The importance of average reading ability for successful adjustment in the intermediate grades is too obvious to require emphasis here. Equally apparent is the fact that each year many children who are below the average in intellectual ability enter these grades seriously retarded in reading. A wealth of fascinating literature is available for primary children, literature adapted to their interests and abilities. Equally rich are the offerings for average and superior readers in the intermediate grades. Good literary material that is adjusted both to the interests and to the reading abilities of slow pupils of nine to twelve years of age is much less plentiful. Suitable books must be simple but not babyish. They must deal with experiences that appeal to older boys and girls but must be as simple in vocabulary and style as first and second readers, or even primers. Teachers of Z-section classes are almost unanimous in demanding more and better books for their pupils. Retarded intermediate-grade pupils are now reading whatever available materials they can read without too great difficulty. The present study was undertaken to discover the types of books most widely read and best liked by these children. Lists of the books that they had recently read were secured during the school year 1933-34 from some five hundred boys and girls classified in Z-sections of Grades IV, V, and VI in seven schools. In the majority of cases the pupils had kept such lists under the supervision of the teachers. When requested to do so, they merely submitted or copied these lists and indicated the books that they liked best and those that they liked second best. The total number of entries was approximately 4,000, and 1,046 different titles were reported. From these data ioo titles were chosen according to the combined criteria of frequency of mention and frequency of selection as first or second choice.