Use SAXBuilder from JDOM
import java.util.Iterator; import org.jdom.Document; import org.jdom.Element; import org.jdom.input.SAXBuilder; public class MainClass { public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception { Document doc = new SAXBuilder().build("books.xml"); Element books = doc.getRootElement(); Iterator it = books.getChildren().iterator(); while (it.hasNext()) { Element book = (Element) it.next(); System.out.println(book.getChildText("name") + " was published in " + book.getChildText("pubDate")); } } }