# Animal Farm

**Author:** George Orwell
**Lexile:** 1170L
**Grade range:** Grades 7–10
**Age range:** 12–16
**First published:** 1945
**Page count:** 112
**Genre:** Allegorical Fiction
**ISBN-13:** `9780452284241`
**ISBN-10:** `0452284244`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/animal-farm
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

Animals on a British farm overthrow their human owner and establish a cooperative state run by the pigs, led by Napoleon. As the regime consolidates, its revolutionary principles are rewritten and its dissenters disappear. Orwell's short allegory of the Russian Revolution is widely assigned at middle- and early high-school level alongside propaganda and rhetoric units.

## Themes

- revolution and power
- propaganda
- language and thought
- class and labor
- corruption
- allegory

## Content notes

- political violence
- animal cruelty
- execution

Common Sense Media age recommendation: 12+

## Where this book is assigned

### AP English Literature & Composition

- **recommended** · 11th grade — [source: AP Lit representative text — allegory unit](https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-english-literature-and-composition)

### AQA GCSE English Literature (8702)

- **required** · 9th grade — [source: Set text in the AQA GCSE English Literature (8702) specification, component: Modern prose. Specification for first teaching in 2015. Read 2026-10-03.](https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/english/gcse/english-8702/specification/subject-content/shakespeare-and-the-19th-century-novel)
- **required** · 10th grade — [source: Set text in the AQA GCSE English Literature (8702) specification, component: Modern prose. Specification for first teaching in 2015. Read 2026-10-03.](https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/english/gcse/english-8702/specification/subject-content/shakespeare-and-the-19th-century-novel)

### Common Core State Standards (ELA)

- **recommended** · 8th grade · Texas — [source: TEKS grade 8 commonly taught text](https://tea.texas.gov/)
- **recommended** · 9th grade — [source: CCSS ELA Appendix B, grades 9-10 exemplar](https://www.nysed.gov/sites/default/files/programs/standards-instruction/appendix-b-text-exemplars-and-sample-performance-tasks.pdf)

### OCR GCSE English Literature (J352)

- **required** · 9th grade — [source: Set text in the OCR GCSE English Literature (J352) specification, component: Modern prose or drama. Version 3.0 (November 2025). Read 2026-10-03.](https://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/168995-specification-accredited-gcse-english-literature-j352.pdf)
- **required** · 10th grade — [source: Set text in the OCR GCSE English Literature (J352) specification, component: Modern prose or drama. Version 3.0 (November 2025). Read 2026-10-03.](https://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/168995-specification-accredited-gcse-english-literature-j352.pdf)

### Pearson Edexcel GCSE English Literature (1ET0)

- **required** · 9th grade — [source: Set text in the Pearson Edexcel GCSE English Literature (1ET0) specification, component: Post-1914 British play or novel. Specification Issue 2, June 2019. Read 2026-10-03.](https://qualifications.pearson.com/content/dam/pdf/GCSE/English%20Literature/2015/specification-and-sample-assesment/9781446914359_GCSE_2015_L12_Englit.pdf)
- **required** · 10th grade — [source: Set text in the Pearson Edexcel GCSE English Literature (1ET0) specification, component: Post-1914 British play or novel. Specification Issue 2, June 2019. Read 2026-10-03.](https://qualifications.pearson.com/content/dam/pdf/GCSE/English%20Literature/2015/specification-and-sample-assesment/9781446914359_GCSE_2015_L12_Englit.pdf)

### Summer reading lists

- **recommended** · 9th grade — [source: Common Core aligned summer-reading list — rising 9th grade](https://www.nysed.gov/sites/default/files/programs/standards-instruction/appendix-b-text-exemplars-and-sample-performance-tasks.pdf)
- **required** · 10th grade · Massachusetts — [source: Medway High School (MA) — Summer Reading 2025, assigned book by grade](https://www.medwaylib.org/wp-content/uploads/mhs-summer-reading-2025.pdf)

### Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) — ELA

- **recommended** · 8th grade · Texas — [source: TEKS grade 8 commonly taught text](https://tea.texas.gov/)

## Banned / challenged record

Documented removals or formal challenges in at least one school district in 2 states: IA, TX. Source: [PEN America's Index of School Book Bans](https://pen.org/banned-book-list/) 2022-2024.

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