Dyslexic Positive Libraries Initiative

Book Lists

We are always on the hunt for books with the following characteristics:

  • Authentic characters
  • Written or illustrated by dyslexic or neurodiverse authors
  • A positive or balanced portrayal of dyslexia or neurodiversity
  • Literary, artistic, or informational merit
  • Nonfiction text that has key word reference page
  • Nonfiction text that includes key word pronunciations alongside the word
  • Accessible reading levels on diverse topics of interest through teen years

These lists are continuously updated as new books are reviewed. Happy reading!

  • A Walk in the Words
  • Too Much!: An Overwhelming Day
  • Xtraordinary People: Made By Dyslexia
  • Ben and Emma’s Big Hit
  • Molly’s Great Discovery: A Book About Dyslexia and Self-advocacy
  • Abdul’s Story
  • Flap Your Hands: A Celebration of Stimming
  • Dogman, Cat Kid Comic Club, and The Adventures of Captain Underpants
  • The Rainbow Brain
  • The Lion and the Mouse
  • If You’re So Smart, How Come You Can’t Spell Mississippi?
  • The Junkyard Wonders
  • A Day With No Words
  • Dyslexic Brains Are Beautiful Brains: Beautifully Unique, Beautifully Perfect, Beautifully You!
  • Dream Builder: The Story of Architect
  • Dyslexia Explained

  • The Cross of Lead
  • The Truth as Told by Mason Buttle
  • The Wild Book
  • Close to Famous
  • Hooky
  • Maggot Moon
  • Brown Girl Dreaming
  • The Vicar of Nibbleswicke
  • I Wanted to be a Pilot: The Making of a Tuskegee Airman
  • The Lightning Thief: The Graphic Novel
  • Creative, Successful, Dyslexic: 23 High Achievers Share Their Stories
  • Hacking the Code: The Ziggety Zaggety Road of a Dyslexic Kid Wonderfully Wired Brains: An Introduction to the World of Neurodiversity
  • Stories for Boys Who Dare to Be Different: True Tales of Amazing Boys Who Changed the World without Killing Dragons
  • Egypt’s Fire
  • May B. by Caroline Starr Rose

  • Six of Crows
  • Crooked Kingdom
  • A Dragonbird in the Fern
  • Monday’s Not Coming
  • Normal Sucks: How to Live, Learn, and Thrive, Outside the Lines
  • Loveboat Reunion
  • Black, Brilliant and Dyslexic: Neurodivergent Heroes Tell their Stories 
  • The Dyslexic Advantage (2nd edition)
  • StrengthsFinder 2.0
  • Pawn: The Blackcoat Rebellion
  • Spellwright
  • One Year Wiser: 365 Illustrated Meditations
  • An Elegant Façade

  • The Twyford Code
  • Black, Brilliant and Dyslexic: Neurodivergent Heroes Tell their Stories
  • The Canary Code: A Guide to Neurodiversity, Dignity, and Intersectional Belonging at Work
  • NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity
  • An Elegant Façade
  • Normal Sucks: How to Live, Learn, and Thrive, Outside the Lines
  • Triptych
  • The Dyslexic Advantage: Unlocking the Hidden Potential of the Dyslexic Brain
  • My Dyslexia by Philip Schultz
  • Different, Not Less: A Neurodivergent’s Guide to Embracing Your True Self and Finding Your Happily Ever After
  • Overcoming Dyslexia
  • This is Dyslexia
  • StrengthsFinder 2.0
  • The Dyslexia Empowerment Plan: A Blueprint for Renewing Your Child’s Confidence and Love of Learning
  • The Future is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes, and Mourning Songs
  • Reversals: A Personal Account of Victory over Dyslexia
  • Straight Shooter: A Memoir of Second Chances and First Takes
  • The Kiss Quotient
  • Unlearning Shame: How We Can Reject Self-Blame Culture and Reclaim Our Power
  • The Neurodiversity Edge
  • The Short Bus: A Journey Beyond Normal
  • The Teacher Who Couldn’t Read: One Man’s Triumph Over Illiteracy
  • The Drool Room
  • What My Bones Know: A Journey of Healing from Complex Trauma
  • How to ADHD: An Insider’s Guide to Working with Your Brain (Not Against It)
  • Death in a Nutshell: An Anthropology Whodunnit
  • The Reason I Jump
  • Seeing What Others Cannot See: The Hidden Advantages of Visual Thinkers and Differently Wired Brains
  • How to Keep House While Drowning
  • Laziness Does Not Exist
  • Something More
  • Ten Steps to Nanette
  • Unlimited Memory: How to Use Advanced Learning Strategies to Learn Faster, Remember More and be More Productive
  • Strong Female Character
  • The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Decodable books follow a phonics scope & sequence. Below is a 6 category scope an sequence that we use at the DPLI.

  • Glossary of literacy terms
  • Primer (CVC single syllable)
  • Early Elementary (CVC, VCE single & two syllables)
  • Upper Elementary (CVC, VCE single & two syllables, r-controlled vowel syllables, VV and inflective suffix)
  • Early Middle Grades (CVC, VCE single & two syllables, r-controlled vowel syllables VV syllables and lesson common spelling patterns such as alk, ought, igh suffix and changes to the word base and CLe syllable type)
  • Upper Middle Grades (CVC, VCE single & two syllables, r-controlled vowel syllables VV syllables and lesson common spelling patterns such as alk, ough, igh suffix and changes to the word base, prefix and stable final syllables -ture, etc)
  • High School & Adult (CVC, VCE single & two syllables, r-controlled vowel syllables VV syllables and lesson common spelling patterns such as alk, ought, igh, study of roots to read and spell words with medial vowel, diverse vowel stress up to 6 syllables)

  • Preparing Children for Reading Success: Hands-On Activities for Librarians, Educators, and Caregivers
  • The Reading Teacher’s Book of Lists
  • Speech to Print: Language Essentials for Teachers
  • Uncovering the Logic of English
  • Morpheme Magic
  • Homophones Visualized
  • Academic Writing and Dyslexia: A Visual Guide to Writing at University
  • Leveled Reading, Leveled Lives: How Students’ Reading Achievement Has Been Held Back and What We Can Do About It
  • Explicit Instruction: Effective and Efficient Teaching
  • Recipe for Reading
  • Multisensory Teaching of Basic Language Skills
  • Literacy Foundations for English Learners: A Comprehensive Guide to Evidence-Based Instruction
  • Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students
  • Climbing The Ladder of Reading & Writing: Meeting the Needs of ALL Learners
  • Making Words Stick: A Four-Step Instructional Routine to Power Up Orthographic Mapping
  • Rock Your Literacy Block: Mighty Moves to Organize Your Day and Optimize Student Learning
  • It’s Possible!: A Leadership Plan for Implementing Quality Reading Instruction and Ensuring Literacy for All
  • I Morph, We Morph, You Morph!: Common Prefixes
  • MTSS for Reading Improvement: A Leader’s Tool Kit for Schoolwide Success

This is a weed list to assist library workers with weeding projects and diversity audits. Criteria includes:

  • Lived experience or expertise of the author
  • Negative or pathologizing language
  • Shaming or punitive practices towards youth
  • Lack of literary, artistic, or informational merit of the book

Weed List

  • A Work in Progress: Behavior Management Strategies & A Curriculum for Intensive Behavioral Treatment of Autism
  • Applied Behavior Analysis
  • Dyslexia by Ann O. Squire
  • It’s Called Dyslexia by Jennifer Moore-Mallinos
  • It’s Time For School!: Building Quality ABA Educational Programs for Students With Autism Spectrum Disorders
  • My Life With Dyslexia by Mari Schuh
  • My Life with Tourette Syndrome by Mari Schuh
  • Understanding Dyslexia by Jessica Rusick
  • Understanding Disorders of the Brain

This is a key word/phrases source document for library use to identify discredited literacy materials within collections, and prevent erroneous purchase of discredited materials and books. These include discredited materials espousing debunked literacy theories, mis-guided approaches to schooling & instruction and predictable text intended for children to read independently that do not systematically engage their developing decoding skills.

This information will help library workers update collections, repurpose text within the collection and support the purchase of high quality evidence-based additions to collections while developing high-value, relevant Literacy Nook in support of engaging all children and youth in learning to read. 

A welcoming graphic titled 'Safe Space for Literacy Learning' that encourages individuals to make mistakes, ask questions, and grow skills together in a supportive environment, associated with the Dyslexic Positive Libraries Initiative.

Currently 32% of U.S. 12th graders do not yet have basic reading skills (NAEP, 2024) and 28% U.S. adults are not yet reading fluently (PIAAC 2023). DPLI Citation List. Literacy methods matter.

Discredited Literacy Theory & Literacy Instructional Programs

  • Whole Language
  • Balanced Literacy
  • High Frequency / Sight Word Memorization
  • Reading Recovery
  • Units of Study
  • Units of Study curriculum
  • Teachers College of Reading and Writing Project, TCRWP or “The Project”
  • Classroom Library Series published by Heinemann 

Discredited Literacy Theorists and Instructional Program Developers

  • Fountas and Pinnell
  • Kenneth Goodman
  • Frank Smith
  • Yetta Goodman
  • Regie Routman
  • Irene C. Fountas 
  • Marie Clay
  • Gay Sue Pinnell (founding director of Literacy Council of North America)
  • Lucy Calkins
  • Dorothy Watson
  • Carolyn Burke
  • Jerome Harste

Discredited Reading and Spelling Instruction Methods

  • Spelling quizzes and rote memorization
  • 3-Cueing
  • Skip the Word and Come Back
  • Check the Picture
  • Look Closely at the Picture
  • Make Your Best Guess
  • Ask for a Told (someone to tell you the word) and Keep Going
  • Think of a Word that is Like the Word Your Trying to Read
  • Act out What You’ve Read so Far
  • Predict What’s Going to Happen (repeatedly through the text reading)

Discredited Text Written for Teaching Children to Read

  • Ready Readers
  • Leveled Readers
  • Guided Readers
  • System 44 published by Scholastic
  • Predictable Text (what to do with all of that predictable text)
  • Meli Series

Repurposing Leveled Books

For otherwise excellent children’s books, one option would be to repurpose them by removing the literacy misinformation and keeping what is otherwise a perfectly fine book and reshelving it as a general text, rather than in the literacy hub, among text cataloged as supportive for emergent, developing and striving readers.  

Search the titles of books written for children and youth to determine if they are intended for use with whole language reading instructional programs. When books are donated to libraries or intended as a “gift” to be used for families to take home for free, this is of particular importance.

Repurpose a Book 1) Cover the “Level 1 I Can Read!” and other literacy misinformation. 2) Repurpose as a fun book in the general collection; not a literacy learning tool. 3) Create a separate literacy nook with decodable books and effective, Science of Reading-aligned resources. Cover of Pete the Cat's MARS MISSION. Level 1. I Can Read!

Weed or Repurpose List

  • An I Can Read Book
  • Art of Teaching Reading
  • Bad Seed Goes to the Library
  • Childrens Learn to Read Books
  • Dear Dragon Goes to the Library
  • Fountas & Pinnell Leveled Book List
  • (Many) Geisel Award winners 😭
  • Green Light Readers
  • Hooray for Reading Day!
  • I Can Read!
  • Meet the Sight Words
  • My Beginning Readers
  • National Geographic Kids Readers
  • Pathways to the Common Core: Accelerating Achievement
  • Piggy & Gerald series 😭
  • Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease
  • Scholastic Little Leveled Readers
  • Scholastic Sight Word Readers
  • Solving the Reading Riddle: The Librarian’s Guide to Reading Instruction
  • Step into Reading
  • School Zone Start to Read!
  • Guided Science Readers
  • Scholastic Readers
  • Reading Recovery
  • Learn to Read: Sight Words Storybook
  • This Is Balanced Literacy, Grades K-6
  • Whole Language, the Librarian, and Children’s Literature Beyond the Basal Reader
  • World of Reading