The declining reading performance in Swedish schools has sparked national concern about students' decreasing reading ability. This has led to various reading promotion initiatives, such as the introduction of national reading lists designed as a voluntary support tool for teachers. This study aims to examine the factors that currently influence Swedish teachers’ selection of fiction in their teaching, as well as their relationship with the newly introduced reading list. The study is based on a qualitative methodological approach through semi-structured interviews with six certified Swedish teachers in grades 4–6. A thematic analysis is conducted using Watson, Kelly, Foley, Kneen, Chapman, Smith and Thomas (2022) model of teacher agency, which is examined through four lenses: the iterative and projective lens, the cultural lens, the structural lens, and the material lens.

The results indicate that teachers’ choice of fiction is influenced by factors such as school library resources, time constraints, students’ prior knowledge and engagement, value-based considerations, and the teacher’s own frame of reference. The findings also reveal that the majority of teachers in the study have yet to engage with the reading list. Furthermore, the study’s results can contribute to a deeper understanding of how Swedish middle school teachers make their literary selections in the classroom and highlight the factors that influence these decisions.