# Books written in the 1920s, assigned in US schools

Modernism takes hold — Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Hurston — and the Harlem Renaissance reshapes American letters.

**3** books written between 1920 and 1929 that US schools assign across state ELA standards, AP/IB syllabi, and Common Core exemplar lists.

**Decade window:** 1920–1929
**Lexile range:** 490L–1070L
**Grade span:** 2–12
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/decade/1920s
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## Themes of the 1920s

- American Dream
- Jazz Age
- brotherhood
- disillusionment
- family
- generational loss
- illusion and reality
- independence

## Authors writing in the 1920s

- Erich Maria Remarque
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Gertrude Chandler Warner

## Genres

- Literary Fiction
- Middle Grade Mystery
- War Novel

## The 1920s canon

- [The Boxcar Children](https://readinglist.school/book/the-boxcar-children) by Gertrude Chandler Warner _(490L · Grades 2–4 · pub 1924)_
- [The Great Gatsby](https://readinglist.school/book/the-great-gatsby) by F. Scott Fitzgerald _(1070L · Grades 10–12 · pub 1925)_
- [All Quiet on the Western Front](https://readinglist.school/book/all-quiet-on-the-western-front) by Erich Maria Remarque _(830L · Grades 9–12 · pub 1929)_

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_Generated from primary-source citations indexed on ReadingList.school. JSON API: https://readinglist.school/api/decade/1920s · HTML view: https://readinglist.school/decade/1920s._