# Slaughterhouse-Five

**Author:** Kurt Vonnegut
**Lexile:** 850L
**Grade range:** Grades 11–12
**Age range:** 16–18
**First published:** 1969
**Page count:** 275
**Genre:** Literary Fiction
**ISBN-13:** `9780385333849`
**ISBN-10:** `0385333846`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/slaughterhouse-five
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

Billy Pilgrim, an American optometrist who survived the Allied firebombing of Dresden as a World War II POW, becomes "unstuck in time" and relives his life out of order. Vonnegut's anti-war novel is a frequent AP Literature text and one of the ALA's most frequently challenged books of the 21st century.

## Themes

- trauma and time
- war and meaning
- free will
- narrative fragmentation
- death and dark humor

## Content notes

- war violence
- firebombing
- sexual content
- profanity
- suicide

Common Sense Media age recommendation: 16+

## Where this book is assigned

### AP English Literature & Composition

- **required** · 12th grade — [source: AP Lit — frequently cited FRQ3 text](https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-english-literature-and-composition)

### Common Core State Standards (ELA)

- **recommended** · 12th grade — [source: CCSS ELA Appendix B, grades 11-CCR exemplar](https://achievethecore.org/page/2699)
- **recommended** · 12th grade · New York — [source: NY Next Gen Learning Standards grade 12 aligned reading](https://www.nysed.gov/)

## Banned / challenged record

Documented removals or formal challenges in at least one school district in 4 states: TX, FL, MO, VA. Source: [PEN America's Index of School Book Bans](https://pen.org/banned-book-list/) 2022-2024.

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