Visalia Unified Standards Based Literature List
The VUSD Standards Based Literature List is a resource that is intended to provide a common literacy foundation beginning in Kindergarten and continuing through grade 6. Familiarity with all the titles on the literature list allows students to make life long connections and share a common culturally literacy. These titles should be used in a combination of modeled, guided, shared, and independent reading format. The Literature List was developed to ensure that students in VUSD will experience a common literacy background through teacher usage of the materials at their particular grade level. The list is not intended for extensive whole class units of study; rather, it should be utilized to meet the California State Standards at the student’s grade level. This common literacy foundation will provide links to supplemental material in order for students to write, converse and deeply comprehend.
Visalia Unified Supplemental Literature List
In addition, supplemental lists are provided as an additional resource for teachers. These books are suggested titles to be used to supplement and enhance the literature on the Standards Based Literature List used in classroom instruction. Both literature lists have been tied to the state standards by genre, response to literature, content, or reading comprehension strategies.
| Title | Author or Version |
| KINDERGARTEN STANDARDS-BASED LITERATURE | |
| 1.2.3 to the Zoo | Carle |
| Anno's Counting Book | Anno |
| Brown Bear, Brown Bear | Martin |
| Chicka-Chicka Boom Boom | Martin |
| Corduroy | Freeman |
| David Goes To School | Shannon |
| Dog Days: Rhymes around the year | Prelutsky |
| Friends | Heine |
| Henny Penny | Galdone |
| Make Way for Ducklings | McCloskey |
| Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready For Kindergarten | Slate |
| My 5 Senses | Aliki |
| No David | Shannon |
| Rosie's Walk | Hutchins |
| Snowy Day | Keats |
| The Gingerbread Boy | Galdone illus. |
| The Three Bears | Galdone illus. |
| The Three Little Pigs | Marshall illus. |
| Today Is Monday | Carle |
| The Turning of the Year | Martin |
| The Very Hungry Caterpillar | Carle |
| Title | Author or Version |
| FIRST GRADE STANDARDS-BASED LITERATURE | |
| Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day | Viorst |
| America Is . . . | Borden |
| Bread and Jam for Frances | Hoban |
| Caps For Sale | Slobodkina |
| Cinderella | Brown illus. |
| Ira Sleeps Over | Waber |
| Jasper's Beanstalk | Inkpen |
| Me On the Map | Sweeney |
| On the Same Day In March | Singer |
| Stone Soup | McGovern retell |
| Tale of Peter Rabbit | Potter, Potter illus. |
| The Three Billy Goats Gruff | Stevens illus. |
| Wolf Story | McCleery |
| Title | Author or Version |
| SECOND GRADE STANDARDS-BASED LITERATURE | |
| Chrysanthemum | Henkes |
| Donavan's Word Jar | DeGross |
| The Empty Pot | Demi |
| The Keeping Quilt | Polacco |
| Martin's Big Words | Rappaport |
| Measuring Penny | Leedy |
| Miss Rumphius | Cooney |
| The School Mouse | King-Smith |
| Spectacular Science | Hopkins |
| The Ugly Duckling | Pinckney illus. |
| The Wednesday's Surprise | Bunting |
| Title | Author or Version |
| THIRD GRADE STANDARDS-BASED LITERATURE | |
| Annie and the Old One | Miles |
| Beauty and the Beast | Mayer retell. |
| The Flag We Love | Ryan |
| The Frog Wore Red Suspenders | Prelutsky |
| Koko's Kitten | Patterson |
| The Little House | Burton |
| The Little House In the Big Woods | Wilder |
| The Mouse and the Motorcycle | Cleary |
| Paul Bunyan | Kellogg retell. |
| Ramona and Her Father | Cleary |
| Sierra | Siebert |
| The Velveteen Rabbit | Williams |
| What's the Big Idea, Ben Franklin? | Fritz |
| Title | Author or Version |
| FOURTH GRADE STANDARDS-BASED LITERATURE | |
| By the Great Horn Spoon | Fleischman |
| Charlotte's Web | White |
| Eye On the Wild: a Story about Ansel Adams | Dunlap |
| In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson | Lord |
| Island of the Blue Dolphins | O'dell |
| James and the Giant Peach | Dahl |
| New Kid On the Block | Prelutsky |
| Patty Reed's Doll | Laurgaard |
| Shoeshine Girl | Bulla |
| Walt Disney, Creator of Magical Worlds | Simon |
| Title | Author or Version |
| FIFTH GRADE STANDARDS-BASED LITERATURE | |
| American Tall Tales (Mary Pope Osborne) | Osborne |
| And Then What Happened, Paul Revere | Fritz |
| Fig Pudding | Fletcher |
| Hurricanes: Earth's Mightiest Storms | Lauber |
| The Indian In the Cupboard | Banks |
| Maniac Magee | Spinelli |
| Night of the Twisters | Ruckman |
| Place My Words Are Looking For | Janeczko, ed. |
| Salting the Ocean | Nye, ed. |
| Toliver's Secret | Brady |
| The Tree in the Trail | Holling |
| Title | Author or Version |
| SIXTH GRADE STANDARDS-BASED LITERATURE | |
| The Boy of the Painted Cave | Denzel |
| The Cay | Taylor |
| The Circuit | Jimenez |
| The Dark Is Rising | Cooper |
| Dream Keepers and Other Poems - Langston Hughes | Hughes |
| The Gettysburg Address (In Reading Text) | Lincoln |
| Ingri and Edwin D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths | d'Aulaire |
| The Land I Lost | Huynh |
| My Side of the Mountain | George |
| Mystery of the Heiroglyphs: The Story of the Rosetta Stone | Donoughue |
| and The Race to Decipher Egyptian Hieroglyphs | |
| The Summer of the Swans | Byars |
| A Wrinkle In Time | L'Engle |