New and fully revised, Junior Great Books® Inspire for grades 2–5 ignites students’ curiosity about characters, ideas, and the world.
- Captivate students with compelling fiction, narrative nonfiction, poetry, and drama from award-winning authors
- Animate the classroom and build discussion skills that travel beyond students’ work with Junior Great Books
- Ease implementation with consistent core activity sequences in every unit, with optional activities to tailor sessions to each classroom
- Make high-level discussion and comprehension accessible to every student with embedded differentiation strategies
- Develop essential skills in comprehension, fluency, critical thinking, speaking and listening, and writing through repeated readings, discussions, and extension activities
- Invite students’ unique ideas and insights with interpretive questions for every selection
Download Sample Lesson Plans!
Program Highlights
Student Editions
- One book per series with 14 selections
- Series 2: nine fiction selections, three narrative nonfiction texts, and two poems
- Series 3–5: eight fiction selections, three narrative nonfiction texts, two poems, and one drama
- All new texts that engage student interest through modern classics, folktales, and the exploration of wide-ranging, powerful experiences
- Professionally recorded readings of every selection
- Student glossaries define bolded words to support student understanding
- Beautiful artwork by award-winning illustrators
- Self-check lists support student independence
- Line numbers make it easy to share evidence from the text
- Illustrated student introduction explains the Shared Inquiry process
Reader’s Journals
- Complement Teacher’s Editions with activities to complete during each session
- Unique questions for each selection
- Writing focus with custom brainstorming exercises for each prompt
- Comparative writing activities to make connections between texts
- Three full sets of essay writing materials to guide the writing process through planning, organization, and peer review
- More drawing activities!
Teacher’s Editions
- Streamlined Teacher’s Editions put the most important information for each unit at your fingertips
- Planning notes at the beginning of each selection provide short author biographies, background information, and specific strategies to prepare for each selection
- Planning chart gives an overview of each text, including themes, topics, story details, and text connections, at a glance
- Vocabulary lists and corresponding activities support a range of strategies, including work with phonics, roots and affixes, word relationships, and exploring words in context
- Second reading activities support multiple learning modalities
- World of the Story prereading activity builds shared background knowledge within the class
- Extended projects connect texts to science and social studies curriculum while building research, organizational, presentation, artistic, and interpersonal skills
- Resources to support multilingual learners
Inspire Aligns with Common Core State Standards
See how repeated readings, text-supported discussions, extended writing, research opportunities, and a range of vocabulary and fluency activities combine to support students’ development of skills from across the Common Core in every unit.
Download now to see Inspire’s coverage of Common Core standards at-a-glance and explore unit-specific alignments for each session and activity.
Learn More
To learn more about the brand-new Junior Great Books Series 2–5, and to take advantage of preorder discounts, please get in touch with your Great Books K–12 partnership manager.
Features and Benefits
High-quality texts from a range of cultures, time periods, and genres
Support close reading and in-depth questioning; introduce students to a variety of text types
Prereading activities
Build background knowledge across the class to support a fuller understanding of the text
Sharing questions activity
Stimulates curiosity while building metacognitive and collaborative skills
Close reading activities
Make textual analysis fun and accessible through a variety of learning modalities
Shared Inquiry discussion
Builds students’ abilities to develop ideas, use evidence from the text, and listen and respond to others
Vocabulary and word work activities
Allow students to learn new words and practice a range of strategies (e.g., word relationships and affix patterns) in a meaningful context
Written response activities
Enable students to build on ideas developed in discussion; provide an authentic context for writing
Curriculum connections
Deepen understanding through extended projects connecting the text to other subject areas
Creative response activities
Allow students to respond imaginatively to texts using visual art and other forms
Differentiated instruction
Engages all students in higher-level reading, thinking, and discussion
Assessment and reflection
Formative and summative options build a complete picture of students’ progress
Teacher resources
Simplify finding and using appropriate techniques; enrich use of activities
Planning and implementation recommendations
Make getting started with the program and customizing its use easy
Award-Winning Authors and All New Selections
Explore the very best in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama!
The New Junior Great Books Inspire Series 2–5 features all new selections. These anthologies proudly include rich representations of different perspectives with selections written by authors from around the world.
Series 2
- Michelle Knudsen, The Library Lion
- Kirby Larson, The Magic Kerchief
- Grace Kang, Chopsticks
- Jairo Buitrago, Wounded Falcons
- Jan Andrews, How Ti-Jean Became a Fiddler
- Darshana Khiani, Building a Dream
- Andrew Fusek Peters, Last Night, I Saw the City Breathing
- Jim LaMarche, The Raft
Michelle Knudsen, author of “The Library Lion.”
Series 3
- Nicola Davies, King of the Sky
- Lafcadio Hearn, The Boy Who Drew Cats
- Julio Noboa Polanco, Identity
- Nicola I. Campbell, Shin-chi’s Canoe
- Sharon Robinson, Testing the Ice
- Naomi Shihab Nye, How to Paint a Donkey
- Suzanne Slade, Exquisite: The Poetry and Life of Gwendolyn Brooks
- Clarence Coo, Mooncakes Tonight
Sharon Robinson, author of “Testing the Ice.”
Series 4
- Anne Yvonne Gilbert, The Red Canoe
- Gary Soto, The Chicken That Crossed the Road
- Deborah Ellis, The Singing Chair
- Nicola Davies, The Promise
- M. T. Anderson, Me, All Alone, at the End of the World
- Elisa Oh, The Swallow and the Pumpkinseed
- Jen Cullerton Johnson, Seeds of Change
- William Butler Yeats, The Lake Isle of Innisfree
- Marion Dane Bauer, The Good Deed
- Walter Dean Myers, Sometimes a Dream Needs a Push
- Clarence Coo, The Lost Unicycle
M. T. Anderson, author of “Me, All Alone, at the End of the World.”
Series 5
- Lauren Tarshis, No Carnations for Ray Fink
- Jamaal May, There Are Birds Here
- Barb Rosenstock, The Secret Kingdom
- Gianni Rodari, The Well at Cascina Piana
- Tim Tingle, Choctaw Bigfoot, Midnight in the Mountains
- Katherine Rundell, Beware Low-Flying Girls
- Chris Raschka, The Doorman
- Jason Reynolds, First-Day Fly
- J. C. Cervantes, Bones
- Cecil Castellucci, We Have Always Lived On Mars
- Naomi Shihab Nye, Stay True Hotel
- Clarence Coo, The True Potential of Tinikling
Jason Reynolds, author of “First-Day Fly.”
(Photo credit Adedayo “Dayo” Kosoko, 2020.)
Buy Now
Purchase the brand-new Junior Great Books Inspire Series 2–5 today! Secure your copies now to bring engaging, high-quality literature and inquiry-based learning to your classroom.