Read with the animals
Every gallery here has a story that goes with it. Climb a landing of the Tall Museum, or take a book from the shelf, then walk to the animals in it.
9 Tall Museum cards and 17 books, counted live. The Tall Museum's landings are rungs of one beanstalk: enter at any landing, no rung depends on another.
Kindergarten to grade 2
The Owl and the Pussy-cat
Edward Lear
Free to read on the landing · QR 2W9CSH
The Fox and the Grapes
Aesop, The Aesop for Children
Free to read on the landing · QR 7N4YPG
The Hare and the Tortoise
Aesop, The Aesop for Children
Free to read on the landing · QR Q8JK5Q
The Cat in the Hat
A rainy day, two children and a cat who will not behave.
In copyright: find it at your library
Grades 3 to 5
The Elephant’s Child
Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories
Free to read on the landing · QR 6DC6E5
How the Whale Got His Throat
Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories
Free to read on the landing · QR WJT4K3
The Wind in the Willows
Kenneth Grahame
Free to read on the landing · QR M69AD4
The Jungle Book
Rudyard Kipling
Free to read on the landing · QR 24WWDJ
The Master Cat; or, Puss in Boots
Charles Perrault (1697), trans. Robert Samber (1729) — France
Free to read on the landing · QR 9DGHU7
Annancy and Brother Tiger
Jamaican Anansi tale, collected by Walter Jekyll, Jamaican Song and Story (1907) — Jamaica, from West Africa
Free to read on the landing · QR THT3QS
Charlotte's Web
A pig, a spider and the question every farm raises: who is raised to be eaten. In copyright: on the estate bibliography, read at the library.
In copyright: find it at your library
Just So Stories: The Cat That Walked by Himself
A fable of domestication: the dog, horse and cow accept a bargain; the cat keeps its own terms.
Free to read: Project Gutenberg
Black Beauty
A horse tells its own life. The book helped end the cruel bearing rein and fed the animal-welfare movement.
Free to read: Project Gutenberg
The Incredible Journey
Two dogs and a cat cross the Canadian wilderness to get home.
In copyright: find it at your library
Because of Winn-Dixie
A stray dog in a Florida town brings a lonely girl her first friends.
In copyright: find it at your library
Lassie Come-Home
A collie sold away walks hundreds of miles back to the boy who loves her.
In copyright: find it at your library
Shiloh
A boy hides a beagle from its cruel owner and has to decide what is right.
In copyright: find it at your library
The One and Only Ivan
A gorilla kept in a shopping-mall cage, told from his side.
In copyright: find it at your library
Grades 6 to 8
The Jungle Book
Wolves raise a boy: what separates the wild from the tame.
Free to read: Project Gutenberg
The Call of the Wild
A stolen pet dog is sold into sled work in the Klondike and goes back to the wild: domestication in reverse.
Free to read: Project Gutenberg
White Fang
A wolf-dog moves the other way, from the wild to a home. Some scenes of animal cruelty: preview first.
Free to read: Project Gutenberg
Where the Red Fern Grows
Two hunting dogs in the Ozarks, and a boy who saves to buy them.
In copyright: find it at your library
Grades 9 to 12
Moby-Dick
An industry built on hunting a sea animal for oil: read beside the tuna room.
Free to read: Project Gutenberg
The Old Man and the Sea
An old fisherman and a giant marlin: the sea as livelihood.
In copyright: find it at your library
Animal Farm
Farm animals overthrow the farmer, then the pigs become the masters: a fable about power.
In copyright: find it at your library
Titles are described, not reproduced. Free texts open at the Tall Museum or Project Gutenberg; books still in copyright are for the library. More: Animals in fiction · the Tall Museum.