With U.S. high school reading rates declining and a reported decline in reading for pleasure, University of Iowa students take a look back at the books that influenced them the most in their primary education.
In an April 2025 study conducted by NPR and Ipsos, Andrew Limbong found that 51 percent of U.S. adults polled in 2025 have read a book in the past month; however, 43 percent of respondents said they don’t make reading a priority. Yet, 82 percent would also say that reading is an important skill for learning about the world.
A relationship to reading starts in school, whether it comes from the impact of reading Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” or bonding with classmates watching “The Outsiders” movie after months of studying the book.
A decades-long decline in high schoolers’ reading performance led to 12th graders’ scores dropping to their lowest in more than 20 years, according to results released in September from the National Center for Education Statistics.
Known as the nation’s report card and considered to be the best gauge of the academic progress of U.S. schools, the results showed only 67 percent of 12th graders scored at least “basic” on the center’s testing.
As reading rates drop, UI students reflect on what books made a lasting impact on them. Several students agree that teachers are instrumental in developing reading habits and informing them of literary classics.
For fourth-year University of Iowa student JP Swartz, “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury awoke their literary taste.
“I remember really liking Ray Bradbury’s style. He made predictions on what will happen, like in ‘Fahrenheit 451,’ the one thing I remember is they talk about seashells that people wear in their ears and they can hear things, that was a crazy prediction for AirPods,” Swartz said. “He just makes really astute observations that end up being true technologically for his time period.”
Second year political science major Raegan Walesa also found connection with Bradbury’s classic. The book even influenced her future college endeavors.
“As a political science major, to me, government and dystopian novels were always really interesting. Censorship is such a big issue in society and seeing it play out in modern times was really fascinating for me and influenced how I saw the world,” Walesa said.
Other students, like second-year UI student James Halverson, found solace in books like “Hatchet.” A young adult survival novel published in the 80s about a young boy who, after a plane crash, is left alone in the Canadian wilderness with nothing but a hatchet.
Halverson said as a young kid, “Hatchet” got him into reading. Entertaining stories like this one with twists and turns took over his young imagination.
Other students found a connection with the characters they read on the page. Second-year UI student Abby Jager found relatability in one of literature’s most controversial characters: Holden Caulfield from J.D. Salinger‘s 1951 novel “The Catcher in the Rye.”
“He’s a misunderstood character, and I can appreciate how nothing necessarily happened, but I felt like I was living the life of this kid, and I could relate to the themes of loneliness and looking for identity. He’s just a good reflection of a lost kid,” Jager said.
For Jager, some scenes stuck with her years after reading the books, such as Holden’s description of the carousel and the reality of being alone and wandering around New York.