fiction book reports. The top lid provides a picture of the book cover. Each wedge of the pizza pie tells part of the story.

18. Bookmark

Have students create a custom illustrated bookmark that includes drawings and words from either their favorite chapter or the entire book.

19. Book Reports in a Bag

Looking for book report ideas that really encourage creative thinking? With book reports in a bag, students read a book and write a summary. Then, they decorate a paper grocery bag with a scene from the book, place five items that represent something from the book inside the bag, and present the bag to the class.

20. Reading Lists for Characters

Ask your students to think about a character in their book. What kinds of books might that character like to read? Take them to the library to choose five books the character might have on their to-be-read list. Have them list the books and explain what each book might mean to the character. Post the to-be-read lists for others to see and choose from—there’s nothing like trying out a book character’s style when developing your own identity.

21. File Folder Book Report

Also called a lap book, this easy-to-make book report hits on all the major elements of a book study and gives students a chance to show what they know in a colorful way.

22. Collage

Create a collage using pictures and words that represent different parts of the book. Use old magazines or print pictures from the Internet.

23. Book Report Triorama

Who doesn’t love a multidimensional book report? This image shows a 3D model, but Elisha Ann provides a lesson to show students how to glue four triangles together to make a 4D model.

24. Timeline

Have students create a timeline of the main events from their book. Be sure to include character names and details for each event. Use 8 x 11 sheets of paper taped together or a long portion of bulletin board paper.

25. Clothes Hanger Book Report Mobile

This creative project doesn’t require a fancy or expensive supply list. Students just need an ordinary clothes hanger, strings, and paper. The body of the hanger is used to identify the book, and the cards on the strings dangling below are filled with key elements of the book, like characters, setting, and a summary.

26. Public Service Announcement

If a student has read a book about a cause that affects people, animals, or the environment, teach them about public service announcements . Once they understand what a PSA is, have them research the issue or cause that stood out in the book. Then give them a template for a storyboard so they can create their own PSA. Some students might want to take it a step further and create a video based on their storyboard. Consider sharing their storyboard or video with an organization that supports the cause or issue.

27. Dodecahedron Book Report

Creative book report ideas think outside the box. In this case, it’s a ball! SO much information can be covered on the 12 panels , and it allows students to take a deep dive in a creative way.

28. Character Cards

Make trading cards (like baseball cards) for a few characters from the book. On the front side, draw the character. On the back side, make a list of their character traits and include a quote or two.

29. Book Report Booklets

This clever book report is made from ordinary paper bags. Stack the paper bags on top of each other, fold them in half, and staple the closed-off ends of the bags together. Students can write, draw, and decorate on the paper bag pages. They can also record information on writing or drawing paper and glue the paper onto the pages. The open ends of the bags can be used as pockets to insert photos, cut-outs, postcards, or other flat items that help them tell their story.

30. Letter to the Author

Write a letter to the author of the book. Tell them three things you really liked about the story. Ask three questions about the plot, characters, or anything else you’re curious about.

31. Book Report Charm Bracelet

What a “charming” way to write a book report! Each illustrated bracelet charm captures a character, an event in the plot, setting, or other detail.

32. Fact Sheet

Have students create a list of 10 facts that they learned from reading the book. Have them write the facts in complete sentences, and be sure that each fact is something that they didn’t know before they read the book.

33. Cereal Box TV Book Report

This book report project is a low-tech version of a television made from a cereal box and two paper towel rolls. Students create the viewing screen cut-out at the top, then insert a scroll of paper with writing and illustrations inside the box. When the cardboard roll is rotated, the story unfolds.

34. Be a Character Therapist

Therapists work to uncover their clients’ fears based on their words and actions. When we read books, we must learn to use a character’s actions and dialogue to infer their fears. Many plots revolve around a character’s fear and the work it takes to overcome that fear. Ask students to identify a character’s fear and find 8 to 10 scenes that prove this fear exists. Then have them write about ways the character overcame the fear (or didn’t) in the story. What might the character have done differently?

35. Mind Maps

Mind maps can be a great way to synthesize what students have learned from reading a book. Plus, there are so many ways to approach them. Begin by writing a central idea in the middle of the page. For example, general information, characters, plot, etc. Then branch out from the center with ideas, thoughts, and connections to material from the book.

36. Foldables

From Rainbows Within Reach , this clever idea would be a great introduction to writing book reports. Adapt the flap categories for students at different levels. Adjust the number of categories (or flaps) per the needs of your students.

37. Board games

This is a great project if you want your students to develop a little more insight into what they’re reading. Have them think about the elements of their favorite board games and how they can be adapted to fit this assignment. For more, here are step-by-step directions .

38. Comic strips

If you’re looking for creative book report ideas for students who like graphic novels, try comic strips. Include an illustrated cover with the title and author. The pages of the book should retell the story using dialogue and descriptions of the setting and characters. Of course, no comic book would be complete without copious illustrations and thought bubbles.

39. Timeline

Create a timeline using a long roll of butcher paper, a poster board, or index cards taped together. For each event on the timeline, write a brief description of what happens. Add pictures, clip art, word art, and symbols to make the timeline more lively and colorful.

40. Cereal Box

Recycle a cereal box and create a book report Wheaties-style. Decorate all sides of the box with information about the book’s characters, setting, plot, summary, etc.

41. Wanted Poster

Make a “wanted” poster for one of the book’s main characters. Indicate whether they are wanted dead or alive. Include a picture of the character and a description of what the character is “wanted” for, three examples of the character showing this trait, and a detailed account of where the character was last seen.

42. Movie Version

If the book your students have read has been made into a movie, have them write a report about how the versions are alike and different. If the book has not been made into a movie, have them write a report telling how they would make it into a movie, using specific details from the book.

What creative book report ideas did we miss? Come share in our We Are Teachers HELPLINE group on Facebook.

Plus, check out the most popular kids’ books in every grade..

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How to Write a Book Report (+ Book Report Example) 

Download for free, specific tips for writing effective book reports..

Write better book reports using the tips, examples, and outlines presented here. This resource covers three types of effective book reports: plot summaries, character analyses, and theme analyses. It also features a specific book report example for students.

How to write a book report (+ book report example) 

Whether you're a student looking to show your comprehension of a novel, or simply a book lover wanting to share your thoughts, writing a book report can be a rewarding experience. This guide, filled with tips, tricks, and a book report example, will help you craft a report that effectively communicates your understanding and analysis of your chosen book.

Looking for a printable resource on book reports? See our Printable Book Report Outlines and Examples

What is a book report? 

Book reports can take on many different forms. Writing a book review helps you practice giving your opinion about different aspects of a book, such as an author's use of description or dialogue.

You can write book reports of any type, from fiction to non-fiction research papers, or essay writing; however, there are a few basic elements you need to include to convey why the book you read was interesting when writing a good book report.

Types of book reports 

Three types of effective book reports are plot summaries, character analyses, and theme analyses. Each type focuses on different aspects of the book and requires a unique approach. These three types of book reports will help you demonstrate your understanding of the book in different ways.

Plot summary

When you are writing a plot summary for your book report you don't want to simply summarize the story. You need to explain what your opinion is of the story and why you feel the plot is so compelling, unrealistic, or sappy. It is the way you analyze the plot that will make this a good report. Make sure that you use plenty of examples from the book to support your opinions.

Try starting the report with a sentence similar to the following:

The plot of I Married a Sea Captain , by Monica Hubbard, is interesting because it gives the reader a realistic sense of what it was like to be the wife of a whaling captain and live on Nantucket during the 19th century.

Character analysis

If you choose to write a character analysis, you can explore the physical and personality traits of different characters and the way their actions affect the plot of the book.

• Explore the way a character dresses and what impression that leaves with the reader.
• What positive characteristics does the character possess?
• Does the character have a "fatal flaw" that gets him/her into trouble frequently?
• Try taking examples of dialogue and analyzing the way a character speaks. Discuss the words he/she chooses and the way his/her words affect other characters.
• Finally, tie all of your observations together by explaining the way the characters make the plot move forward.

In the novel Charlotte's Web , by E. B. White, Templeton the rat may seem like an unnecessary character but his constant quest for food moves the plot forward in many ways.

Theme analyses

Exploring the themes (or big ideas that run throughout the story) in a book can be a great way to write a book report because picking a theme that you care about can make the report easier to write. Try bringing some of your thoughts and feelings as a reader into the report as a way to show the power of a theme. Before you discuss your own thoughts, however, be sure to establish what the theme is and how it appears in the story.

• Explain  exactly  what theme you will be exploring in your book report.
• Use as many examples and quotations from the book as possible to prove that the theme is important to the story.
• Make sure that you talk about each example or quotation you've included. Make a direct connection between the theme and the example from the book.
• After you have established the theme and thoroughly examined the way it affects the book, include a few sentences about the impact the theme had upon you and why it made the book more or less enjoyable to read.

In the novel Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry , by Mildred Taylor, the theme of racial prejudice is a major catalyst in the story.

How to write a book report

1. Thoroughly read the book

Immerse yourself in the book, taking the time to read it in its entirety. As you read, jot down notes on important aspects such as key points, themes, and character developments.

2. Identify the main elements of the book

Scrutinize the book's primary components, including its main themes, characters, setting, and plot. These elements will form the basis of your report.

3. Formulate a thesis statement

Compose a thesis statement that encapsulates your personal perspective about the book. This should be a concise statement that will guide your analysis and give your report a clear focus.

4. Create a detailed outline

Plan the structure of your book report. This outline should include an introduction, body paragraphs each focusing on a different aspect of the book, and a conclusion.

5. Craft the introduction

The introduction should provide basic information such as the book's title and author, and present your thesis statement. It should engage the reader and make them interested in your analysis.

6. Write the body of the report

In the body of your report, discuss in detail the book's main elements that you identified in step 3. Use specific examples from the text to support your analysis and to prove your thesis statement.

7. Write a strong conclusion

Your conclusion should summarize your analysis, reaffirm your thesis, and provide a closing thought or reflection on the overall book.

8. Review and edit your report

After writing, take the time to revise your report for clarity and coherence. Check for and correct any grammar or spelling errors. Ensure that your report clearly communicates your understanding and analysis of the book.

9. Include citations

If you have used direct quotes or specific ideas from the book, make sure to include proper citations . This is crucial in academic writing and helps avoid plagiarism.

10. Proofread

Finally, proofread your work. Look for any missed errors and make sure that the report is the best it can be before submitting it.

Book report example 

Below is a book report example on the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

In  To Kill a Mockingbird , Harper Lee presents a thoughtful exploration of racial prejudice, morality, and the loss of innocence. Set in the small, fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the Great Depression, the book centers around the Finch family - young Scout, her older brother Jem, and their widowed father, Atticus. Scout's character provides a fresh perspective as she narrates her experiences and observations of the unjust racial prejudice in her town. Her honesty and curiosity, coupled with her father's teachings, allow her to grow from innocence to a more profound understanding of her society's inequalities. The plot revolves around Atticus Finch, a respected lawyer, defending a black man, Tom Robinson, unjustly accused of raping a white woman. As the trial progresses, it becomes clear that Robinson is innocent, and the accusation was a product of racial prejudice. Despite compelling evidence in Robinson's favor, he is convicted, symbolizing the power of bias over truth. The theme of racial prejudice is a significant part of the book. Lee uses the trial and its unjust outcome to critique the racial prejudice prevalent in society. For example, despite Atticus's solid defense, the jury's racial bias leads them to find Robinson guilty. This instance highlights how deeply ingrained prejudice can subvert justice. The book also explores the theme of the loss of innocence. Scout and Jem's experiences with prejudice and injustice lead to their loss of innocence and a better understanding of the world's complexities. For example, Scout's realization of her town's unfair treatment of Robinson demonstrates her loss of innocence and her understanding of societal biases. Overall,  To Kill a Mockingbird  is a compelling exploration of the harsh realities of prejudice and the loss of innocence. Harper Lee's intricate characters and vivid storytelling have made this book a classic.

The above is an excellent book report example for several reasons. First, it provides a clear, concise summary of the plot without giving away the entire story. Second, it analyzes the main characters, their roles, and their impacts on the story. Third, it discusses the major themes of the book - racial prejudice and loss of innocence - and supports these themes with evidence from the text. Finally, it presents a personal perspective on the book's impact and overall message, demonstrating a deep understanding of the book's significance.

Book report checklist

Always  include the following elements in any book report:

• The type of book report you are writing
• The book's title
• The author of the book
• The time when the story takes place
• The location where the story takes place
• The names and a  brief  description of each of the characters you will be discussing
• Many quotations and examples from the book to support your opinions
• A thesis statement
• The point of view of the narrator
• Summary of the book
• The main points or themes discussed in the work of fiction or non-fiction
• The first paragraph (introductory paragraph), body paragraphs, and final paragraph
• The writing styles of the author
• A critical analysis of the fiction or non-fiction book

Don't forget! 

No matter what type of book report you decide to write, ensure it includes basic information about the main characters, and make sure that your writing is clear and expressive so that it’s easy for audiences in middle school, high school, college-level, or any grade level to understand. Also, include examples from the book to support your opinions. Afterward, conduct thorough proofreading to complete the writing process. Book reports may seem disconnected from your other schoolwork, but they help you learn to summarize, compare and contrast, make predictions and connections, and consider different perspectives & skills you'll need throughout your life.

Looking for more writing resources? You can find them in our creative writing center .

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How To Write a Good Book Report in Seven Steps

Are you having trouble writing your book report? Don’t worry, you’ve come to the right place. We’re going to give you seven easy steps that’ll help you write the perfect book report.

Quick Summary on How To Write a Book Report

• As you read the book, highlight and take notes.
• Reread the instructions of the assignment.
• Organize your notes and create an outline.
• Write a compelling introduction.
• Include quotations, examples, and supporting evidence in the body paragraphs.
• Encapsulate the main point of your text in the conclusion.
• Edit and proofread.

What Is a Book Report?

A book report is an essay in which students explain and support their thoughts and views on a story, novel, or any other literary work.

There are several different types of book reports. Regardless of which type you’re writing, teachers and professors usually assign book reports as a way to ensure that their students have thoroughly understood the book. Below, we’ll go over how to write a good book report in seven easy steps.

How To Write a Book Report

1. as you read the book, highlight and take notes..

The first step of writing a good book report is to read the book, of course. However, it’s important to highlight and takes notes while reading it. Highlight anything that stands out to you or that evokes certain emotions. Write notes on patterns, themes, and characters. If you’re writing a book report on a nonfiction book, write notes on the major points of the book and what you think about them.

2. Revisit and reread the instructions of the assignment.

Once you’re done reading and taking notes, reread the instructions of the assignment. Find what it is you’re supposed to write about. Is it a character analysis? A plot summary? An exploration of themes and patterns, or something else? It’s also essential to follow the formatting guidelines, so make sure to use the correct font and spacing. If you have any questions, reach out to your teacher or professor.

3. Organize your notes and create an outline.

Gather your notes and arrange them into categories. Once you’ve completed this, write an outline and organize the categories to become the paragraphs of your book report. Jot down bullet points on what each paragraph will include and what part of the book can support it. As you start writing the book report, remain flexible. You don’t have to follow the outline exactly. You may realize that a few edits create a better flow.

4. Write a compelling introduction.

The introduction should be informative and catchy. You may want to start with a quote, climactic scene, or an unusual observation you had while reading the book. Towards the end of the introduction, you should write a one or two-sentence summary about the book, and then the last sentence should explain what exactly you’ll be writing about in the rest of the report.

Book Report Elements

Keep in mind that all book reports should contain:

• The name and author of the book.
• A thesis statement.
• If you're writing about a fiction book, mention the setting, time period, and characters.
• If you’re writing about a nonfiction book, mention the author’s main point in writing the book.
• Evidence to support your arguments.

5. Include quotations, examples, and supporting evidence in the body paragraphs.

The body paragraphs are where you can include quotations, examples, and supporting evidence that bring your book report together.

For example, let’s say you’re writing a character analysis. You believe that the character that everyone sees as the protagonist is actually the antagonist. You should write why you believe that and include specific scenarios that help prove your point.

Or if you’re writing about a non-fiction book, you could use the body paragraphs to write about why you agree or disagree with the author. Similarly, you’d have to use examples and evidence to support your argument.

It’s a good idea to start off with your most compelling, evidence-backed point. Leave the weakest arguments for the middle, and end with another strong point. Lastly, whether you’re writing about fiction or non-fiction, commenting on writing style and tone is recommended (especially if it’s explicitly requested in the instructions).

6. Encapsulate the main point of your text in the conclusion.

The conclusion is just as important as the introduction, so make sure to set aside enough time to write one (students tend to rush through this part). Use the concluding paragraph to pull all your arguments together. Reiterate again what the main point was about, and then briefly summarize the main idea of your book report.

7. Edit and proofread.

Now that you’ve completed the first draft of your book report, it’s time to reread and make edits if needed. Are there any paragraphs you can move around that’ll improve the rhythm of your writing? Do you have enough evidence to back up your claims? Is your introduction captivating and descriptive?

While you’re rereading the book report, you should also be looking for typos and spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes. If you want an extra set of eyes to look for all types of errors, you should use LanguageTool as your spelling and grammar checker. Not only will this advanced editor correct mistakes, but it supports more than twenty languages—meaning your book report will be perfect regardless of which language you’re writing it in.

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How to write a book report

A book report is one of the first types of essays you probably learned to write in elementary school. But no matter how many book reports you turn in over the course of your student life, they can still inspire some anxiety and some confusion about the best way to write a book report, especially as you reach the high school and college level.

The good news is that the basics you learned in the early grades will serve you in good stead, since the book report format remains mostly the same. The very same structure and tools you used to dissect Charlotte’s Web and Superfudge will work just as well for Animal Farm and The Handmaid’s Tale . What changes is the depth and breadth of your analysis as a high school and college student.

So, If you are wondering how to start a book report for a college class assignment, here are some of the key pieces of information you need to know.

What is a book report?

Let’s start off with some definitions. In the most general terms, a book report is a summary of a written text, often a fiction novel, but can also include other genres such as memoir and creative non-fiction. It includes an analysis of the different elements and authorial choices that comprise the work, such as tone, theme, perspective, diction, dialogue, etc.

While the analysis should be reasoned and objective, it should also include your opinion and assessment of the impact and overall success of the author’s choices on the final work.

Book reports usually fall into one of the following types:

Plot summary

This type of book report isn’t just a re-telling of the story, it’s a comment on your overall impression of the plot — whether you thought it was engaging or maudlin or vapid, for example — backed up by direct quotes from the text to support your opinion.

Example of a plot summary thesis statement: The plot of Herman Melville’s short story, “Bartleby the Scrivener,” offers a poignant portrait of how depression robs a person of all motivation and momentum in life.

Character analysis

A character analysis zeroes in on a particular character (their characterization and actions) and their impact on the unfolding of the plot and its eventual outcome.

Example of a character analysis thesis statement: In J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye , the character of Phoebe, Holden’s bright and precocious younger sister, is a catalyst for rekindling his hope in humanity and reconsidering the choices he’s made in his life.

Theme analysis

A theme analysis looks at the overarching concepts, or themes, that run through a book and that give the text meaning and direction. Themes tend to be broad in nature, such as love, the importance of family, the impact of childhood, etc.

Example of a theme analysis thesis statement: Banana Yoshimoto’s novella, Kitchen , explores the theme of death and how everyone sooner or later has to come to terms with the mortality of the people they love as well as their own.

How to start a book report

The very first step in writing a stellar book report that earns a top grade is actually reading the book. This may seem obvious, but many students make the assignment much harder on themselves by not putting in the time up front to do a thorough and complete reading of the book they’re going to be writing their report on. So resist the urge to skim the text or to rely on the Cliff’s notes version. A nuanced analysis requires a deep grasp of the text, and there is no substitute for focused, firsthand reading.

It’s a lot easier to stick with a book that you enjoy reading! If you have the chance to choose the book you’ll be writing a report on, take some time to select a book that appeals to you, considering the genre, time period, writing style, and plot.

It can be helpful to start thinking about your book report while you are still making your way through your initial reading of the text. Mark down passages that provide key turning points in the action, descriptive passages that establish time and place, and any other passages that stand out to you in terms of their word choice and use of language. This makes it much easier to go back later and start collecting the evidence you’ll need to support your argument and analysis.

Once you finish reading the book from cover to cover, you’ll likely find that your mind is swirling with thoughts, impressions, and burgeoning analyses. At this stage, trying to distill all of these half-formed thoughts into one cohesive report may seem like a daunting task. One way to make this task more approachable is to start by collecting and listing the objective facts about the book. The following list covers the basic elements that should be included in every book report you write, no matter what topic or specific type of book report you’re writing:

• The book’s title and author
• The historical context of the book (when it was written)
• The time(s) during which the story is set
• The location(s) where the story takes place
• A summary of the main characters and action of the story
• Quotes from the book that will function as evidence to support your analysis

With all of the basics in hand, you can start to write your book report in earnest. Just like most other essay types, a well-written book report follows a basic structure that makes it easy for your reader to follow your thoughts and make sense of your argument.

A typical book report will open with an introduction that briefly summarizes the book and culminates with a thesis statement that advances an opinion or viewpoint about it. This is followed by body paragraphs that provide detailed points to flesh out and support that opinion in greater detail, including direct quotes from the text as supporting evidence. The report finishes with a conclusion that summarizes the main points and leaves the reader with an understanding of the book, its aims, and whether or not you feel the book (and its author) was successful in doing what it set out to do. Ideally, the conclusion will also make a statement about how the book fits into the larger literary world.

A book report template you can use for any book report

If you find yourself stuck on how to start a book report, here’s a handy book report template you can use to get things off the ground. Simply use this structure and start filling it in with the specifics of the book you are writing your report on. Feel free to expand upon this book report template, adding more sections as appropriate.

Introduction

Write three to five sentences introducing the book and author as well as important contextual information about the book, such as the publication year and the overall critical reception at the time. Finish the paragraph with your thesis statement.

Body paragraphs

Include at least three body paragraphs that offer detailed information and analysis to support your thesis statement. Each paragraph should contain one idea, backed up with direct quotes from the text alongside your critical analysis.

Write three to five sentences that restate your thesis and summarize the evidence you’ve presented in support of it. Relate your findings to a larger context about the book’s place within both the literary world and the world at large.

Frequently Asked Questions about book reports

A book report follows the format of most papers you write - it will have an introduction, a body and a conclusion. Depending on the type of book report, you will fill these parts with the required information.

These are the basic parts that should be included in every book report you write, no matter what topic or specific type of book report you’re writing:

• The historical context of the book and time(s) during which the story is set

The book report is, among other things, also a summary of the plot, main characters, and ideas and arguments of the author. Your book report should help readers decide whether they want to read the book or not.

How many pages a book report should have depends on your assignment. It can be a half page, but it can also have many pages. Make sure to carefully read through your assignment and ask your professor if you are unsure .

A book report is a summary of a written text. A good book report includes an analysis of the different elements and authorial choices that comprise the work, such as tone, theme, perspective, diction, dialogue, etc. A good book report helps the reader decide whether they want to read the book or not.

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Have a book report submission deadline and want to know how to write one? We’re here to help! Book reports are vital in academics, helping students sharpen their understanding and critical thinking, while for authors, they offer a deep dive into a text’s composition and stylistic elements.

In this article, we will understand how to write a good book report. It’s a skill that not only helps you get more out of what you’re reading but also lets you create a report that truly reflects how good the book is. Let’s get started!

Ace your assignment with a perfect book report! Learn more

Firstly, let us understand what is a book report.

What is a book report?

A book report is an in-depth analysis, an objective summary of a book’s main content and arguments. Book reports discuss a book’s content, structure, and themes. Far from just a recap of the plot outline , a book report examines the details of a book’s narrative, offering insights into the characters, themes of the story , and the author’s writing style. 

Note: A book report is usually assigned to students from secondary schools to colleges. As per book report format, book reports are typically 500–1000 words long.

Elements of a book report

A proper book report outline consists of the following elements:

• Introduction: Think about how to start a book report with an engaging opening. Mention the book’s title, author, genre, and a brief plot summary. State your main theme or viewpoint.
• Content summary: Give a clear, summary of the plot. Highlight key events and turning points. Avoid spoilers.
• Analysis and perspective: Examine the key characters, their traits, motivations, development, and plot roles. Explore major themes, symbols, and motifs, and their narrative effect. Review the author’s style and perspective, and their impact on the story.
• Conclusion: Summarize your main points. Restate your overall impression of the book and possibly suggest who might enjoy it or what kind of readers would benefit from it.
• Citations and references (if necessary): If you have used external sources or have been influenced by other analyses, make sure to cite these references properly to avoid plagiarism.

By following this book report outline, your book report will be comprehensive, informative, and engaging.

How to write a book report

Before learning how to do a book report, it is important to remember that following a book report format is essential. 

Here’s how to write a book report:

• Read the book carefully: Start by reading the book thoroughly. Take notes on key points, characters, themes, and any passages that stand out.
• Create an Outline: Organize your thoughts and notes into an outline. This will be your roadmap and will help keep your writing focused.
• Write the introduction: Begin with an engaging introduction that provides basic information about the book, including the title, author, and a brief synopsis.
• Develop the body: You can follow your outline or a book report template to write the body of your report. Discuss each element (plot, characters, themes, etc.) in separate paragraphs or sections.
• Conclude your report: Summarize your main points and offer your final thoughts and evaluation of the book.
• Review and revise: Finally, review and proofread your report for clarity, coherence, and correctness. Make sure to correct any grammatical mistakes and ensure your report flows logically.

Taking a look at a few examples of book reports will help you understand how to do a book report easily.  So let’s explore some book report examples next.

Book report examples

Starting with book report examples, let’s look at a book report example on The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.

Introduction: Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank is a powerful and poignant diary that gives an intimate glimpse into the life of a Jewish teenager during the Holocaust.

Summary: The diary chronicles Anne Frank’s life from 1942 to 1944, during which she and her family hid from the Nazis in Amsterdam. The entries detail her daily life in the secret annex, her thoughts, fears, and hopes for a better future.

Analysis and themes: Anne’s diary is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit in the face of unimaginable adversity. Themes of hope, the cruelty of war, the innocence of youth, and the power of writing shine through her words.

Conclusion: Diary of a Young Girl is more than just a diary; it’s a moving narrative that brings to light the horrors of war and the timeless strength of hope and human dignity. Anne Frank’s voice continues to resonate with readers around the world, making this book a must-read for understanding history and humanity.

Now let’s look at a fiction book report example on Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan.

Introduction: Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan is a thrilling fantasy novel that introduces us to a world where Greek gods and mythology come to life in the modern era.

Summary: The story follows Percy Jackson, a young boy who discovers he is the son of Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea. After being accused of stealing Zeus’s lightning bolt, Percy embarks on a dangerous adventure across America to find the real thief and prevent a war among the gods.

Analysis and themes: Riordan’s novel is rich in Greek mythology and cleverly intertwined with modern-day settings and issues. Themes of identity, friendship, and bravery are prominent as Percy navigates the challenges of being a demigod. The book also explores the concept of good vs. evil and the importance of understanding one’s strengths and weaknesses.

Conclusion: Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief is an engaging and imaginative novel that offers a fresh perspective on Greek mythology. It’s a captivating read for young adults, effectively combining action, humor, and life lessons, making it a standout in the genre of fantasy fiction.

Book report template

You can easily write a book report using our free book report template.

It’s clear that writing a book report is more than a mere academic exercise; it’s an opportunity to delve deeper into the world of literature and gain insights. 

By using the provided template and examples as starting points, you’re well on your way to writing insightful and compelling book reports. Also, to make your book report perfect, we are always here to help you with our expert editing and proofreading services ! 

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Frequently Asked Questions

How long should a book report be, what should a book report include, how to conclude a book report, how to write an introduction for a book report, what is the purpose of a book report.

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Writing a Book Report

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Book reports are informative reports that discuss a book from an objective stance. They are similar to book reviews but focus more on a summary of the work than an evaluation of it. Book reports commonly describe what happens in a work; their focus is primarily on giving an account of the major plot, characters, thesis, and/or main idea of the work. Most often, book reports are a K-12 assignment and range from 250 to 500 words.

Book reviews are most often a college assignment, but they also appear in many professional works: magazines, newspapers, and academic journals. If you are looking to write a book review instead of a book report, please see the OWL resource, Writing a Book Review .

Before You Read

Before you begin to read, consider what types of things you will need to write your book report. First, you will need to get some basic information from the book:

• Publisher location, name of publisher, year published
• Number of Pages

You can either begin your report with some sort of citation, or you can incorporate some of these items into the report itself.

Next, try to answer the following questions to get you started thinking about the book:

• Author: Who is the author? Have you read any other works by this author?
• Genre: What type of book is this: fiction, nonfiction, biography, etc.? What types of people would like to read this kind of book? Do you typically read these kinds of books? Do you like them?
• Title: What does the title do for you? Does it spark your interest? Does it fit well with the text of the book?
• Pictures/Book Jacket/Cover/Printing: What does the book jacket or book cover say? Is it accurate? Were you excited to read this book because of it? Are there pictures? What kinds are there? Are they interesting?

As You Read

While reading a work of fiction, keep track of the major characters. You can also do the same with biographies. When reading nonfiction works, however, look for the main ideas and be ready to talk about them.

• Characters: Who are the main characters? What happens to them? Did you like them? Were there good and bad characters?
• Main Ideas: What is the main idea of the book? What happens? What did you learn that you did not know before?
• Quotes: What parts did you like best? Are there parts that you could quote to make your report more enjoyable?

When You Are Ready to Write

Announce the book and author. Then, summarize what you have learned from the book. Explain what happens in the book, and discuss the elements you liked, did not like, would have changed, or if you would recommend this book to others and why. Consider the following items as well:

• Principles/characters: What elements did you like best? Which characters did you like best and why? How does the author unfold the story or the main idea of the book?
• Organize: Make sure that most of your paper summarizes the work. Then you may analyze the characters or themes of the work.
• Your Evaluation: Choose one or a few points to discuss about the book. What worked well for you? How does this work compare with others by the same author or other books in the same genre? What major themes, motifs, or terms does the book introduce, and how effective are they? Did the book appeal to you on an emotional or logical way?
• Recommend: Would you recommend this book to others? Why? What would you tell them before they read it? What would you talk about after you read it?

Revising/Final Copy

Do a quick double check of your paper:

• Double-check the spelling of the author name(s), character names, special terms, and publisher.
• Check the punctuation and grammar slowly.
• Make sure you provide enough summary so that your reader or instructor can tell you read the book.
• Consider adding some interesting quotes from the reading.

How to Write a Great Book Report

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One assignment has lasted the test of time, uniting generations of students in a common learning exercise: book reports. While many students dread these assignments, book reports can help students learn how to interpret texts and gain a broader understanding of the world around them.  Well-written books can open your eyes to new experiences, people, places, and life situations that you may have never thought about before. In turn, a book report is a tool that allows you, the reader, to demonstrate that you have understood all the nuances of the text you just read.

What's a Book Report?

In the broadest terms, a book report describes and summarizes a work of fiction or nonfiction . It sometimes — but not always — includes a personal evaluation of the text. In general, regardless of grade level, a book report will include an introductory paragraph that shares the title of the book and its author. Students will often develop their own opinions about the underlying meaning of the texts through developing thesis statements , typically presented in the opening of a book report, and then using examples from the text and interpretations to support those statements.  

Before You Start Writing

A good book report will address a specific question or point of view and back up this topic with specific examples, in the form of symbols and themes. These steps will help you identify and incorporate those important elements. It shouldn't be too hard to do, provided you're prepared, and you can expect to spend, on average, 3-4 days working on the assignment. Check out these tips to ensure you're successful:

• Have an objective in mind.  This is the main point you want to present or the question you plan to answer in your report.  
• Keep supplies on hand when you read.  This is  very  important. Keep sticky-note flags, pen, and paper nearby as you read. If you're reading an eBook , make sure you know how to use the annotation function of your app/program.  
• Read the book.  It seems obvious, but too many students try to take a shortcut and simply read summaries or watch movies, but you often miss important details that can make or break your book report.
• Pay attention to detail.  Keep an eye out for clues that the author has provided in the form of symbolism . These will indicate some important point that supports the overall theme. For instance, a spot of blood on the floor, a quick glance, a nervous habit, an impulsive action, a repetitive action... These are worth noting.
• Use your sticky flags to mark pages.  When you run into clues or interesting passages, mark the page by placing the sticky note at the beginning of the relevant line.  
• Look for themes.  As you read, you should begin to see an emerging theme. On a notepad, write down some notes on how you came to determine the theme.
• Develop a rough outline.  By the time you finish  reading the book , you will have recorded several possible themes or approaches to your objective. Review your notes and find points that you can back up with good examples (symbols). 

Your Book Report Introduction

The start of your book report provides an opportunity to make a solid introduction to the material and your own personal assessment of the work. You should try to write a strong introductory paragraph that grabs your reader's attention. Somewhere in your first paragraph , you should also state the book's title and the author's name.

High school-level papers should include publication information as well as brief statements about the book's angle, the genre, the theme , and a hint about the writer's feelings in the introduction.

First Paragraph Example: Middle School Level

" The Red Badge of Courage ", by Stephen Crane, is a book about a young man growing up during the Civil War. Henry Fleming is the main character of the book. As Henry watches and experiences the tragic events of the war, he grows up and changes his attitudes about life.

First Paragraph Example: High School Level

Can you identify one experience that changed your entire view of the world around you? Henry Fleming, the main character in "The Red Badge of Courage", begins his life-changing adventure as a naive young man, eager to experience the glory of war. He soon faces the truth about life, war, and his own self-identity on the battlefield, however. "The Red Badge of Courage", by Stephen Crane, is a coming of age novel published by D. Appleton and Company in 1895, about thirty years after the Civil War ended. In this book, the author reveals the ugliness of war and examines its relationship to the pain of growing up.

The Body of the Book Report

Before you get started on the body of the report, take a few minutes to jot down some helpful information by considering the following points.

• Did you enjoy the book?
• Was it well written?
• What was the genre?
• (fiction) Which characters play important roles that relate to the overall theme?
• Did you notice reoccurring symbols?
• Is this book a part of a series?
• (nonfiction) Can you identify the writer's thesis?
• What is the writing style?
• Did you notice a tone?
• Was there an obvious slant or bias?

In the body of your book report, you will use your notes to guide you through an extended summary of the book. You will weave your own thoughts and impressions into the plot summary . As you review the text, you'll want to focus on key moments in the storyline and relate them to the perceived theme of the book, and how the characters and setting all bring the details together. You'll want to be sure that you discuss the plot, any examples of conflict that you encounter, and how the story resolves itself. It can be helpful to use strong quotes from the book to enhance your writing. 

The Conclusion

As you lead to your final paragraph, consider some additional impressions and opinions:

• Was the ending satisfactory (for fiction)?
• Was the thesis supported by strong evidence (for nonfiction)?
• What interesting or notable facts do you know about the author?
• Would you recommend this book?

Conclude your report with a paragraph or two that covers these additional points. Some teachers prefer that you re-state the name and author of the book in the concluding paragraph. As always, consult your specific assignment guide or ask your teacher if you have questions about what is expected of you. 

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15 Creative and digital book report ideas that will get your students excited to read

Not all students are excited to read a book. So how can you make reading a book more engaging and fun? This is a huge challenge for most teachers, so I hope I can help you out!

Here’s what you’ll find in this blog post (click on the title if you want to jump to the section directly)

5 tips to get your students excited about reading

• 15 creative and digital book report lesson plans (free & ready to use!)
• The complete collection of book report lesson ideas in one assignment (your students get to choose!)

Instructions on how to use these digital book report lesson activities

Before you dive into the book reports, you have to get your students excited about reading first. In this previous post about reading, I’ve listed 10 tips that will encourage your students to read . I’ve come up with 5 more amazing tips! Here we go:

1. Use AR apps

Here are a few apps with amazing storylines and AR books.

• Wonderscope , for example, is an excellent storytelling tool. It uses augmented reality to transform ordinary places into real-time stories. Students also learn to read with the app. They ask questions to the characters in the story and listen to the characters’ answers.
• The Ghostkeeper’s journal and field guide : This book is an immersive adventure for readers aged 10 and up, offering several AR experiences to enhance the storyline. These are accessed via a mobile app “ Ghost-o-Matic ”.
• Bookful creates an engaging reading experience and brings stories and characters in books to life. The app holds the world’s largest 3D/AR library with hundreds of titles from leading publishers and brands such as: The Tale of Peter Rabbit, DK’s Encyclopedia, and children’s favorites such as Barbie, My Little Pony, Thomas & Friends, Transformers, and The Smurfs.

2. Escape lessons

Here are 3 fun ready-to-use escape lessons to spark your students’ joy of reading:

• A Halloween Murder : Let your students investigate the murder of the victim: Brat Spook. When they find the murderer, they get their “inspector” badge. Let them look for evidence in the murder scene, talk to suspects, analyze lab results, and so on!
• Finding Rudolph : Save Christmas by helping Santa find back Rudolph. Students go through different challenges, talk to eye-witnesses, and follow Rudolph through a winter maze, so Santa can deliver all the presents to the children.
• Easter Bunny Substitute : Can your students find a good Easter Bunny replacement? In the last breakout game for the classroom, the Easter Bunny is hurt, so your students need to interview the possible applicants and take tests to replace the Easter Bunny themselves. If they succeed in the challenges, they get an Easter Bunny substitute badge.

3. Storytelling

If you bring cultural elements into your lessons by telling a story, your students will be more eager to learn. Storytelling makes students want to “live the story”. And they do this by reading it. If your story is strong enough, your students will love learning and reading. They will even remember the lesson content better.

Here’s a fun & ready-to-use example: The life of William Shakespeare

4. First chapters

5. Books & sleepovers

You can even add different parts to your sleepover. For example, let students read their favorite passage in a book of choice out loud, and 1 hour before bedtime, all your students take their book and read in silence. Or how about creating cozy themed corners? Fantasy, science fiction, detectives,… When your students are reading in themed corners, they get the full experience. They can even dress up as a character in their book whilst reading.

15 Creative and digital book report lesson plans

Step 1: Get your students excited about reading. ✅ Step 2: make sure they don’t lose their interest when you’re announcing the book report assignment! ☑️ This part can be demotivating.

As the lower grade students often still get fun book report assignments, the higher grade students often get a dull worksheet where they have to describe the characters and give a summary. Change up your book report assignments with these creative, free & ready-to-use lesson ideas.

Take a look at all these ready-to-use and free digital book report activities. They’re all made with BookWidgets . You can even make exercises like these yourself in your own BookWidgets account.

Keep on reading to find out how to use these exercises in your lessons.

How did your students experience the book? Let them fill the glasses with drawings of the storyline/the book. The glasses represent the view of the students. Students can get really creative and use the toolbar at the bottom to draw and type.

You can ask your students to present their book report artworks to the other students as well. This way, your students can explain what’s on their drawing.

2. Bookworm

3. Timeline

This interactive book report asks your students to create a timeline of the story. When did what happen, chronologically? The have to add the biggest events in the story to the timeline.

4. Comic book

In this book report exercise, your students have to write a comic book based upon the book they’ve just read. When they click on the “start” icon, they can choose fitting text balloons to go with their story.

Here are three other fun websites that let students create comic books: Storyboard That , Comic Life , and Toonytool . They already give you creative templates and drawings. This is a bit easier for students. This way, they don’t have to start from scratch.

5. Character portrait

6. Randomness task

Just… add a little spice. I’ve turned the ordinary book report task, where students have to describe characters, the setting, plot, etc., into an exciting one. Your students don’t know yet what they’ll have to describe. They spin the randomness wheel and their task appears. The fun thing about this one is that all of your students will write a different book report.

7. Book cover

Here, students get to be creative and invent their own book cover (front and back) of the book they just read. Or maybe just a cover for of a piece of text you’ve read out loud. They can use the whiteboard tools: pencil, type tool, switch colors, add images, etc.

8. Character family tree

This digital mind map exercise allows your students to add boxes with text and connect them to each other. This is perfect for a book report activity focusing on the characters in their book.

9. Facebook Profile

Modern days call for modern book report lesson ideas. Image the main character having a Facebook profile. What would be on it? That’s exactly what your students have to figure out here. Create a Facebook profile about the main character.

10. Book Collage

Here, students have to add 10 pictures or images that have to do with the book. They can do so by clicking on the photo icon and adding images into their collage.

11. Mirror selfie

In this creative book report, students have to dress up like the character in their book, including holding 3 attributes that refer to the personality of the main character. They have to take a picture or mirror selfie of themselves dressed up, and add that picture to the whiteboard. You can ask them to come forward and present their images and explain why they’ve chosen those specific attributes.

The fun thing about all of these exercises is that they work on smartphones as well. So in this case, students can just open the exercise on their smartphones, take a mirror selfie with their phones and add it to the mirror in the digital whiteboard exercise.

12. Email to the author

Your students have the chance to write a friendly email or letter to the author of the book they just read. Students have to share:

• their opinion;
• the character in the book they liked most, and why;
• their favorite part of the book and why;
• questions that they have about the book.

If you have an email address of the author, ask your students to submit their works to you, the teacher, first. After having given feedback on their letters, they can make some changes and send it over to the author.

If you have the author’s postal address, it’s much more fun to write a classic letter.

13. Conversation between characters

There is something called a “texting thumb” or a “smartphone pinky”. This shows that students like to send texts. A lot of them. So why not include it in your book report lesson plan? In this digital book report, students have to invent a conversation between two characters in their book.

14. Movie vs. Book

A lot of books have a movie version too. If your students choose a book that also has a movie, it’s interesting to let your students make a comparison. With this book report exercise, you’re also sure your students actually read the book instead of just watching the movie and write a summary of the movie and not the book.

15. Emoji summary

The last exercise is also one students can relate to. Nowadays, we use emojis after almost every sentence when we’re communicating with friends. Emojis also have a strong meaning and can be used to express feelings or say something without actually saying it.

The complete collection of book report lesson ideas in one assignment

All these book report exercises are so much fun and yet they don’t take up a lot of time. Perhaps they just ask your students to only describe a certain part about the book. Cue… the planner widget.

With this type of BookWidgets activity, you can combine several lessons into one. You can let your students take matters into their own hands and choose which book report activities they’d like to finish.

It’s actually pretty easy. Your students read the instructions in the instructions widget and then start adding at least three book report activities to their planner. They finish the activities, submit them to their teacher, check off their planner, and that’s it!

Above, you can find the 15 ready-to-use book report activities. You can use these lesson examples for free. Since they’re all made with BookWidgets, I’ve listed them in this BookWidgets group . Here’s what you need to do:

• Click on this link . It will immediately bring you to the group with all of the book report activities. If you don’t have a BookWidgets account yet, you’ll have to sign up first for free .
• Duplicate all the book report activities. Click on the settings wheel , select all widgets , click on the settings wheel again, choose duplicate selected widgets . Choose where you want to save the activities in your BookWidgets account.
• Go to your saved book report lessons. You can now click on the black dropdown arrow next to the ‘Show’ button of a particular exercise and select Edit . You can make some changes to this activity (if you want). If it’s perfect for you, click on Share in the upper right corner.
• Share this link with your students. When they click on it, they can fill it out. A lot of the book report examples above have been made with BookWidgets’ Whiteboard widget, in which students can use the tool menu at the bottom to switch tools (draw, type,…), and to switch colors. When done, they can submit the book reports to you by clicking on the envelope in the upper right corner.
• As a teacher, you go to “Grades & reporting” in BookWidgets to find your students’ answers.

Of course, now that you’ve got your own BookWidgets account, you can also create book report activities or other assignments yourself!

Attention! Once your free trial runs out, you’ll only be able to use the widgets you’ve already finished/shared with students. While your BookWidgets account will still work and you’ll still get your students’ results with the free BookWidgets version, you won’t be able to duplicate widgets nor create new widgets yourself anymore.

So that’s it! I hope these lesson ideas are useful for your classroom or at least give you lots of new ideas for your book report lessons! You can even create ones yourself!

Create your first digital book report with BookWidgets

Have fun, share this with fellow teachers and keep on rocking your classroom!

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Good book report questions

Writing a book report is a common activity students are required to go through today. Reading is one thing but the ability to summarize and analyze information is totally different. One can read a lot of books but still be unable to develop a good book report due to the lack of knowledge of what it should look like. Therefore, students often seek book report help in order to understand how to write one. In this article we are going to provide some good book report questions that will provide guidance as to which direction to go when choosing a format of a book report. Even if you have never faced the challenge of writing one, it is most likely that you will soon receive such assignment. And it is always better to face it prepared knowing what to do. So keep reading to get to know more about how to develop a good one. Even if you have written one or many reports by now, you can still find out more to polish up your writing skills. Questions for a book report provided below will serve a good foundation for every student.

❓ How to Write a Good Book Report

There is a difference between a book report and a book review which everybody should know prior to writing any of these. They are not the same although there are some similarities. A lot of students mix them up turning in reports when reviews are requested and vice versa. Book reports are all about explaining topical details and the storyline of the book. Those writing this type of assignment are to present biographical information about the author of the book (year of birth, marital status, his/her education and worldview, etc.). After the biographical information, there should go a brief summary of the book content – the main characters and the development of the plot.

Now a book review is different as it requires an in-depth analysis in addition to the things mentioned in a book report. The bio of the author along with the summary of the story also belongs in the review but the attention paid to these things should not be so significant. In other words, these things are not central in writing a book review . Instead, they are all considered a background information upon which one may analyze and evaluate the book in general. A book review is then more about analysis and evaluation where students are required to identify the author’s main message and ideas as well as to understand the meaning of symbolic elements present in the text. Now as we have managed to draw the line of separation between a book report and a book review, we can move on to how to write a book report.

Book reports can be of different types and formats. Most common forms of book reports are plot summaries, theme and character analysis. This type of assignment will help you practice expressing your own opinion about different aspects of the text and eventually expressing your thoughts on pretty much any subject in future. But no matter what type of book report you are about to write, there are some common things you have to include into your paper:

• Specify the kind of book report
• Include the title of the book
• Put the name of the author
• Indicate the time when the story takes place
• Mention the location of the events taking place in the book
• List the names of the characters briefly describing each one of them (at least those you will be discussing in the report)
• Add quotations in order to back up your opinions

📄 Plot Summaries

This type of book report assumes one has to explain own opinions about the plot and why he/she believes so. Your purpose should be to describe and characterize the plot and back up your opinions by some examples from the book.

🖋 Character Analysis

Here you can explore the traits of the main characters and how they affect the development of the plot in the book. There are many things you can pay attention to when analyzing the characters, such as clothing, moral flaws, dialogues, actions, etc.

📗 Theme Analysis

This form of book reports allows exploring the themes and big ideas that are interwoven within the entire story. You can simply choose a theme that seems to be the most important or the one you like the most and try to bring some of your thoughts to highlight the topic.

📚 Book Report Questions

What can help you write book reports efficiently is the list of questions to direct your thinking and writing. You can google phrases like “book report questions for high school” or “book report questions for middle school” depending on what your level of writing is. But in order to save some time for you, we have decided to come up with our own list of questions that should help develop a good book report. Therefore, there is no need to type something like “write my book report” in a google search tab in hopes to find someone who will do it all for you. Instead, you may consider the questions to ask for a book report and try to write it on your own. Here is the list:

• What genre does your book belong to? Fiction, non-fiction, etc.
• Do you like the book? Why so? If yes, would you recommend it to your friends?
• Can you come up with another title?
• What is the setting/background information?
• Who are the main characters?
• Are the names of the characters in any way descriptive?
• How does the story start? Why do you think the author chose to start his book this way?
• How does the story develop?
• Did you have any associations coming to your mind when you were reading the story?
• Did you find anything funny in the story?
• What’s your favorite part?
• Is there a problem in the story? What is this problem?
• Do you think that the author could have come up with a better solution (if there is one)?
• Is there the main idea that you can identify?
• Can you identify the purpose of the book?
• What are the lessons the book teaches (if any)?
• Is the topic of the book important? Why?
• Did any of the characters in the book do something you did not quite like?
• Can you identify the main purpose of writing the book?
• Did the book help you generate new ideas?

✅ Final Remarks

Now that you know what book reports are all about, we recommend you to try and write one. But when we say “write one”, we don’t necessarily mean that the very first thing you have to do in order to produce a good book report is to take a pen and start writing something. There are other things one should do before writing. We suggest you jot down the information you would want to take special note of when reading the book. Keep this piece of paper next to you when you read a book. As you read, take notes of the plot, characters and the main idea. Then you can go through the questions listed above – they should help you understand the book better. When you are done with the questions, organize your thoughts into an outline and draft the book report. From there you have to only edit and revise the draft to produce a perfect paper.

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Choose Your Test

Sat / act prep online guides and tips, the 31 best books to read in high school.

Coursework/GPA

A huge number of books exist out there, ready and waiting for you to read them. Whether you prefer manga or ancient, epic poems, reading is great for all sorts of reasons .

What follows is a list of highly beneficial books to read in high school (or after!). These are remarkable books— books that made history, books that challenge societal perceptions of the world, and books that are quite simply interesting and moving. The books are presented in alphabetical order, and a short description is given for each book, as well an explanation of why it is worth reading.

Why Is Reading Important?

Why should you read these books? Why should you read at all for that matter? Reading is essential to communication, especially in an era of emails and texting. Beyond even that, though, reading has an array of crucial purposes. It will help improve your grades and test scores. You'll learn about other places, other times, and other cultures. You'll encounter issues you can relate to—issues that speak to you and challenge you to think and feel in new ways. You will grow, empathetically and intellectually. Plus, you'll understand more of the references that crop up all the time in pop culture.

Below are 31 books to read in high school that will help you prepare for college and beyond.

1984 (George Orwell)

This dystopian novel by George Orwell was written 35 years before the date referenced by the title. In this book, Orwell tells a story that warns readers about the possible consequences of complacency in the face of rising dictators (think Hitler and Stalin) and burgeoning technology ripe for misuse. He describes a world where everything is monitored, right down to citizens’ thoughts, and where any opposition to the ruling class is punishable by extreme measures. The oft-encountered quote, "Big Brother is watching," finds its origin in this novel.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain)

This sequel to Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is much graver in nature than its predecessor. There are still plenty of good antics worthy of a laugh, but it concerns itself largely with a young boy’s attempt to escape severe family dysfunction and the moral implications of his taking an escaped slave as a companion on his adventure down the Mississippi River. Readers should be warned that the " n -word" is used liberally throughout the novel, which tends to be jarring to many a modern ear.

Mark Twain wants you to read his novel(s).

The Awakening (Kate Chopin)

Set in the Creole culture of the late 1800s, this novel by Kate Chopin details one woman’s process of becoming aware of herself. At the time, women were essentially property, and they were expected to act in demure and socially acceptable ways. As the protagonist "awakens" to her emotional and sexual needs, as well as the ultimate truth of her own independence , all sorts of problems ensue. The novel examines the balance between self-respect and selfishness.

The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath)

This autobiographical novel by poet Sylvia Plath explores the deep, dark reality of mental illness. The protagonist, Esther, a stand-in for Plath herself, is a college student exploring her talents, interests, and sexuality as she descends into an unsettling spiral of mental instability. It is essential for students to understand the seriousness of mental illness as it is so earnestly portrayed in this book.

Black Rain (Masuji Ibuse)

Black Rain , by Masuji Ibuse, is about the very immediate, human consequences of the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It follows a small family of survivors, detailing what happened to them during the days of the bombing and what the effects are some years later. The book adopts a gentle, subtle tone, and yet it is not afraid to delve into very explicit and challenging topics related to the bombings.

Bless Me, Ultima (Rudolfo Anaya)

This semi-autobiographical novel by Rudolfo Anaya contains a healthy dose of magical realism and is considered a staple of Chicano literature. It combines Spanish, Mexican, and Native American influences, showing openly the ways in which these forces within the protagonist’s life come into conflict. Young Antonio is growing up in a world that leaves him with more questions than answers: major questions about life and death, good and evil, and so on. These issues seem too big for his six-year-old mind, and yet he grapples with them valiantly through the end of the novel.

Antonio has lots of questions surrounding his faith traditions.

Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)

In Brave New World , Aldous Huxley explores themes similar to those found in Orwell’s 1984 . Huxley wrote this novel earlier than Orwell wrote his, and yet both deal with dystopian concepts. In particular, Huxley balances utopian and dystopian interpretations of a world that is highly controlled, easily manipulated, and extremely dysfunctional, ready to fall apart at any provocation. There are insiders of and outsiders to this world, and each character views and interacts with the society in a different light.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (Dee Brown)

Dee Brown covers a lot of historical ground in this book. In it, Brown describes the history of European Americans as they interact with (and slaughter) the Native Americans who already inhabit what they claim as their country. It’s an infuriating and accurate tale of mistreatments and abuses, as well as the unfortunate decline of a noble people trying to defend their established way of life. It’s essential for students to understand this part of United States history.

The Catcher in the Rye (J. D. Salinger)

This bold and controversial novel by J. D. Salinger centers around ideas including adolescent sexuality and relationships. The protagonist is constantly bouncing around from person to person, place to place, activity to activity. Critics were greatly offended by Salinger’s frank discussions of sexual matters and his generally very casual style. This book is an important read in part because of its direct relevance to struggling adolescents and the issues they face.

The Crucible (Arthur Miller)

Arthur Miller wrote this tragic play in the early 1950s. While it is somewhat loosely based on the Salem witch trials of 1692, and while it is likely intended as an allegory to McCarthy’s rooting out of suspected Communists at the time of the play’s writing, the issues it touches on are much more broadly applicable. This is an important dramatic work on how hysteria, cruelty, and ignorant gullibility destroy communities.

Bonus: Studying The Crucible for school and struggling? Check out our The Crucible study guides here !

There are lots of accusations of creepy stuff in The Crucible.

The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank)

Anne Frank’s published diary is different from a typical literary work. It’s a true account of the life of one Jewish girl during the Holocaust, and, while Anne Frank wrote some passages with publication in mind, others she did not. When the book was first published, many passages that her father, Otto Frank, found too long, unflattering, or inappropriate were excluded. Today, the book is available with all material included. Gaining some understanding of this horrific genocide is crucial to students.

Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)

Books are on trial in this astounding work by Ray Bradbury. Set in yet another dystopian future where firemen are employed to burn books and the houses that contain them, Fahrenheit 451 tells the story of a fireman who begins to wonder what books have to offer. This novel is an ode to literacy, and, while it has its tragic moments, it ultimately leaves readers with a message of hope.

Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes)

Daniel Keyes writes a very warm and human form of science fiction in Flowers for Algernon . The novel tells the story of a man considered mentally retarded who is selected for an intelligence-enhancing surgery. The book follows the effects, both positive and negative, that come from the sudden change in his I.Q. This is a moving read for students who wish to understand how intelligence plays into our humanity.

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf (Ntozake Shange)

In For Colored Girls… , Ntozake Shange creates choreopoetry (poetry meant to be performed with movement and dance) that covers important themes of race, gender, abuse, and perseverance. It’s largely a deep and dark poem, but it contains a message of hope. This is an awesome opportunity for readers to get exposure to poetry in a very relevant and theatrical form.

The rainbow contains all sorts of symbolism.

Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)

First off, let’s all be clear: as some will already know, Frankenstein is not a monster. Rather, the very human Victor Frankenstein is responsible for creating what we recognize as the monster from the story; the creature itself is nameless. Mary Shelley wrote this Gothic thriller in the early 1800s, and yet we remain fascinated by this tale of playing God and facing the consequences. It’s an eerie tale with themes that run deep.

The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)

John Steinbeck’s masterful The Grapes of Wrath centers around the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl in American history. It’s a story of hope and despair, moving from one to the other and back again seamlessly throughout the novel. While loaded with biblical allusions, it is not heavy-handed with them, and the writing is often praised as realistic and beautiful.

Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)

Great Expectations , by Charles Dickens, is a staple of English literature. It’s one of his most autobiographical works; it tells the story of a young boy, orphaned and poor, who ultimately experiences a drastic change in his fortunes. In addition, he learns much about love, trust, and relationships in this coming-of-age novel. As the title suggests, the novel also contains discussions of hope, disappointment, and expectations.

The Great Gatbsy (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in The Great Gatsby a novel that in many ways closely reflected his own experience. The decadence of the Jazz Age was, as is revealed in the novel, both enticing for many and revolting for some. The Great Gatsby follows the quest of a wealthy young man to win back the love of his life by extravagant displays of riches and social connections. As the plot builds to its climax, readers, along with Gatsby's simpler, humbler friend and neighbor, are left to ponder the passing of an era in American history.

BONUS: Reading The Great Gatsby for school but finding it hard to keep track of all the characters? We have several study guides that might be able to help, including our guide to all the characters in The Great Gatsby .

The Joy Luck Club (Amy Tan)

Amy Tan’s novel, The Joy Luck Club , deals with intergenerational and intercultural questions. Tan seeks to represent the Chinese-American experience while also representing issues of mother-daughter relationships and the passage of time. The book focuses on four mother and four daughters across four sections of the novel for a total of sixteen stories that come together to complete this total work.

Lord of the Flies (William Golding)

William Golding’s Lord of the Flies speaks to the evil and degenerate potential that lurks within each human. It can be interpreted religiously, politically, psychoanalytically, or any number of other ways, but the basic premise is that a group of schoolboys stranded on an island descend into grotesque savagery. It’s a disturbing story, to be sure, but one that is important to be familiar with in a world where savage instinct too often presents itself today.

The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit (J. R. R. Tolkien)

As with any work, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are not everyone’s cup of tea, but they’re hugely rewarding pleasure reading for too many fans to count. Tolkien’s masterpieces are more than just pleasure reading, though; the trilogy covers major themes of the epic struggle between good and evil, the necessity of persevering through immensely difficult ordeals, and how to apply mercy. Tolkien asks major questions about those who are evil versus those who are misguided and what we should do when our paths intertwine with any such individuals. The Hobbit is lighter and more kid-focused, but still addresses important themes.

The Odyssey (Homer)

The Odyssey is an epic poem nearly three thousand years old that’s attributed to the blind poet Homer. It tells the story of a war hero’s ten-year quest to return to his home, wife, and son. He encounters a number of varied setbacks along the way, and the trouble isn’t over when he gets home. The Odyssey deals with human interactions with the gods, bringing up questions of righteousness, wrongdoing, and pride as well as ideas of faithfulness and patience.

Oedipus Rex (Sophocles)

This play by Greek dramatist Sophocles is about a man who inadvertently kills his father and marries his mother. It’s dark subject matter, and nothing good comes of it, as you may well suspect. This another example, as in The Odyssey , of the divine tinkering with human lives and the great sin of pride.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Ken Kesey)

Ken Kesey documents in this work the darkest side of mental health care as it existed in the 1960s. While certainly not all mental health care was like what’s described in the book, nor is it all like that today, audiences of the novel are aghast that any care might even vaguely resemble the horrors discussed. Despite how disturbing the storyline is, it’s important for readers to recognize the vulnerability of this too often overlooked segment of society.

Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice follows a family with five daughters, all unwed, and all, due to English customs of the late 1700s and early 1800s, in need of wedding. Of the five daughters, Elizabeth is the focus of the novel, though the others are discussed aplenty. While marriage is one of the central ideas in the novel, there are plenty of other themes to be picked apart, including ones that touch on pride, prejudice, first impressions, love, misunderstanding, and manipulation. This is, all around, a classic piece of literature, and one with which to be familiar.

Next up: one of my favorites, William Shakespeare.

Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet (William Shakespeare)

William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is familiar to most people on some level: two teenagers from feuding families fall in love and ultimately sacrifice their lives to their passion. Of all of Shakespeare’s works, it's a particularly popular one to read in high school for a variety of reasons. For one thing, it deals explicitly with teenaged love, and, for another, it’s a relatively simple plot that’s nonetheless action-packed. It also opens with a shameless series of very witty dirty jokes, and such humor is scattered throughout the rest of the show. Then there’s the thematic material, which includes obedience, fate, and rash decisions, among others.

For those who don’t wish to read about teenagers mooning for each other to the point of suicide, there’s always Hamlet . This story follows a Danish prince whose father has died and whose mother has almost instantly married the father’s brother. When Hamlet discovers, via an appearance of his father’s ghost, that his uncle murdered his father, all sorts of interesting events ensue. There’s madness (real and feigned), murder, suicide, treason, and a lot of waffling over the right course of action.

As an added bonus, those who read Hamlet may wish to read Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead . It follows the events of Hamlet from the perspective of two minor and typically much-maligned characters. It’s also hilarious, if absolutely weird.

Slaughterhouse-Five (Kurt Vonnegut)

Slaughterhouse-Five is a fictional account of events in some ways very similar to what the author himself experienced as a prisoner of war in WWII. He writes about the atrocities humans commit upon each other, and he also mixes in a number of other concerns, some heavy, some light, such as death, aliens, and the ability to see other points in time, past or future.

Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston)

The novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston has been much criticized over the course of its history, and yet it stands as one of the great classics of American literature. It tells the story of a black woman who is full of zest and passion and who is passed from man to man as she goes through life. With her first husband, she is absolutely miserable; with her second husband, it’s more bearable, for a time; and with her third man, she finds happiness. The trials and tribulations she undergoes with all three make for an interesting examination of what it takes for Janie to free the strong, confident woman within.

(Not an actual representation of Janie. Same approach to life, though.)

Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe)

In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart , readers encounter a complex and beautifully rendered examination of life with the Igbo tribe in Africa, both before and after the white man’s interference. Okonkwo is the protagonist, and he goes through a number of difficulties that put him in the position of making distasteful decisions. Readers are left to wonder whether things are falling apart because that’s simply the way of the world or whether different decisions could have kept them together. The inevitability of change is neatly demonstrated.

To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird deals with elements of racism, courage, sympathy, understanding, and hope. It tells the story of a small town where a black man has been falsely accused of raping a white woman. The daughter of the lawyer defending the accused is the main protagonist, and another aspect of the story is her journey from bemused mockery to gentle understanding with regard to an eccentric man in the town. To Kill a Mockingbird rose to prominence during the Civil Rights Movement and remains as potent today as it ever was.

The Ugly American (Eugene Burdick and William Lederer)

The Ugly American by Burdick and Lederer is a denouncement of the American practice of sending insensitive diplomatic figures into foreign countries. Through a series of vignettes, it demonstrates American inefficiency overseas. It so impressed John F. Kennedy while he was a Democratic senator that he sent a copy to each and every one of his Senate colleagues. It can be an uncomfortable read, but a worthwhile one.

If you can read through these 30-odd books before you graduate high school, you'll be in a good shape, from a literary perspective.

Even if you can't read all of them, picking a few would not be a bad place to start. You might start with those that simply sound the most interesting to you, or you could look for themes in the books that relate to what you're learning in school. If you're studying McCarthyism, for instance, maybe try The Crucible ; if you're studying the Holocaust, maybe try The Diary of a Young Girl .

These stories are immensely powerful. Some are newer, having instantly won their place in the pantheon of classics, while others have proven themselves by withstanding the test of time.

Readers will find that they resonate with some books more than others, and that's fine; the point is that all of these books have important messages to communicate, and I encourage readers to be open to finding out what those messages are.

Open a book, and you'll find all sorts of messages! Usually not in bottles, though.

What's Next?

A lot of these books may be read or referenced in AP English Lit classes. Check out our guide to AP Literature for tips on preparing for the exam. If you're not sure whether to take AP English Language or AP English Literature, allow us to provide you with some thoughts on the topic .

While we're on the topic of literature, why don't you take a moment to read some recommendations on which English classes you should take during your high school career?

Are you both a reader and interested in becoming a doctor ? Then you should definitely take a look at our list of books to read as a pre-med student .

And as a reminder, if you decide to read The Great Gatsby or The Crucible , you can check out our analyses of each to help you along the way!

Vero is a firsthand expert at standardized testing and the college application process. Though neither parent had graduated high school, and test prep was out of the question, she scored in the 99th percentile on both the SAT and ACT, taking each test only once. She attended Dartmouth, graduating as salutatorian of 2013. She later worked as a professional tutor. She has a great passion for the arts, especially theater.

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12 Creative Book Report Projects Your Students Will Love

Whether you’re teaching a whole-class novel, or finishing a round of independent reading or literature circles, post-reading assessments are always more engaging when they’re more than just a test or essay.

Below, you’ll discover a dozen fun book report ideas for your middle or high school ELA students, curated by a team of experienced English teachers.

Choose your favorite projects to offer to students as options on a book report project choice board.

Create a Board Game

When I gave “create a board game about the book you read” as a book report option for my students, I was pleasantly surprised at the results! Quite a few students excitedly chose this option and created some really fun-looking games centered on their books. 

This is a great project choice if you’re looking for something that students can’t create by just Googling the book.

Here are some tips and suggestions for assigning a board game book report:

• Give clear parameters and requirements to keep students on track, such as requiring game elements to represent certain literary elements of the book they read.
• Provide suggestions for game components and materials – encourage students to consider the game play and elements of their favorite board games and to use materials they already have at home to create them.
• For a whole-class novel study, consider allowing students to work in teams to create the novel-based board games, then setting aside a class period for students to play each others’ games and see who wins!

If you’re looking to save time… clear directions handouts, lots of suggestions, and a handy grading rubric for a board game post-reading assessment are all included in this resource . Take a look! 

For more independent reading response ideas, check out this post with ideas for fun post-reading projects.

Create a Journey Box

Engaging students in authentic conversations about books is a passion for Carolyn of Middle School Café .  In traditional oral book reports, students simply get up in front of the class and read a summary of the book they read.  Carolyn found this method of oral book reports painful for both her and her students.

Wanting to find a way to help her students talk about their book and keep her class engaged, Carolyn began incorporating Journey Box Book Reports.  A journey box is a shoebox (or bag) that contains artifacts from the story that help the reader share important events from the story. 

Students predetermine what events of the story are most important to share, then they create an artifact to share with the class or small group as they explain the plot.  As an example, Carolyn had a student who read The Diary of Anne Frank.   He created a small 3D tree that he displayed on the desk as he shared about how Anne looked out the window and dreamed of her former life.  It’s a small piece of the story that helps the student explain the plot point and gives the audience something visual to look at and stay engaged. 

Journey Box Book Reports have been successful for Carolyn in both her middle school and high school classrooms.  She does suggest, if using Journey Boxes in older grades, to have students share their stories in small groups.  

Create a Literary Food Truck

If there’s one thing kids love, it’s food – especially high schoolers – and with this in mind, one of Simply Ana P’s favorite ways to recap a class novel or an independent reading unit is with Literary Food Trucks. This is definitely not a new idea, but it’s one that will have you coming back for seconds 🙂 

Ana first tried this project at the end of The Odyssey , where students were able to decide which book(s) they wanted to make the focus of their trucks. The main requirement was that every single choice made had to be intentional and clearly relevant. With this in mind, students could start the planning process. 

You can make the truck’s requirements as simple or as detailed as you prefer, but Ana recommends having students plan: 

• Truck name, design, and branding colors
• Menu design and items (5 items minimum)
• Employee uniforms
• Merch 

Ana includes a writing component by having her students defend all of their selections in the form of a proposal. This is later used in their presentations, and the better (more intentional) their proposal is, the more likely they will win the class vote. This proposal can be anywhere from a few paragraphs to a few pages, depending on what writing goals you have for them, and should definitely include text evidence. 

Part of the beauty of this type of project is that it can be done digital or paper-based. Ana likes to walk her students through a Canva tutorial, where there are even menu templates that students can use so they don’t feel overwhelmed starting from scratch. Or, for more creative students, they can create their trucks on chart paper, poster board, or even 3D dioramas.  After students finish making their food trucks, it’s always fun to take a day for the in-class Food Festival, where students are invited to bring in items from their menus or simply some type of snacks. Some students get super hype about this day and even make/wear aprons or themed employee uniforms. Students are able to walk around, visiting each of their trucks, and casting their votes for Best Food, Most Relevant, and Most Detailed. Have fun and bon appetit !

Create a Mood Board

It can be hard to come up with creative post-reading assessments for your students when they’re done with a full class novel, literature circles, or a choice reading unit. In an attempt to combine 21 st century skills with literary analysis, Samantha from Samantha in Secondary decided to try something a little different. Enter: The Mood Board.

A mood board combines images to elicit a feeling from a viewer much like a writer does with words. The possibilities for using a mood board with your class are endless. Students can create a mood board for an overall book, a character, an event, a theme, a poem, etc. Then, have your students carefully curate a board that is aesthetically pleasing and considers color, space, and design in the execution. As students explain why they’ve made the choices they have, the upper-level thinking comes naturally.

Canva is an excellent tool to use to create your mood boards. Having students interact with software they may be unfamiliar with is a meaningful learning experience in and of itself. If you want to learn more about how to use mood boards in your own classroom, click here to read Samantha’s blog post about it or check out the resource she created that includes done-for-you student instructions, examples, and a rubric here .

Create a New App

How would a character’s life change if there was just the perfect app to solve their conflict??

This is the question Krista from @whimsyandrigor poses to her students as they finish a novel and begin to reflect on the character’s journey. Students begin by discussing all of the details surrounding the protagonist and what they experienced. In small groups and in whole-class discussions, students discuss the conflicts, both internal and external, and then brainstorm all of the realistic and not-so-realistic ways the character could have addressed their problems.

Once students have generated a healthy list of ideas, Krista tells them they get to become an app developer and they must create an app that would greatly benefit a character from their reading.

The requirements are:

• The app cannot already exist.
• The app can be totally unrealistic/not probable.
• The app developer must be able to explain how its features would benefit the character.
• The developer must also create an icon for the App Store.

Here is a print-and-go handout students use to get designing. 

Here are some example apps students could create: to help Will from Jason Reynolds’s Long Way Down , maybe an app that predicts his future would help him decide what to do once he steps off the elevator. Or maybe Romeo from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet would have benefited from a life-detection app that would accurately determine whether or not someone was actually dead.

When students sette on the conflict they want to address and the app that would help, they write a Spill the TEA paragraph, as explained by Krista in this YouTube video .  Using this paragraph organization strategy, students will introduce their app, use evidence to explain how it is necessary for the character, and explain how the app would have benefited or changed the protagonist’s journey.

Now they get to be a graphic designer as they design the app’s icon. Students may want to peruse the actual App Store to get ideas about how an icon is designed, what elements must be present, and how to create something that is eye-catching.

If space allows, Krista encourages you to display the icons and Spill the TEA paragraphs in the hallway for other students to see the in-depth critical thinking and character analysis your students did after finishing a novel. 

Who says technology is only a distraction for our students?! This activity proves technology can help students dive deep into a text and its characters!

Write a Vignette

Lesa from SmithTeaches9to12 often focuses on character-based activities for novel studies including a character profile activity , character conversations through text messages , or the writing of a good vignette. 

Vignettes can be a great way to assess students’ literary analysis skills and understanding of the text. Students write a short piece of about 500 words that is descriptive of a particular moment in time focusing on one of the book’s characters. These moments could be placing the character in a new setting, writing about a particular moment in the story that was less developed, or even extending to a moment beyond the book’s conclusion. Lesa provides students with some mentor texts, including “My Name” by Sandra Cisneros in The House on Mango Street or “The Prisoner Van” by Charles Dickens in Sketches by Boz or even one from a novel being read in class. Review the stories for structure, language choice, sentence structure, use of figurative language, and so on. This helps to co-create the criteria for the assignment. Then students write their own vignette. Build in some peer review as an accountability piece and voila!

Create a Character Collage

It’s safe to say that most English teachers have a bin of cut-up magazines somewhere in their classrooms. While these tattered copies of People and Us Weekly have definitely seen better days, they live on in the many collage creations of our students.

Katie from Mochas and Markbooks loves to use collages as visual representations of comprehension. After reading a novel or short story, creating a character collage to show how a character has evolved from beginning to end requires students to use higher order thinking skills to analyze, synthesize and demonstrate their understanding of characterization by dividing their page in half and choosing words and images to represent the character at the start and conclusion of the story on each side.

The results will show the depth of your students’ interpretation of character as well as their ability to use critical and creative thinking skills to represent their knowledge.

Other ways to use this idea instead of showing character evolution are to show two different sides to a character, for example, who they are with different people in their lives. 

If you are looking for other ways to incorporate collage and magazines into your post-reading assessments, check out this blog post for more ideas!

Design Shoe Charms

Crocs are not Olivia ’s shoe of choice, but when she noticed her students bedazzling their plastic footwear with shoe charms, it was a learning opportunity she just couldn’t pass up. Here’s how to make it work in your classroom:

First, have your students choose a character from the book they have finished reading. Then encourage them to find quotes from the book that reveal the character’s interests, values, or personality. Once they have found their quotes (she has her students find 4), tell them to design and color shoe charms that represent those interests, values, or personality traits. This helps students with inferencing, textual evidence, and even symbolism!

When your students have finished making their shoe charms, they can either tape the charms to their shoes for a fabulous, foot-themed fashion show, or they can glue them to a picture of a Croc for quirky classroom décor. Check out this Instagram post to see the charms Olivia’s students came up with!

Create a Movie Poster

When was the last time you went to the movies? Did you notice the posters along the way? If yes then you have walked down the movie studio promotional lane. Like trailers, studios create movie posters to grab the attention of movie-goers before they even enter the theater. Yes, you may have already purchased your movie ticket, but those posters were created for the future. After you finish watching Sonic 2 , what movie will you see next? You probably already pointed to that poster on the way into the theater and said, “That looks like it is going to be good. I want to see that!”   As a post reading idea, Sharena from The Humble Bird Teacher has her students create movie posters based on the text read in class. This allows her to complete a formative assessment on what the students learned from the text. Before having her class create a movie poster, she shows them examples of posters from different genres such as drama, action, family-friendly, and comedy. Then she hands out a piece of construction paper and goes over the basic requirements. On the movie poster, the students are required to have their actors names or image (characters), the title of the movie, a visual (setting or symbol from the story), and a tagline, and a short two to three sentence summary of the movie. Once her students are finished with the assignment, she displays them outside the classroom, so the students can have their own movie studio promotional lane.  If you are looking for more after reading ideas, click here .

Try Novel Engineering

Whether you’ve been hoping to collaborate with another department, or just really want to try something new, Novel Engineering is an amazing way to get students thinking outside of the box ! Staci from Donut Lovin’ Teacher has found that Novel Engineering requires students to actively comprehend and interact with a novel and get creative about how to help improve the lives of characters! Basically, students work to create a product that will help solve a character’s problem. Here’s how it works…

Before reading : Choose a narrative text where the character faces tangible conflicts. Model and practice the design process in small ways. Try using picture books like Mucha! Muncha! Mucha! in order for students to see and practice what they’ll be doing with a text at grade-level.

While reading : Emphasize the conflicts characters face and give students time to brainstorm possible products that would help solve said problem. Make sure students record evidence from the text so they can later justify the need for the product they design.

After reading : Give students time to draft, craft, and improve their designs that will help solve a problem faced by a character. You can give students options where they draw their creation, make their creation, or even plan a digital app like this, depending on time and resources. Whatever you choose, students will be sure to be pushed to use some skills they may not always practice in an ELA classroom!

Staci has some FREE Novel Engineering Digital Planning Pages or you can read more about her experience with novel engineering on the Donut Lovin’ Teacher blog .

Create a Tik Tok Video

How many times have you passed a group of students filming a TikTok in a hallway? Have you had students ask to film in your class once they finish assignments? You are not alone. Students love TikTok and Yaddy from Yaddy’s Room has figured out how to get students using TikTok for academic purposes!

Yaddy likes to challenge students to create TikTok videos that track a character’s development, encapsulates the main theme of the story, or that exemplifies a key conflict. These easy, low stress videos are great at getting even reluctant students to participate.

To incorporate TikTok videos as a means of assessing students after a novel or story, try the following steps:

1)      Get students to brainstorm which part of the novel they would like to use for their video.

2)      Ask students to start combing TikTok for an audio that fits with the portion of the text they chose

3)      Ask them to plan out how they will realize their vision

4)      Rehearse and film!

5)      Bonus: ask students to upload their videos to Google Drive and share the link with you so that you can make QR codes to post around your classroom!

Want to get started using TikTok videos for book reports? Check on Yaddy’s free planning sheet here !

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Blog – Posted on Thursday, Nov 11

The only book review templates you'll ever need.

Whether you’re trying to become a book reviewer , writing a book report for school, or analyzing a book, it’s nice to follow a book review template to make sure that your thoughts are clearly presented. 

A quality template provides guidance to keep your mind sharp and your thoughts organized so that you can write the best book review possible. On Reedsy Discovery , we read and share a lot of book reviews, which helps us develop quite a clear idea what makes up a good one. With that in mind, we’ve put together some trustworthy book review templates that you can download, along with a quick run-through of all the parts that make up an outstanding review — all in this post! 

Pro-tip : But wait! How are you sure if you should become a book reviewer in the first place? If you're on the fence, or curious about your match with a book reviewing career, take our quick quiz:

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Book review templates for every type of review

With the rapid growth of the book community on Instagram, Youtube, and even TikTok, the world of book commentary has evolved far beyond your classic review. There are now many ways you can structure a book review. Some popular formats include:

• Book reports — often done for school assignments; 
• Commentary articles — think in-depth reviews in magazines and newspapers; 
• Book blog reviews — short personal essays about the book; and
• Instagram reviews — one or two-paragraph reviews captioned under a nice photo. 

But while the text in all these review styles can be organized in different ways, there are certain boxes that all good book reviews tick. So, instead of giving you various templates to use for different occasions, we’ve condensed it down to just two book review templates (one for fiction and one for nonfiction) that can guide your thoughts and help you nail just about any review. 

⭐ Download our free fiction book review template  

⭐ Download our free nonfiction book review template  

All you need to do is answer the questions in the template regarding the book you’re reading and you’ve got the content of your review covered. Once that’s done, you can easily put this content into its appropriate format. 

Now, if you’re curious about what constitutes a good book review template, we’ll explain it in the following section! 

Elements of a book review template

Say you want to build your own book review template, or you want to customize our templates — here are the elements you’ll want to consider. 

We’ve divided our breakdown of the elements into two categories: the essentials and the fun additions that’ll add some color to your book reviews.

What are the three main parts of a book review?

We covered this in detail (with the help of some stellar examples) in our post on how to write a book review , but basically, these are the three crucial elements you should know: 

The summary covers the premise of the book and its main theme, so readers are able to understand what you’re referring to in the rest of your review. This means that, if a person hasn’t read the book, they can go through the summary to get a quick idea of what it’s about. (As such, there should be no spoilers!) 

The analysis is where, if it’s a fiction book, you talk more about the book, its plot, theme, and characters. If it’s nonfiction, you have to consider whether the book effectively achieves what it set out to do. 

The recommendation is where your personal opinion comes in the strongest, and you give a verdict as to who you think might enjoy this book. 

You can choose to be brief or detailed, depending on the kind of review you’re writing, but you should always aim to cover these three points. If you’re needing some inspiration, check out these 17 book review examples as seen in magazines, blogs, and review communities like Reedsy Discovery for a little variation. 

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Which additional details can you include?

Once you’ve nailed down the basics, you can jazz things up a little and add some personal flavor to your book review by considering some of these elements:

• A star-rating (the default is five stars but you can create your own scales); 
• A bullet-point pros and cons list; 
• Your favorite quotation from the book; 
• Commentary on the format you read (i.e., ebook, print, or audiobook);
• Fun facts about the book or author; 
• Other titles you think are similar.

This is where you can really be creative and tailor your review to suit your purpose and audience. A formal review written for a magazine, for instance, will likely benefit from contextual information about the author and the book, along with some comment on how that might have affected the reading (or even writing) process.

Meanwhile, if you’re reviewing a book on social media, you might find bullet points more effective at capturing the fleeting attention of Internet users. You can also make videos, take creative pictures, or even add your own illustrations for more personal touches. The floor is yours at this point, so go ahead and take the spotlight! 

That said, we hope that our templates can provide you with a strong foundation for even your most adventurous reviews. And if you’re interested in writing editorial reviews for up-and-coming indie titles, register as a reviewer on Reedsy Discovery !

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Need a summer read? Here are 17 books from our experts

If you’re lucky enough to have a quiet place to retreat from the heat this summer, we’ve got a symphony of suggestions for novels and nonfiction to keep you entertained.

WATCH: Amy Tan turns her literary gaze on the world of birds in ‘The Backyard Bird Chronicles’

Ann Patchett, acclaimed writer and owner of Parnassus Books in Nashville, and Gilbert Cruz, editor of The New York Times Book Review, recently joined PBS News Hour’s Jeffrey Brown to share their picks for summer reading.

”Sandwich” by Katherine Newman

“If you want a book that has you from ‘hello,’ this is the one. Family goes to the Cape every summer for two weeks. They have kids in their 20s, they have elderly parents and they eat sandwiches, they are very near Sandwich and they are the sandwich generation.” – Ann Patchett

“Sipsworth” by Simon Van Booy

“This is an elderly woman who’s very isolated. She meets a mouse, and the mouse brings all of these wonderful people into her life. It sounds hokey. It’s not.” – Ann Patchett

“Bear” by Julia Phillips

“Two young sisters working so hard in a very tough existence on an island off the coast of Washington. It all changes when a bear comes to their neighborhood and it drives the sisters apart.” – Ann Patchett

WATCH: How Raina Telgemeier’s graphic novels teach kids it’s OK to have ‘big feelings’

”Crook Manifesto” by Colson Whitehead

“If you want some mystery, some cops and robbers, some corruption, some great writing.” – Ann Patchett

“Swan Song” by Elin Hilderbrand

“I’ve only been to Nantucket for two hours on, like, the coldest day that I can recall, so I have no idea what it’s like to be there in the summer. But I sort of do, because I’ve read a dozen Elin Hilderbrand books.” – Gilbert Cruz

“Horror Movie” by Paul Tremblay

“This is about, essentially, an independent horror movie that was made years and years ago. A bunch of tragedies happened. It’s become a cult film. And the only person left from the production has started to encounter some weird things.” – Gilbert Cruz

“The Bright Sword” by Lev Grossman

“There have been many retellings of the King Arthur legend – books, movies, musicals. This one is sort of a sequel.” – Gilbert Cruz

“There’s Always This Year” by Hanif Abdurraqib

“This is a collection of essays about family and love and grief and fathers. But most importantly, it’s all woven together through the lens of basketball.” – Ann Patchett

“My Black Country” by Alice Randall

“Alice is a fiction writer and a scholar, but she is also the only Black woman to have written a No. 1 country song. This is a story of all the people who have been erased in country music’s past, and she is restoring them into the landscape.” – Ann Patchett

WATCH: Beyoncé brings new audience to country music and highlights the genre’s Black roots

”Consent” by Jill Ciment

“Jill Ciment was 16 years old when she first kissed her art teacher, who was 46. They got married and they stayed together until he died at 86. And it is her looking back on her life and thinking, ‘It was a happy marriage, but knowing what I know now, maybe there was something a little wrong about that?’”

And a bonus…

“Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma” by Claire Dederer

“…a great book that just came out in paperback that could be read as a companion piece.” – Ann Patchett

”The Future Was Now” by Chris Nashawaty

“The summer of 1982 – if you care about science fiction, fantasy, stuff like that – was one of the biggest summers of all time. So it had “E.T.”, “Poltergeist,” “Blade Runner,” “Tron,” a “Mad Max” sequel, a “Star Trek” sequel. And this is essentially a history of that summer, a history of those movies.” – Gilbert Cruz

“Cue The Sun! The Invention of Reality TV” by Emily Nussbaum

“Emily Nussbaum does an amazing job of sort of sketching that whole history and what they’re billing as sort of the first comprehensive history of this very important genre.” – Gilbert Cruz

And a few for the youngest readers…

• “The Old Boat” by Jarrett and Jerome Pumphrey (board book)
• “The Old Truck” by Jarrett and Jerome Pumphrey (board book)
• “Ahoy” by Sophie Blackall
• “Ferris” by Kate DiCamillo

In his more than 30-year career with the News Hour, Brown has served as co-anchor, studio moderator, and field reporter on a wide range of national and international issues, with work taking him around the country and to many parts of the globe. As arts correspondent he has profiled many of the world's leading writers, musicians, actors and other artists. Among his signature works at the News Hour: a multi-year series, “Culture at Risk,” about threatened cultural heritage in the United States and abroad; the creation of the NewsHour’s online “Art Beat”; and hosting the monthly book club, “Now Read This,” a collaboration with The New York Times.

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Five Books for People Who Really Love Books

These five titles focus on the many connections we can form with what we read.

My dad likes to fish, and he likes to read books about fishing. My mom is a birder; she reads about birds. There are plenty of books on both subjects, I’ve found, when browsing in a gift-giving mood. These presents don’t just prove I’m familiar with their interests. They’re a way to acknowledge that we read about our pastimes to affirm our identity: Fly-fishers are contemplative sorts who reflect on reflections; birders must cultivate stillness and attention. What we choose to read can be a way of saying: I am this kind of soul.

For my part, I like reading more than I like almost anything else. And so, in the manner of my parents, I like to read books about books . Writers who write about writing, readers who write about reading—these are people I instantly recognize as my kind. We’re people who are always in the middle of a chapter, who start conversations by asking, “What are you reading right now?” For us, a meta-book is like coffee brewed with more coffee. It’s extra-strength literature.

If you really love books, or you want to love them more, I have five recommendations. None of these are traditional literary criticism; they’re not dry or academic. They take all kinds of forms (essay, novel, memoir) and focus on the many connections we can form with what we read. Those relationships might be passionate, obsessive, even borderline inappropriate—and this is what makes the books so lovable. Finishing them will make you want to pick up an old favorite or add several more titles to your to-read list.

U and I , by Nicholson Baker

I can now say that I’ve been reading Baker for more than 20 years, or more than half my life. But I didn’t know that would happen when I found U and I in a college friend’s car, borrowed it, and never returned it. The subject, not the author, appealed to me then—I loved John Updike. And so did Baker, though love is probably not the right word. This book-length essay is not quite, or not merely, an appreciation of Updike; it’s a hilarious confessional “true story” of Baker’s anxieties, ambitions, competitive jealousy, and feelings of inadequacy in the face of Updike’s abundant body of work. It’s rich too, with wonderful observations on reading and writing in general, as in a passage considering how much more affecting a memoir becomes once the author is deceased: “The living are ‘just’ writing about their own lives; the dead are writing about their irretrievable lives , wow wow wow.”

A poem by John Updike: 'Half Moon, Small Cloud'

Dayswork , by Chris Bachelder and Jennifer Habel

I almost prefer to keep certain books on my to-read list forever, where they remain full of magical possibility and cannot disappoint me. Moby-Dick is one of them. What if, God forbid, I chance to read it at the wrong time or in the wrong place and it doesn’t change my life? So I turn to Dayswork instead, which feels like cheating—you get some of the experience of reading Moby-Dick without any of the risk. This very novel novel, written collaboratively by a novelist and a poet who happen to be married, is sort of a sneaky biography of Herman Melville, framed by a meta-narrative about a woman writing a book during lockdown. This narrator delivers a parade of delightful facts and quotes and anecdotes, which she’s been collecting on sticky notes. You could think of it also as a biography of Melville’s most famous novel, which has had its own life after his death and touched so many other lives. Dayswork is fragmentary, digressive, and completely absorbing.

Read: The endless depths of Moby-Dick symbolism

Written Lives , by Javier Marías, translated by Margaret Jull Costa

Marías is one of my favorite novelists, but I only recently encountered this work, a collection of short, dubiously nonfictional biographies in a very specific style. In the prologue, Marías explains that he had edited an anthology of stories by writers so obscure, he was forced to compose their biographical notes using odd, scanty evidence that made it all sound “invented.” It occurred to him that he could do the same thing for authors much more famous (Henry James, Thomas Mann, Djuna Barnes), treating “well-known literary figures as if they were fictional characters, which may well be how all writers, whether famous or obscure, would secretly like to be treated,” he explains. The result is marvelously irreverent, packed with unforgettable details (Rilke, supposedly, loved the letter y and used any excuse to write it) and endearing patterns (Marías would have us believe that many writers loathe Dostoyevsky). Written Lives immediately earned a spot on my shelf of most treasured objects, and every friend I’ve recommended it to has been equally enchanted.

Read: An introverted writer’s lament

Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You in Your Life , by Yiyun Li

This sad and incredibly beautiful memoir from a writer best known for her fiction takes its title from a line in a notebook by the New Zealand author Katherine Mansfield. For Li, correspondence, diaries and journals, and literature in general are forms of consolation and companionship that make life worth living even in times of overwhelming despair. The memoir is a record of the reading experiences that saved Li from a dangerous depression. It made me want to dig more deeply into the work of all her favorite writers—Thomas Hardy, Ivan Turgenev, Elizabeth Bowen, William Trevor—because she describes them so warmly and affectionately, as if they were friends. Here, as in her novels, Li is philosophical, with a gift for startling aphorisms: “Harder to endure than fresh pain is pain that has already been endured,” she writes. And “One always knows how best to sabotage one’s own life,” or “What does not make sense is what matters.” Li’s work is so moving and so very wise.

Madness, Rack, and Honey , by Mary Ruefle

The American poet Mary Ruefle is one of those writers people like to call a “national treasure,” which always has to do with something beyond brilliance or talent, an additional spectacular charm that makes you wish you knew them in “real life.” This collection of lectures on poetry and topics adjacent to poetry (sentimentality, theme, the moon) is the perfect introduction to Ruefle’s particular charisma. She’s unabashedly devoted to poets and poems, but you don’t have to love poetry to fall in love with her voice. She’s plainspoken yet mysterious, always asking curious questions, about death and fear and secrets, and then answering herself with surprising authority. Ruefle is inclined toward quirky asides, but all roads lead back to books: “I offer my dinner guest, after dinner, the choice between regular and decaf coffee, when in fact I don’t have any decaf in the house,” she writes. “I am so sincere in my effort to be a good host that I lie; I think this probably happens all the time in poetry.” Ruefle offers a beautiful example of how a life filled with reading opens and alters the mind.

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6 New Books We Recommend This Week

Suggested reading from critics and editors at The New York Times.

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Our recommended books this week lean toward the multinational: a historical novel set on a Swedish island, a World War II account of American military pilots navigating a treacherous route over the Himalayas, a novel about migrants flooding into a small Sicilian town and Joseph O’Neill’s new novel, “Godwin,” about a Pittsburgh man on the hunt for a rumored soccer superstar in West Africa. Also up, we recommend Carvell Wallace’s moving, joyful memoir and Kimberly King Parsons’s novel about grief and desire. Happy reading. — Gregory Cowles

GODWIN Joseph O’Neill

This globe-trotting novel from the author of “Netherland” chronicles the quest of a man named Mark Wolfe to find a mysterious soccer prodigy in West Africa and the unraveling of his workplace back in Pittsburgh. Mark shares narratorial duties with his colleague Lakesha Williams, who speaks first in “Godwin” and also gets the last word.

“Uses sports as a window on global realities that might otherwise be too vast or too abstract to perceive. … The book bristles with offhand insights and deft portraits of peripheral characters. It is populous, lively and intellectually challenging.”

From A.O. Scott’s review

Pantheon | $28

THE SILENCE OF THE CHOIR Mohamed Mbougar Sarr

Seventy-two migrants settle in a small Sicilian town in this polyphonic novel, which won France’s most prestigious literary prize in 2021 and is here translated into English by Alison Anderson. Sarr not only follows the newcomers, but also considers the inner lives of the villagers, whose reactions vary considerably.

“Sarr points honestly and often brilliantly to the divisions between us and the world’s ragazzi, and in that empty space he offers a dozen different ways of seeing not only the other side, but ourselves as well.”

From Dinaw Mengestu’s review

Europa | Paperback, $18

SKIES OF THUNDER: The Deadly World War II Mission Over the Roof of the World Caroline Alexander

After the loss of a land route through Burma in 1942, Allied forces had to fly supplies over a treacherous stretch of the Himalayas to support the Nationalist Chinese government in its war against Japan. Alexander’s vivid retelling of this aerial feat is matched only by her exquisite rendering of the pilots’ fear.

“Riveting. … What unites this book with the author’s previous work is a fascination with human behavior in extremis.”

From Elizabeth D. Samet’s review

Viking | $32

WE WERE THE UNIVERSE Kimberly King Parsons

Reeling from the sudden death of her sister, a young Texas wife and mother lets her mind run freely to the siblings’ shared rebellious past — and her own present catalog of pansexual longings — in Parsons’s witty and profane debut novel, a tender, exuberant and often profoundly moving follow-up to her lauded 2019 story collection, “Black Light.”

“The ride could not be more rewarding; Parsons’s transgressive boldness allows us to feel the soul in places that moderation simply cannot reach.”

From Alissa Nutting’s review

Knopf | $28

ANOTHER WORD FOR LOVE: A Memoir Carvell Wallace

Wallace, a gifted journalist and essayist who came to writing in midlife, explores what it means to be a Black man, partner and parent in the world. While he is unstinting on the tribulations of his unstable childhood, — a troubled single mother, intermittent homelessness and mental health struggles — the reflections here are threaded through with rare, soulful vulnerability and a persistent sense of joy.

“Each anecdote continues to move the reader and implore us all to remember to connect. … This book is funny and heartbreaking, religiously vivid and lovingly open.”

From James Ijames’s review

MCDxFSG | $28

THE BLUE MAIDEN Anna Noyes

This haunting debut novel explores the sinister effects of a legacy of century-old witch hunts on a remote island in Sweden. At its center are a pair of sisters descended from one of the few women to be spared. Left to their own devices, Ulrika and Bea piece together their legacy and, over time, inflame their pastor father’s paranoia

“It isn’t until Bea marries and becomes a mother that her family’s secrets will be fully revealed. By then, of course, the damage has already been done.”

From Alida Becker’s historical fiction column

Grove | $26

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Books We Love

Npr staffers pick their favorite fiction reads of 2024.

Meghan Collins Sullivan

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Even hardworking news journalists by day need a break from reality in their off hours. In our newsroom at NPR, there are some omnivorous fiction readers. We have fans of romance, historical fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and more. We asked our colleagues what they've enjoyed reading most this year — and here are the titles they shared. (And, OK, yes, we read plenty of nonfiction, too, because NPR gonna NPR. You can see that list here. )

Realistic Fiction

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All Fours: A Novel by Miranda July All Fours is a coming-of-age novel for perimenopause. The story follows an unnamed narrator as she begins a cross-country road trip away from her husband and child, but she pulls over to stay in a motel 30 minutes from her house instead. This “trip” still changes her life — through an infatuation with a younger guy who works at a car rental place, she begins a new intimacy with herself, too. I’ve read all of Miranda July’s books, and she’s always doing weird and imaginative things with her characters. This story has all of July’s usual eccentricity, but it also brims with the excitement and fear and possibility that comes with entering the unknown of life’s latter half, especially for women. It felt singularly fresh, and perfectly enjoyable. — Liam McBain, associate producer, It's Been a Minute

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American Spirits by Russell Banks The three stories in this collection are set in a fictional town, but seem so familiar: a local guy who got in a dangerous beef with an out-of-towner that bought up his family’s property and then refused to let him hunt on it; a family that adopts several children then purposely crashes their van off the highway; grandparents who are scammed by people claiming to have kidnapped their grandson. The late Russell Banks’ final writings are a masterful exploration of these kinds of tales, looking at the motivations of ordinary people in a world that’s become increasingly polarized and deeply troubled. —  Melissa Gray,  senior producer,  Weekend Edition

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Behind You Is the Sea by Susan Muaddi Darraj If you want to know the challenges that Palestinian Americans face in the U.S., you must read this book. It follows several families in Baltimore as they wrestle with poverty, religion, living in between two cultures and their pursuit of the American Dream. There is Marcus, a cop who stands up for his Arab sister who is dating a Black man; Samira, who is shamed for being a childless divorcee (despite that she is a successful lawyer); Layla, a high school student who pushes back against the drama club's production of Aladdin , which she says perpetuates racist stereotypes about Arabs. How their lives intersect will leave you at the edge of your seat. — Malaka Gharib, digital editor, Life Kit

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Come & Get It by Kiley Reid Told through multiple perspectives, I could not put this snappy page-turner down even though I had no idea where it was going until its jaw-dropping crescendo. Set at the University of Arkansas, this story follows several college students and a writing professor over the course of a year, largely through the lens of their relationship with money — how it motivates them, how it gets them into and (for some) out of situations — as well as race, sexuality, power and social status. As a southerner and the graduate of a southern university, I found myself nodding along excitedly to Reid’s apt depictions of contemporary southern culture. —  Beck Harlan,  visuals editor,  Life Kit

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Dead in Long Beach, California: A Novel by Venita Blackburn A woman named Coral finds the body of her brother after his suicide, but she doesn't tell anyone right away. Instead, she begins to inhabit his life through his phone, as if she can keep him alive by answering his texts. But what makes the book even odder, even more ambitious, is that it is narrated in the detached voices of automated beings from the future who are all that's left after humanity has wiped itself out. This combination of almost unbearable intimacy and arm's-length anthropology has an explanation of sorts. But more importantly, it serves both to add considerable humor to the text (what would a robot think of human frailty, after all?) and to render Coral's situation more confusing, more disorienting. It's a sad story, but it's also a ride, and that's a tough combination. — Linda Holmes, host, Pop Culture Happy Hour

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The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years: A Novel by Shubnum Khan The djinn of the title — I pictured a depressed Grinch — haunts this comforting dose of tropes: A girl with a deceased mom moves into an old, possibly magic house with an inaccessible area. Blocked-off rooms being irresistible to teenage main characters, Sana Malek digs her way in, uncovering a tragic family secret or two. The twists and revelations that follow aren't exactly jaw-dropping, but are emotionally wrenching enough to clear out the old tear ducts without leaving a grief hangover. — Holly J. Morris, digital trainer

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The Extinction of Irena Rey by Jennifer Croft This is book has so many layers! Let’s start with the premise. Eight translators meet up at the home of a famous Polish novelist to translate her latest work — which is apparently so brilliant it could change the world! — into their respective home languages. But their beloved author goes missing, setting off their search for her in the nearby Białowieża forest — filled with so many layers of wilderness! The narrator is the Spanish translator, but we’re reading the story in English — it’s been translated by the English translator. Those two don’t get along. More layers! If you like language, literature — and fungi — this wild ride of a very esoteric mystery is for you. — Elissa Nadworny, correspondent

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Great Expectations by Vinson Cunningham Vinson Cunningham worked on the 2008 Obama campaign, so it's no surprise that this coming-of-age story follows a young man working on a thinly (very thinly) veiled version of that very undertaking. It would be easy to make a story like this either a cynical and cutting takedown of politics or a starry-eyed and idealistic discovery of meaning. It's neither. It presents this campaign as a formative stage in the life of a young person who sees what goes into the successful gathering of power, ugly and impressive as it can be. Full of sharp observations about our precarious system of government, it's also insightful about race and wealth and the relationship between the two. — Linda Holmes, host, Pop Culture Happy Hour

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Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K. Reilly The loving family at the heart of this very funny and moving novel about a brother and sister is so complex that I drew a diagram — no fooling — halfway through, the better to solidify in my mind ideas like, "Valdin recently broke up with his older boyfriend, who is also his uncle's husband's brother." But despite the messy structure of things, every bond in the book is written to be precious and specific. Greta & Valdin is the rare story to live up to its fearless promotional copy, which calls it a cross between Schitt's Creek and Normal People. Perhaps that sounds impossible; that's what makes it so good. — Linda Holmes, host, Pop Culture Happy Hour

Headshot: A Novel by Rita Bullwinkel Headshot is a real one-two punch of a novel. Eight teenage girl boxers have come to Bob’s Boxing Palace in Reno, Nevada, for the 12th annual Women’s 18 & Under Daughters of America Cup. As each fight plays out in the ring — sometimes brutally, ferociously — Rita Bullwinkel brings to life the internal monologues of the girls. They recite the digits of pi, think about their pasts, their futures, their dreams of being the best in the world — and also of making their opponents chomp on a mouthful of pennies until their teeth break. Bullwinkel’s dynamic writing — moving back and forth in time, in and out of the boxing gym — and short, punchy sentences are a perfect mirror of the girls’ jabs in the ring. It’s a knockout. — Samantha Balaban, producer, Weekend Edition

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Henry Henry by Allen Bratton Hal is a profane mess, kind of like Shakespeare’s Prince Hal, on whom he’s based: The 20-something is careening through life fueled by drugs, booze, cigarettes, and loveless sex. He both flaunts and loathes his class status, his family’s fortune, and his future as Duke of Lancaster, along with a flat-out-refusal to live up to his father’s expectations. Hal is so wholly unsympathetic that if not for the brilliant writing, you might just give up before discovering the shocking violation at the root of his self-destruction. How can he finally become his own person? This isn’t an easy read. It’s at times dark and highly upsetting, but the author makes you stick with it in hopes of seeing Hal finally grow up. —  Melissa Gray,  senior producer,  Weekend Edition

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Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo This is one of those beautifully written, keenly observed novels where not that much happens — other than, you know, life itself — but also so much happens. Julia Ames is experiencing a midlife plateau when an announcement from her son sets her reeling, and reflecting on all the relationships — past and present, familial, intergenerational, romantic — that have shaped her life including: Mark, her near-perfect husband; Anita, her near-imperfect mother; and Helen, the older woman who saves Julia in the early days of motherhood. Though the dynamic between Julia and her “spiky” teenage daughter is my personal favorite, Claire Lombardo has written a whole cast of characters so detailed, so specifically themselves, that you almost feel you could reach out and touch them. — Samantha Balaban, producer, Weekend Edition

Victim: A Novel by Andrew Boryga Lying is kind of funny. The stress of someone jumping through increasingly wild hoops to avoid getting caught in a lie is hilarious. Victim is about Javi, a writer from a marginalized community, who fudges his way into the kinds of rooms where people say “marginalized” and “community” a lot. The book is a charming critique of the publishing industry and its surface-level attempts at righting societal ills (which, kind of bold for a debut author), while also staying empathetic towards the well-meaning individuals who give Javi a shot. —  Andrew Limbong,  correspondent,  Culture Desk , and host, NPR's Book of the Day

Romance & Relationships

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Annie LeBlanc Is Not Dead Yet by Molly Morris What happens when your former best friend comes back from the dead, but only for 30 days? That’s what Wilson needs to figure out when her friend Annie is brought back as part of a local custom in her small California town. To complicate things more, their friend, Ryan apparently hates them both. Wilson is determined to fix things before Annie returns to — well, being dead. This is a beautifully poetic YA work about female friendships, with a touch of magical realism and laugh out loud humor. The dynamic between the trio is filled with teenage angst, love and forgiveness. It considers a common dilemma: How do you accept change when it means giving up what you love? — Hafsa Fathima, production assistant, Pop Culture Happy Hour

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Birding with Benefits by Sarah T. Dubb This sweet, fake-relationship romance follows the recently divorced empty-nester Celeste as she navigates life as a single woman, once again. This time around, she’s saying yes to life and shaking things up. She didn’t expect the shaking to bring in the sensitive, gentle giant that is John. Or his deep love of birds. Come for the romance but, beware, you might find yourself falling in love with John’s quiet, colorful world of birding yourself! — Christina Cala, senior producer, Code Switch

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Girl Abroad by Elle Kennedy Girl Abroad starts with Abbey Bly, 19 years old, ready to step away from her adoring, yet overprotective, father when she is given the chance to study abroad in London. There’s just one hitch: Abbey believes she'll be living with girls there — but arrives to find out all her flatmates are boys. She decides to step into her new-found independence (and hide this fact from her father). Elle Kennedy has written an enjoyable coming-of-age story filled with humor, drama, romance, and a found family. Readers will enjoy the way Kennedy deviates from her usual steamy-angst-centric stories for one with deeper emphasis on self growth, relationship dynamics and figuring out not only who you are, but what you want. — Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez, audio engineer

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How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang If a '90s rom-com grew up and went to therapy, this sparkling book would be the result. After penning a popular YA book series, Helen Zhang gets a seat in the writers' room where it’s being adapted into a TV show. Unfortunately, Grant Shepard, is also one of the writers in that room. Grant was the charming homecoming king at their high school whereas Helen was awkward and introverted. He's also the reason Helen's sister is dead — kind of. It’s been years since the accident, but the writers' room reopens old wounds and forces Helen and Grant to be vulnerable with each other. Even as Helen wrestles with their past, the two begin a present-day romance that is sexy and tender. This book is a raised glass to second chances and late bloomers. — Lauren Migaki, senior producer, Education

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Say You'll Be Mine: A Novel by Naina Kumar It's a familiar South Asian story: Two people finally relent to their parents' wishes of meeting a potential marriage partner. But Say You'll Be Mine is so much more than that. Meghna is in love with her best friend, who is engaged to someone else. Karthik is an engineer who doesn't really want to get married. But as the two discover, a fake engagement between them may be the answer to their problems. Naina Kumar writes a funny, heartwarming tale, filled with sizzling chemistry. It's hard to not root for them from page one, as they slowly fall in love. It's an incredible book that tackles the merits and shortcomings of culture, finding an identity and of course, true love. — Hafsa Fathima, production assistant, Pop Culture Happy Hour

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Sex, Lies and Sensibility by Nikki Payne Set in the heart of vacationland, Nora Dash and Ennis “Bear” Freeman are both fighting uphill battles. After her dad dies, Nora inherits some serious family drama — and a rundown cottage in Maine. Now, Nora and her sister have just months to turn the place into a successful resort. Meanwhile, Bear’s struggling with his own business of guiding visitors through his native Abenaki land. The tours take him through Nora’s backyard and the two team up. Their chemistry is off the charts as they spend hours working and finding stress relief in long runs through the Maine woods. But both are keeping secrets, and have let shame work its way through their lives like an invasive species. The two have to figure out how to move forward once those secrets spill out. — Lauren Migaki, senior producer, Education

Historical Fiction

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Cahokia Jazz: A Novel by Francis Spufford It's 1922 and, in this alternate-history detective story, Cahokia isn't a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Illinois. It's a thriving Indigenous-owned and operated city and state with a strong Catholic presence, plus Klansmen, bootleggers and other undesirables. If you try to skim, you'll get lost in the how-deep-does-this-go corruption, careful world-building and sprawling cast. The naive main character, jazz-playing police detective Joe Barrow, shoves his way through exposition, fight scenes, maybe-occult doings, local royalty and personal angst, all backgrounded by a Roaring Twenties aesthetic portrayed in loving detail. Maps and excerpts from (made-up) primary sources will guide you through — if you pay attention. If you're me, you'll take notes. — Holly J. Morris, digital trainer

Clear: A Novel by Carys Davies It’s the 1840s, the last and most brutal years of The Clearances, when Scottish landowners began replacing unprofitable tenants with sheep. Based on that real history, Clear is a novel about a minister, John, who has been dispatched to clear a remote island of its last remaining inhabitant, Ivar. Except just after he arrives, John slips and falls off a cliff. Ivar finds John, nurses him back to health, and invites him into his life; Ivar begins to teach John the many words that all mean some variation of “rough seas” in Norn (a real language), and the pair learn to communicate roughly, but with an unexpected depth. What follows is perhaps the most tender, beautiful story about the connection between two people and what they must overcome to find each other — in every sense of the word. — Samantha Balaban, producer, Weekend Edition

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Enlightenment by Sarah Perry You know that feeling — when you are fascinated by someone all the more because you don’t fully understand them? That’s how I feel in English author Sarah Perry’s “presence.” Enlightenment is a tale of two friends, different generations but hailing from the same small Essex town and even smaller congregation. There’s a mystery involving a woman astronomer — but mainly there’s empathy for the complexities of people’s identities and belief systems, a sense of home, and loads of gorgeous writing. —  Shannon Rhoades,  senior editor,  Weekend Edition

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The Fox Wife: A Novel by Yangsze Choo There’s a little bit of mystery and mysticism on every page of this book. Set in China in the early 1900s, the books centers around two characters in separate, but connecting narratives. A fox masquerading as a young woman that’s set out to avenge her daughter’s death and a detective with an affinity for foxes who is working a murder case. It’s clever and observant, with twists and turns and just the perfect amount of folklore to keep you asking: What is real and what is imagined? — Elissa Nadworny, correspondent

Hard by a Great Forest by Leo Vardiashvili Hard by a Great Forest has all the ingredients of a dark and twisty fairy tale: A mysterious disappearance, a post-war city teeming with danger, a scavenger hunt, riddles, a road trip, escaped zoo animals, an orphan, and a title echoing the first line of Hansel and Gretel. It’s loosely based on author Leo Vardiashvili’s life — he lived through Georgia’s civil war and immigrated to the UK as a refugee in the mid '90s. It’s two decades later in the novel when Saba’s father is pulled back to their homeland in search of something — before promptly disappearing. His last message to his son: Do not follow me. But Saba (of course) follows his breadcrumb trail of clues and, along the way, is forced to confront the question: Can you ever really go home again? — Samantha Balaban, producer, Weekend Edition

James: A Novel by Percival Everett The jokes in James range from chin scratchers to knee slappers to gut busters. Although I’m not sure Percival Everett would even classify them as “jokes.” In his re-imagining of the Huckleberry Finn story, Everett mines language, history and irony to showcase brutal truths about America. And yes, it’s often funny. But, like the original source material, things can quickly turn deadly serious depending on how the river flows. The novel is thrilling, hilarious, heartbreaking, and a strong argument for Everett as one of the best doing it right now. —  Andrew Limbong,  correspondent,  Culture Desk , and host, NPR's Book of the Day

Memory Piece: A Novel by Lisa Ko This is a coming of age story about three friends growing up in and around New York City in the 1990s. Their friendship evolves over the decades as they experiment with, and push the boundaries of, art, performance and technology. I loved that the book makes art feel real and weird and kind of gross — not glamorous and sugarcoated. — Elissa Nadworny, correspondent

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Swift River by Essie Chambers After her beloved father mysteriously disappears, Diamond and her mom find themselves living hand to mouth in a faded New England mill town where Diamond is the lone Black resident. Why did a previous generation of Black families abandon it? This propulsive and poetic first novel, by an accomplished documentary film producer, grounds a tender coming-of-age narrative in a history of migration, marginalization and imagination. Threaded through every step of Diamond’s journey is her deadpan wit; of one ramshackle dwelling, she observes, “the whole house looks like it’s having a cigarette.” And she reflects, when a heartbreaking legal issue is finally resolved, “That was the thing about a racist town. It got to decide when it would be kind.” — Neda Ulaby, correspondent, Culture Desk

Table for Two: Fictions by Amor Towles The first half of this jaunty short-story collection takes place in New York. Among the memorable characters are a Russian immigrant whose chief role in life is to stand in lines; a young antiquarian bookstore employee who gets more than he bargains for in his desire for life experience; and a seemingly straight-laced family man with a big Wall Street job, whose secret pastime, once discovered, upends his and his loved ones’ lives. The second half, devoted entirely to the novella “Eve in Hollywood,” is set in Los Angeles during Tinseltown’s Golden Age. The pithy, film noir-ish thriller picks up where the author’s 2011 novel Rules of Civility left off — with the plucky, scar-faced adventuress, Evelyn Ross, deftly saving the honor of a host of Hollywood starlets. — Chloe Veltman, correspondent, Culture Desk

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The Women by Kristin Hannah "You’re only going to be a nurse until you get married,” her mother said. But Frankie McGrath had other ideas, ones that would lead her away from her wealthy family’s conservative outlook on how daughters should behave. Kristin Hannah’s The Women follows young Frankie’s transformation, when after working as a nurse in California and tending to a wounded soldier, and missing her soldier brother, she joins the Army as a nurse. That takes her from a comfortable life of known expectations, to one of the chaos and danger of war, new career opportunities and love. Tangled love. When Frankie returns home, she finds her country still protesting the war, and those who served. The Women shines a light on a then little-known aspect of the war: the women who also served in Vietnam, as nurses. — Jeanine Herbst, news anchor

You Dreamed of Empires: A Novel by Álvaro Enrigue, translated by Natasha Wimmer This salty and dark historical fantasia feistily explodes well-worn textbook narratives about the meeting of the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés and his captains with the Aztec emperor Moctezuma and his entourage in Tenoxtitlan — now Mexico City — in 1519. Álvaro Enrigue’s depiction of the stressed out, clumsy Cortés and the drugged out, mercurial Moctezuma sets these near-mythical figures into earthy relief. But it’s mostly the intrigues and machinations of these leaders’ canny consorts — the Aztec princess Atotoxtli and the conquistadors’ translator Malinalli — that power the plot. Natasha Wimmer’s English translation sharply delivers the novel’s poetic and witty qualities while at the same time reveling in its core theme: the fundamental untranslatability of human experience. — Chloe Veltman, correspondent, Culture Desk

Mysteries & Thrillers

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Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra Nightwatching begins with a scene straight out of a nightmare: A woman is at home with two sleeping children when she hears the footsteps of an intruder on the stairs. The story that follows is by turns suspenseful, uncomfortable and enraging. Tracy Sierra skillfully uses the home invasion to explore the terrifying responsibility of motherhood and to expose the pure horror of being a woman in a society that does not always choose to believe women. — Julie Rogers, historian and curator, NPR Research, Archives & Data strategy

The Hunter by Tana French Set in the hills of Western Ireland, this novel picks up the story of characters introduced in 2020’s The Searcher — retired American detective Cal Hooper and Trey, a teen girl he’s taken under his wing. As French revisits the seemingly bucolic landscape where trouble roils just under the surface, her writing continues to shift from mystery to meditation. While there’s still a knot of questions about crimes — including both fraud and murder — to be untangled, this novel is ultimately about belonging; the ways in which families do, and don’t, owe each other debts; the communities we resist, alienate, or become a welcome part of. Morally shaded and complex, it will leave you thinking about who’s right — and what’s wrong — long after you turn the last page. — Tayla Burney, director, Network Programming & Production

Sci Fi, Fantasy, Speculative Fiction & Horror

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Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker-Martin Cuckoo is an ingeniously scary novel about a group of kids sent to a conversion camp in the '90s. There’s the terror of the socially accepted abuse the kids face (both at the camp and at home) because they are queer, but there’s yet another horrifying entity preying on them, and trying to make them — different. Felker-Martin’s sharp novel takes on the particular vulnerability of queer kids and the body-snatching that is conversion therapy, and she does it with equal measures of tenderness and grotesquery. As harrowing and disgusting as it is, I also found it quite insightful and beautiful — and for that reason, Cuckoo is a great work of horror. — Liam McBain, associate producer, It's Been a Minute

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

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It is the Spanish Golden Age, and kitchen maid Luzia has secrets to hide: her skill at magic and her Jewish heritage. When her employer discovers her spells, Luzia is entered into a tournament to find King Philip, who hopes to increase his military standing, a champion. She is trained by the strange creature Santángel, an immortal with a mysterious past. This is a gorgeously lush, vividly written book that shines with its strong cast of characters. Luzia is a hero you’ll find yourself rooting for right from the start, and the magic system in this world is a breath of fresh air. Once again, Leigh Bardugo proves she never misses the mark when it comes to intricately building fantastical worlds — leaving you thinking about them long after the last page is turned. — Hafsa Fathima, production assistant, Pop Culture Happy Hour

The Husbands: A Novel by Holly Gramazio Lauren leaves her London flat for a bachelorette party one night only to discover a husband at home awaiting her return. Not only was she not married when she left for the night, she doesn’t recognize this man. Slowly she works out that he’s not a threat — and that all evidence on her phone, in conversations with friends and neighbors, and in their apartments points to him being fully integrated into her life. And there he is until he goes into the attic and a different husband emerges, slightly — or drastically — altering Lauren’s life. The pattern continues as Lauren searches for metaphysical clues to what’s going on and wrestles with how to know, if she can ever know, which life is right for her. A rare combination of the truly hilarious and profound. — Tayla Burney, director, Network Programming & Production

The Ministry of Time: A Novel by Kaliane Bradley You’d think a novel about the bureaucracy of a time-travel government agency might be kinda, boring? But from the moment you meet the book’s enigmatic protagonist — as she starts a new job in the UK’s top secret new time travel agency — to the introduction of the dashing Graham Gore, an 1847 arctic explorer plucked through time, you'll be hooked. Come for the romance, stay for the unraveling of a mystery, the nuanced, genre-bending treatises on race and identity, and the long-lingering ideas on colonialism, empires and the mutability of history. — Christina Cala, senior producer, Code Switch

A Short Walk Through a Wide World: A Novel by Douglas Westerbeke It's the year 1885, in Paris, when 9-year-old Aubry Tourvel encounters a mysterious, wooden, puzzle ball: It may be a blessing or a curse, but it most definitely changes her life. Now she needs to keep moving forever; too long in any one town and she will bleed to death. So her life is all travel and adventure, and through her we wonder at the richness of the globe’s markets, towns, forests and deserts. Over many decades, she meets all types of kind and curious people — as well as cruel and uncaring ones. Sometimes Aubry enjoys quick communion with strangers. Other times, she is surrounded but desperately lonely. This is a ravishing, deeply human book that’s in love with the world, with people, with the new — and yet is infused with a deep, futile longing for home. — Jennifer Vanasco, editor and reporter, Culture Desk

What to read if you're fresh out of a toxic relationship

In the mood for a good book but don't know what title to pick? The Novel Neighbor is here to help.

The independently owned and operated bookstore in St. Louis puts its well-read booksellers' expertise to the test with their popular Mystery Box program. Readers write in, sharing details about the kinds of books they're looking for, sharing biographical details and personal tastes to help the bookish wizards find just the right match.

Each week, The Novel Neighbor is sharing a new Mystery Box recommendation to help readers find just the right books to fit their mood.

To order your own Mystery Box, visit thenovelneighbor.com.

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Dear bookseller,

I’m 35, child-free and single after ending a toxic relationship. I’m feeling a bit lost as all of my friends are married and have kids. I love my life now, but I’d love some books that are about women the same age as me for some inspo, solidarity, or help with a spark to not feel so isolated in this weird stage of life. If any are LBTQIA+ that’s even better! Apart from that, my comfort reread is "A Court of Thorns and Roses." I’ve been reading since they first came out and haven’t been gripped by a series or found family quite as hard since then. I love my cat, cooking, plants, pottery, fantasy and crochet. 

Dear J.S., 

Thank you so much for trusting us to find you the right books for a tough moment in life. You are not alone! We have some reads that we think will be absolutely perfect.

We think that " Behind the Scenes " by Karelia Stetz-Waters will be a super cathartic read for you. This is a sapphic, contemporary romance with characters in their 30s and 40s grappling with past toxic relationships, loss of parents, and anxiety about feeling directionless in life. 

Ash Stewart is a filmmaker going through a break up that derailed her career and Rose Josten is giving her all to a job she doesn’t like to support her sister after their parents’ deaths. All of this sounds heavy, but this book is also so romantic! Plus, there are some adorable pugs. You need this in your life. 

This book is the perfect one-two punch after the last. "Olive" by Emma Gannon is the absolute best book to verbalize all of the messy feelings about choosing to remain childless, adult friendships, and feeling adrift. 

In this book, Olive feels her friends branch away from her when they choose marriage and motherhood, which makes Olive question her own life choices. This book has had a long tenure on our staff favorites shelves and for good reason.

We heard you like fantasy and plants and therefore thought the only reasonable option to give you is " The Jasmine Throne" by Tasha Suri . Inspired by Indian history, this sapphic high fantasy features a princess held captive, a maidservant with forbidden plant magic, and lots of political intrigue. 

This book builds slowly, but it’s so worth it by the end. The women in this book are complex, morally grey, and totally badass. We haven’t met a reader who didn’t end up loving this book. 

Thank you so much for supporting indie, J.S.! We hope these books hit the spot and please let us know if we can help with any more recommendations. 

The Novel Neighbor

If you, like J.S., are looking for the perfect book to speak to a difficult time in your life, or you need a new go-to comfort read, The Novel Neighbor would love to make a Mystery Box for you!