Dive Into Summer Reading
Your Guide to Choosing An Amazing Book
A Note to Incoming Freshman Families:
We are cognizant of the fact that for incoming freshman, advancing to high school books may be accompanied by a change in the maturity level of the reading material. With that in mind, we have selected the following subset of the full summer reading list. We offer this Fabulous Freshman Reads list as a guide to selections. While freshman are not limited to this list, this selection can provide a smooth transition to reading high school level books if your family chooses to use it. Naturally, students must choose what they feel is the right fit for them in terms of genre, manageable text, interest, and topic appropriateness. Click here to view them: https://www.smore.com/tjhr3.
Click Below for the Summer Reading Assignment for Fiction
Click Below for the Summer Reading Assignment for Nonfiction
GETTING GRAPHIC
YUMMY: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty
G. Neri
Graphic Novel/Realistic Fiction
In 1994, an incident of Southside Chicago gang-related violence captured national headlines. Eleven-year-old Robert "Yummy" Sandifer shot and killed his 14-year-old neighbor Shavon Dean. Neri's retelling is based on public records as well as personal and media accounts from the period.While his parents were in prison, Yummy sought out the closest thing he could find to a family: BDN or Black Disciples Nation. Was Yummy a cold-blooded killer or a victim of his environment?
Lexile: GN510
Pages: 94
Hey, Kiddo: How I Lost My Mother, Found My Father, and Dealt with Family Addiction
Jarrett Krosoczka
Graphic Novel/Realistic Fiction
In this graphic memoir, Krosoczka looks back on his childhood and adolescence. His mother was a heroin addict who was incarcerated or in rehab for much of his young life, and his father was absent for much of his childhood. Krosoczka had a supportive network of extended family and friends, however, and his art became both his passion and his salvation.This book will empower readers, especially those who feel alone in difficult situations.
Lexile: GN510
Pages: 294
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children: The Graphic Novel
Ransom Riggs & Cassandra Jean
Graphic Novel/Fantasy Fiction
When Jacob Portman was a boy, his grandfather enchanted him with stories of his fantastic life at Miss Peregrine's home during the Second World War, even sharing photos of the remarkable children with whom he resided. As Jacob grew up, he decided these photos were obvious fakes...or were they? Jacob embarks on a mission to disentangle fact from fiction, but nothing could prepare him for the eccentricities he will discover at Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children!
Lexile: GN890
Pages: 272
The Prince and the Dressmaker
Jen Wang
Graphic Novel/Historical Fiction
Prince Sebastian is looking for a bride―or rather, his parents are looking for one for him. Sebastian is too busy hiding his secret life from everyone in Paris. At night he puts on daring dresses and takes Paris by storm as the fabulous Lady Crystallia―the hottest fashion icon in the capital of fashion! Sebastian’s secret weapon (and best friend) is the brilliant dressmaker Frances―one of only two people who know the truth. But Frances dreams of greatness, and being someone’s secret weapon means being a secret. How long can Frances defer her dreams to protect a friend?
Lexile: GN360
Pages: 288
Monstress Volume 1: Awakening
Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda
Graphic Novel/Fantasy Fiction
Set in an alternate matriarchal 1900's Asia, in a richly imagined world of art deco-inflected steam punk, Monstress tells the story of a teenage girl who is struggling to survive the trauma of war. She shares a mysterious psychic link with a monster of tremendous power, a connection that will transform them both, making them the target of both human and otherworldly powers.
Lexile: N/A
Pages: 288
TAKE YOUR BREATH AWAY
Two Can Keep a Secret
Karen M. McManus
Mystery
A dead body in the middle of the road welcomes twins Ellery and Ezra Corcoran, 17, to their new home in Echo Ridge, Vermont, where they’ve been sent to live with their estranged grandmother. Ellery, a true-crime buff, uses the opportunity to look into Echo Ridge’s notorious unsolved mysteries. When Ellery is nominated for the homecoming court, someone begins to threaten her and the other two nominees for queen. When one of the two possible queens goes missing, Ellery dons her amateur detective hat, putting herself and her loved ones in danger.
Lexile: 730
Pages: 327
If You're Out There
Katy Loutzenhiser
Mystery
Inseparable since childhood, Zan and Priya have a friendship that can withstand a lot. And so, though she's heartbroken about Priya's sudden move from Chicago to California, Zan hardly expects Priya to just ghost her. But that's exactly what Priya does. Priya's Instagram, though, is filled with posts that don't sound like her. It's not until Zan meets Logan, the new guy in her Spanish class with a mysterious past of his own, that she's able to say out loud the crazy things she's been thinking: that's not Priya. Priya's in trouble. It's up to Zan to figure out how to save her.
Lexile: N/A
Pages: 297
Monday's Not Coming: A Novel
Tiffany Jackson
Mystery
Claudia Coleman and her best (and only) friend Monday were inseparable, often mistaken for twins—until the day Monday disappeared. The girls had each other's backs, and Claudia relied on Monday in ways no one else knew. But when Monday doesn't show up for the first day of school with no warning or explanation, Claudia becomes worried. Claudia refuses to give up on Monday like she thinks everyone else has: How can a young girl just disappear and have no one look for her?
Lexile: N/A
Pages: 435
Red Clocks
Leni Zumas
Dystopia
Imagine a world in which Roe v. Wade has been overturned, and abortion seekers are charged with conspiracy to commit murder, abortion providers with second-degree murder. Five women—including a high-school teacher, a biographer, a frustrated mom, a pregnant adopted teen and a forest-dwelling homeopath—struggle with changes in a near-future America where abortion and assisted fertility have been outlawed and where the homeopath is targeted by a modern-day witch hunt.
Lexile: N/A
Pages: 356
Superman: Dawnbreaker
Matt De La Peña
Adventure
Lately it's been difficult for Clark Kent to hold back and keep his heroics in the shadows. When Clark follows the sound of a girl crying, he comes across Gloria Alvarez and discovers a dark secret lurking in Smallville. Teaming up with his best friend, Lana Lang, he throws himself into the pursuit of the truth. What evil lies below the surface of his small town? And what will it cost Clark to learn about his past as he steps into the light to become the future Man of Steel? Before he can save the world, he must save Smallville.
Lexile: 710
Pages: 336
The Deceivers
Kristen Simmons
Thriller
When Brynn Hilder is recruited to Vale, it seems like the elite academy is her chance to start over. But she soon learns that Vale chooses students not so much for their scholastic talent as for their extracurricular activities, such as her time spent conning rich North Shore kids out of their extravagant allowances. At first, Brynn jumps at the chance to help the school in its mission to rid the city of corrupt officials. But that's before she meets her mark--a senator's son--and before she discovers the school's headmaster has secrets he'll stop at nothing to protect.
Lexile: N/A
Pages: 380
CLASSIC COOL
Dubliners
James Joyce
Classic Short Story Anthology
Dubliners is a collection of fifteen short stories by James Joyce about his native city, first published in 1914. They form a naturalistic depiction of Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century. The stories were written when Irish nationalism was at its peak and a search for a national identity and purpose was raging.
Lexile: 900
Pages: 286
The Awakening
Kate Chopin
Classic
First published in 1899, The Awakening is set in New Orleans at the end of the nineteenth century. The plot centers on Edna Pontellier and her struggle to reconcile her increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood with the prevailing social attitudes of the turn-of-the-century American South. This is one of the first American novels that focuses on women's issues without condescension and is also widely seen as a landmark work of early feminism.
Lexile: 960
Pages: 96
Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë
Classic
Orphaned as a child, Jane has felt like an outcast her whole young life. Her courage is tested when she arrives at Thornfield Hall, to help the brooding, proud Edward Rochester care for his ward Adèle. Jane finds herself drawn to his troubled yet kind spirit. She falls in love. But there is a terrifying secret inside the gloomy, forbidding Thornfield Hall. First published in 1847, Jane Eyre is a novel many consider ahead of its time.
Lexile: 890
Pages: 488
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston
Classic
This famous Harlem Renaissance novel examines race and gender issues through the eyes of its main character, Janie Crawford. Independent and articulate, Janie sets out to be her own person--no mean feat for a black woman the 1930s. When she returns home to rural Eatonville, Florida, she seeks identity and independence as the small southern black community buzzes with gossip. Janie's life is a quest to find true love. Her search for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots.
Lexile: 890
Pages: 207
Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe
Classic
This novel captures life in a pre-colonial African village in the late 1800s. It explores the fictional story of Okonkwo, a wealthy and fearless Igbo warrior in Nigeria, and his ultimate fall from grace in the tribal world. It also reveals the clash of cultures with the arrival of aggressive European missionaries. This is the story of one man's futile resistance to the devaluing of his Igbo traditions by British political and religious forces and his despair as his community capitulates to the powerful new order.
Lexile: 890
Pages: 209
THIS COULD HAPPEN...NO REALLY
The Poet X
Elizabeth Acevedo
Realistic Fiction/Novel-in-Verse
Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and fierceness do the talking. She pours her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, including her feelings for a boy named Aman, who her family can never know about. In light of Mami's determination to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, Xiomara's invitation to join her school's slam poetry club seems out of the question. But she can't stop thinking about performing her poems. In the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent.
Lexile: 800
Pages: 361
Eleanor & Park
Rainbow Rowell
Romance/Realistic Fiction
Teenagers Eleanor and Park are outsiders. Eleanor, because she's new to the neighborhood, and Park, because he's half Asian. Although initially wary of each other, they quickly bond over their love of comics and 1980s alternative music. Park’s family is idyllic: his Vietnam vet father and Korean immigrant mother are genuinely loving. Eleanor and her younger siblings live in poverty under the constant threat of Richie, their abusive and controlling stepfather. Despite Eleanor's resolve not to grow attached to anything, they fall, by degrees, in love.
Lexile: 580
Pages: 328
A Heart in a Body in the World
Deb Caletti
Realistic Fiction
When everything has been taken from you, what else is there to do but run? So that’s what Annabelle does—she runs from Seattle to Washington, DC, through mountain passes and suburban landscapes, from long lonely roads to college towns. She’s not ready to think about the why yet, just the how—muscles burning, heart pumping, feet pounding the earth. But no matter how hard she tries, she can’t outrun the tragedy from the past year, or the person—The Taker—that haunts her.
Lexile: 680
Pages: 355
Dear Evan Hansen: The Novel
Val Emmich
Realistic Fiction
A novelization of the Tony award-winning Broadway musical of the same name. Evan Hansen, a teen crippled by anxiety, starts each day by writing a letter of encouragement to himself. When loner Connor Murphy finds one of the letters at school and dies by suicide days later, his parents deliver the “Dear Evan Hansen” to Evan, who lies about being Connor’s best friend. As the Murphys embrace Evan, his lie goes viral, giving comfort to the grieving family and making him a social media darling. But as the lies build, Evan ’s guilt forces him to admit the truth.
Lexile: 590
Pages: 358
Dry
Neal Shusterman
Realistic Fiction/Survival
The drought in California, or the Tap-Out, as everyone calls it, has been going on for a while now. Everyone's lives have become an endless list of don'ts: don't water the lawn, don't fill up your pool, don't take long showers. Until the taps run dry. Suddenly, Alyssa's quiet suburban street spirals into a war zone of desperation; neighbors and families turned against each other on the hunt for water. And when her parents don't return and her life, and and her brother's, are threatened, Alyssa has to make impossible choices if they're going to survive.
Lexile: 790
Pages: 390
We'll Fly Away
Bryan Bliss
Realistic Fiction
Before Luke ended up on death row, he and his best friend Toby dreamed of escaping rural North Carolina in a beat-up crop duster that they discovered in a wooded area. Luke was a wrestling champion with a mother who wasn’t responsible enough to get to work or feed her family. Toby was a smart kid hiding bruises from his abusive father. They relied solely on each other. Now it's their senior year in high school, captured through Luke’s letters to his friend from behind bars. Can or should a single event define an individual?
Lexile: 670
Pages: 407
Darius the Great is Not Okay
Adib Khorram
Realistic Fiction
This coming-of-age novel brings to life the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of a culture steeped in tradition. After learning that her Iranian father is ailing, Darius’s mother decides to take the family to visit her father and relatives in Iran. Suffering from chronic depression and bullied at school in America, Darius isn’t sure how he’ll fare in a country he’s never seen. It doesn’t take him long to adjust as people welcome him with open arms, especially after he meets Sohrab, his grandparents’ teenaged neighbor, who changes his life.
Lexile: 710
Pages: 314
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
Benjamine Alire Saenz
Realistic Fiction
In the summer of 1987 in El Paso, TX, two 15-year-old loners meet when Dante offers to teach Ari to swim, and they have a laugh over their unusual names. Though polar opposites in most aspects other than age and Mexican heritage, the teens form an instant bond and become inseparable. This poetic novel takes Ari, brooding and quiet, and with a brother in prison, and Dante , open and intellectual, through a year and a half of change, discovering secrets, and crossing borders from which there is no return. Together Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.
Lexile: 380
Pages: 359
OUT OF THIS WORLD
The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm
Christopher Paolini
Fantasy
It's been a year since Eragon departed Alagaesia in search of the perfect home to train a new generation of Dragon Riders. Now he is struggling with an endless sea of tasks: constructing a vast dragonhold, wrangling with suppliers, guarding dragon eggs, and dealing with belligerent Urgals and haughty elves. Then a vision from the Eldunari, unexpected visitors, and an exciting Urgal legend offer a much-needed distraction and a new perspective. These three stories revisit the world of Christopher Paolini's Inheritance series.
Lexile: 920
Pages: 281
Damsel
Elana K. Arnold
Fantasy
The rite has existed for as long as anyone can remember: when the prince-who-will-be-king comes of age, he must venture out into the gray lands, slay a fierce dragon, and rescue a damsel to be his bride. When Ama wakes in the arms of Prince Emory, however, she knows none of this. She has no memory of what came before she was captured by the dragon, or what horrors she has faced in its lair. She knows only her destiny to sit on the throne beside him. As soon as her first night falls, she begins to realize that not all is as it seems.
Lexile: N/A
Pages: 309
Starflight
Melissa Landers
Fantasy
Life in the outer realm is a lawless, dirty, hard existence, and Solara Brooks is hungry for it. Just out of the orphanage, she needs a fresh start in a place where nobody cares about the engine grease beneath her fingernails or the felony tattoos across her knuckles. She's so desperate to reach the realm that she's willing to indenture herself to Doran Spaulding, the rich and popular quarterback who made her life miserable all through high school, in exchange for passage aboard the spaceliner Zenith.
Lexile: 810
Pages: 359
Spellbook of the Lost and Found
Moïra Fowley-Doyle
Magical Realism
After the annual May bonfire, everyone in the small Irish town of Balmallen wakes having lost something. Olive is worried about her best friend, who’s skipping school and being uncommunicative. Hazel, squatting in an abandoned house with her twin brother and their friend, is keeping a terrible secret about their mother. When the teens find the spell book, they realize that someone already cast this spell and it worked. So why shouldn’t they try?
Lexile: 810
Pages: 359
Mirage
Somaiya Daud
Fantasy
In the brutal Vathek Empire, sixteen-year-old Amani dreams of one day having an adventure. But when adventure comes, it is not what she expects: she is kidnapped by the regime and taken to the royal palace, where she discovers that she is nearly identical to the princess. The princess is so hated that she requires a body double, ready to die in her place. As Amani is forced into her new role, she finds the palace hides a world of violence and fear, and one wrong move could lead to her death.
Lexile: 780
Pages: 327
The City of Sand
Tianxia Bachang
Fantasy
Seventeen-year-old Hu Tianyi has spent years studying the ancient art of feng shui. He and his best friend Kai plan to strike it rich by using his knowledge to locate and plunder the hidden tombs of nobles—a practice known as gold hunting. Tianyi and Kai travel to Beijing, where they’re hired by a legendary archaeologist and an American millionaire to help them find the lost city of Jingjue. While crossing the Taklimakan Desert, the group encounters everything from sandstorms to carnivorous ants, but those tribulations are nothing compared to what awaits them in Jingjue.
(Translated from Chinese: Book title: 鬼吹灯之精绝古城. Author: 天下霸唱)
Lexile: 930
Pages: 256
BE INSPIRED
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
Trevor Noah
Memoir
Trevor Noah is a comedian, political commentator, and television host. Born in South Africa to a black African mother and a white Swedish father, Noah's birth violated the Immorality Act of 1927, which outlawed interracial relationships. Though apartheid ended a decade after Noah’s birth, its legacy lived on in the country’s nearly inescapable ghettos and perpetual racial conflicts. Noah’s story is of modern South Africa; though he enjoyed some privileges of the region’s slow Westernization, his formative years were shaped by poverty, injustice, and violence.
Lexile: 770
Pages: 304
Finding Gobi: A Little Dog with a Very Big Heart
Dion Leonard
Memoir
In 2016, Dion Leonard, a seasoned ultramarathon runner, unexpectedly stumbled across a little stray dog while competing in a grueling 155 mile race across the Gobi Desert. The lovable pup, who earned the name ‘Gobi,’ proved that what she lacked in size, she more than made up for in heart, as she went step for step with Dion, managing to keep pace with him for nearly 80 miles. As Dion witnessed the incredible determination of this small animal, he felt something change within himself. This was the start of a journey neither of them would ever forget.
Lexile: 550
Pages: 259
Educated
Tara Westover
Memoir
A recent Ph.D grad writes a wrenching account of her youth in a fundamentalist Mormon family in rural Idaho. Born to survivalists preparing for the end of the world, she toiled in her father's junkyard and assisted her mother, a midwife and herbalist. Tara was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. It was 2003, and she had never heard of the Holocaust, The World Trade Center, or virtually anything having to do with the arts and popular culture. With determination, Tara miraculously forged a path all the way to Cambridge University.
Lexile: N/A
Pages: 334
Becoming
Michelle Obama
Memoir
The former first lady looks back on an unlikely rise to the top while navigating issues of race and gender in this warmhearted memoir. Obama was born to a working-class family in Chicago, earned Princeton and Harvard degrees and prominent jobs in law and public relations, and along the way asked herself, "Am I good enough?" With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it--in her own words and on her own terms.
Lexile: 1170
Pages: 426
Flygirl
Sherri L. Smith
Historical Fiction
Eighteen-year-old Ida Mae Jones, a Louisiana girl, longs to be a pilot in December 1941, on the eve of America's entrance into World War II. She is pretty and smart, but she has two huge strikes against her. She is black in an America where racism holds sway, and a competent pilot in an America in which she is denied her license because she is a woman. When the U.S. starts the WASP (Women Airforce Service Program), she is determined to join up. Ida Mae is so light-skinned that she can pass as white, which means leaving her family and friends and creating a new identity.
Lexile: 680
Pages: 278
Never Quit: From Alaskan Wilderness Rescues to Afghanistan:
Firefights as an Elite Special Ops PJ
Jimmy Settle and Don Rearden
Memoir
Never Quit is the true story of how Jimmy Settle, an Alaskan shoe store clerk, became a Special Forces Operator and decorated war hero. From death-defying Alaskan wilderness training, wild rescues, and vicious battles against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, Never Quit is an explosive special operations memoir unlike any that has come before, and the true story of a man from humble beginnings who became an American hero.
Lexile: N/A
Pages: 336
HISTORICAL FACT OR FICTION
Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge
Erica Armstrong Dunbar
Nonfiction: History
As President George Washington's second term was coming to a close, one of his household slaves escaped to freedom, never to return. Oney "Ona" Judge (1773–1848) was born into slavery and worked as a dressmaker and attendant for First Lady Martha Washington. Her story is remarkable for her daring success, and what it reveals about the personal lives and beliefs of the Washingtons. At just twenty-two-years-old, Judge fled to New Hampshire where she lived for nearly another half century as a free woman, despite repeated attempts by an angry Washington to capture and return her to his plantation.
Lexile: N/A
Pages: 253
All the Light We Cannot See
Anthony Doerr
Historical Fiction
Shifting among multiple viewpoints but focusing mostly on blind French teenager Marie-Laure and Werner, a brilliant German soldier just a few years older than she, this novel has the physical and emotional heft of a masterpiece. The main protagonists are brave, sensitive, and intellectually curious, and in another time they might have been a couple. But they are on opposite sides of the horrors of World War II, and their fates ultimately collide in connection with the radio—a means of resistance for the Allies and just one more avenue of annihilation for the Nazis.
Lexile: 880
Pages: 531
Madame Fourcade's Secret War:
The Daring Young Woman Who Led France's Largest Spy Network Against Hitler
Lynne Olson
Nonfiction
This is the little-known true story of Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, the woman who headed the largest spy network in occupied France during World War II. She organized, recruited, trained, raised funds, hid, changed identities as often as she dyed her hair, and suffered arrest and torture by Nazis. The organizational genius of Fourcade shines through tales of her cat-and-mouse game with the Gestapo, including multiple daring escapes from Nazi captivity. Olson honors Fourcade’s fight for freedom and her refusal to be silenced with a gripping narrative that will thrill readers.
Lexile: N/A
Pages: 464
A Very Large Expanse of Sea
Tahereh Mafi
Realistic Fiction
It’s 2002, a year after 9/11. It’s an extremely turbulent time politically, but especially for someone like Shirin, a sixteen-year-old Muslim girl who’s tired of being stereotyped. She’s tired of the rude stares, the degrading comments—even the physical violence—she endures as a result of her race, religion and the hijab she wears every day. But then she meets Ocean James, first person in forever who really seems to want to get to know her. But Shirin has had her guard up for so long that she’s not sure she’ll ever be able to let it down.
Lexile: N/A
Pages: 310
Questions?
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