# Brave New World

**Author:** Aldous Huxley
**Lexile:** 870L
**Grade range:** Grades 11–12
**Age range:** 15–18
**First published:** 1932
**Page count:** 288
**Genre:** Dystopian Fiction
**ISBN-13:** `9780060850524`
**ISBN-10:** `0060850523`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/brave-new-world
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

In a future World State, citizens are chemically stratified, conditioned from infancy, and pacified by a euphoric drug called soma. When a "savage" from a New Mexico reservation is brought to London, the facade of civilized happiness begins to crack. A standard 11th-12th grade and AP Literature text paired with 1984.

## Themes

- technocratic control
- pleasure and meaning
- individuality
- scientific ethics
- consumerism
- dystopia

## Content notes

- drug use
- sexual content
- suicide

Common Sense Media age recommendation: 15+

## Where this book is assigned

### AP English Literature & Composition

- **recommended** · 12th grade — [source: AP Lit representative text — frequently paired with 1984](https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-english-literature-and-composition)

### Common Core State Standards (ELA)

- **recommended** · 11th grade — [source: CCSS ELA Appendix B, grades 11-CCR exemplar](https://achievethecore.org/page/2699)

## Banned / challenged record

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

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