Adventure, Exploration & Escape:
HIGH SCHOOL SUMMER READING 2021
Let's Take a Summer Adventure Together
Instructions
Each student will read a total of 2 or more books.
- First, choose a title written by Jason Reynolds, Library of Congress National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, who will be virtually visiting NBPS in September!
- Second, choose a book from the Adventure, Exploration & Escape choice list of 45 books.
- Lastly, complete the Summer Reading Assignment, linked in the pdf below. You may print it out or complete it digitally. This is one assignment that encompasses both of your books.
Click Below for the HS Summer Reading Assignment
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 a subset of the full summer reading list. We offer these Fabulous Freshman Reads as a guide. While freshman are not limited to these books, they 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. *Fabulous Freshman Reads are denoted with an asterisk.
SUMMER READING BOOK FAIR HAS GONE VIRTUAL
Kindle Purchase Instructions
Jason Reynolds - Visiting Author Choice List
(CHOOSE AT LEAST ONE)
*Long Way Down: The Graphic Novel
60 seconds. Seven floors. Three rules. One gun. A page-turner in graphic form.
An electrifying novel, written in verse, that takes place in 60 seconds...the time it takes a kid to decide whether or not he’s going to murder the guy who killed his brother.
Jason Reynolds & Brandon Kiely
Two teens grapple with the repercussions of a single, violent act that bitterly divides their school and community. Yet Rashad and Quinn lead the way toward healing.
Miles Morales is just your average teenager...and oh yeah, he’s Spider Man. Though lately his spidey-sense is on the fritz, Miles uncovers a chilling plot that puts his friends, neighborhood and himself at risk.
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You
This is NOT a history book. This is a book about the here and now. A book to help us better understand why we are where we are.
Adventure, Exploration and Escape Choice List
(Choose at least one)
GETTING GRAPHIC
Robin Ha
Robin lives in Seoul, Korea. When a vacation to Huntsville, Alabama unexpectedly becomes a permanent relocation, Robin is devastated. When she enrolls in a local comic drawing class a window is opened.
Gene Luen Yang
The High School boys’ basketball team is having a phenomenal season that’s been decades in the making. Each victory brings them closer to States. Dragon Hoops will have even sports haters on their feet cheering!
Kurt Vonnegut
This first-ever just-released graphic novel adaptation of Vonnegut’s American classic, one of the world’s great anti-war books. Join Billy Pilgrim’s journey on this action-packed path.
David Levithan
The “squip” is a pill-sized supercomputer that you swallow, and guaranteed to bring you whatever you most desire in life. Jeremy’s life transforms! But there’s a darkside..
TAKE YOUR BREATH AWAY
Karen McManus
The entire Story family has secrets. Whatever pulled them apart years ago isn’t over--and this summer, the cousins will learn EVERYTHING.
Brit Bennett
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. Inseparable as children, they ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white.
(The Inheritance Games series, bk. 1)
Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Avery has a plan: survive high school, win a scholarship then get out. But billionaire Tobias Hawthorne dies and leaves her his entire fortune. The catch? Avery has no idea why, or even who Tobias is.
Jane Hur
Korea, 1800. Orphaned 16-year-old Seol is assisting with the investigation into the murder of a noblewoman. But in a land where silence and obedience are valued above all else, curiosity can be deadly.
Charles Yu
After stumbling into the spotlight, Willis finds himself launched into a wider world than he’s ever known, discovering not only the secret history of Chinatown, but the buried legacy of his own family. Funny and fresh.
CLASSIC COOL
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
John Knowles
Randle Patrick McMurphy is a boisterous, fun-loving rebel who swaggers into the world of a mental hospital and takes over. McMurphy rallies the other patients by challenging the dictatorship of Nurse Ratched...and an all out war ensues.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Maya Angelou
Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small southern town, Maya and her brother Bailey endure the ache of abandonment. In this true story, Maya learns that love for herself and the kindness of others will allow her to be free.
Betty Smith
From the moment she entered the world, Francie Nolan needed to be made of stern stuff, for growing up in the slums of Brooklyn, New York demanded fortitude and strength of spirit. This American classic cuts right to the heart of life.
J.D. Salinger
Holden Caulfield leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days.
Mikhail Bulgakov
One spring afternoon, the devil, trailing fire and chaos in his wake, weaves himself out of the shadows and into Moscow. This funny, fantastical and devastating satire of Soviet life combines the distinct parts...one set in Moscow, the other in Jerusalem during Stalin’s reign.
THIS COULD HAPPEN...NO REALLY
Paul Volponi
As the last moments tick down in the championship game, readers learn how each player went from being a kid who loves to shoot hoops to a powerful force in one of the most important games of the year.
Yamile Saied Mendez
In Rosario, Argentina, Camila lives a double life. At home, she is a careful daughter, living within her mother’s narrow expectations. On the field, she is La Furia, a powerhouse of skill and talent. Her parents have no idea.
Ibi Zoboi & Yusef Salaam
Suddenly, at just sixteen years old, Amal is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and sent to prison. Despair and rage almost sink him until he turns to the refuge of his words, his art. This never should have been his story. But can he change it?
Kiley Reid
A page-turning and big-hearted story about race and privilege, set around a young babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both.
Leah Johnson
Liz has always believed she’s too awkward to shine in her small, rich, prom-obsessed town. But she has a plan that will get her out forever...to attend the uber-elite Pennington College. But when Liz’s financial aid plans come crashing down she’s reminded of her school’s scholarship for prom king and queen.
Elizabeth Acevedo
In two distinct voices, this novel in verse explores the rich inner lives of the sudden half-sisters as they grapple with their complicated feelings about their father and the secrets he kept.
LOVE & LIGHT
Emma Lord
An irresistible romantic comedy about the chances we take, the paths life can lead us on, and how love can be found in the opposite place you expected.
Brigid Kemmerer
When his dad is caught embezzling funds from half the town, Rob goes from popular lacrosse player to social pariah. Everyone thinks of Maegan as an overachiever, but she has a secret of her own after the pressure got to her last year. Is it okay to do something wrong for the right reasons?
Morgan Matson
There were three things Amy Curry didn’t expect out of senior year. First: her father’s death. Second: her mother’s decision to relocate to the East Coast. Third: Roger Sullivan.
A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea & Tomorrow
Laura Taylor Namey
Nestled in Miami, Lila has been surrounded by her Cuban family and has her life planned out after high school...to take over her abuela’s bakery, move in with her best friend, and keep seeing her boyfriend, Andres. But even recipes that are tried and true can sometimes fall apart.
Alex Light
It’s been years since 17-year-old Becca believed in true love. But when her former best friend teases her for not having had a boyfriend. Becca impulsively pretends she’s secretly seeing someone. But now she’s got to keep up the ruse.
Phil Stamper
Two teens find love when their lives are uprooted for their parents’ involvement in a NASA mission to Mars. As their relationship develops, so does the frenzy surrounding the Mars mission. Things aren’t always what they seem.
Kasie West
At 16, Hadley knows exactly who she is--a swimmer who will earn a scholarship to college. Totally worth the hard work, even if her aching shoulders don’t agree. So when a guy dressed as Hollywood’s latest action hero crashes her swim meet, she isn’t amused. Hadley works to uncover the masked boy’s identity.
OUT OF THIS WORLD
M.T. Anderson
For Titus and his friends, it started out like any ordinary trip to the moon--a chance to party during spring break. But that was before the crazy hacker caused all their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the hospital to lie around with nothing inside their heads for days. And before Titus met Violet, who has decided to fight the feed.
Marie Lu
A broken world. An overwhelming evil. A team of warriors ready to strike back. Only one thing is clear: Talin is ready to fight to the death for the only homeland they have left. Loyalty is life.
Alexandra Bracken
Every seven years, the Agon begins. As punishment for a past rebellion, nine Greek gods are forced to walk the earth as mortals, hunted by the descendants of ancient bloodlines, all eager to kill a god and seize their divine power and immortality.
(These Violent Delights series, bk. 1)
Melissa de la Cruz
An imaginative Romeo and Juliet retelling set in 1920s Shanghai, with rival gangs and a monster in the depths of the Huangpu River.
Melissa Bashardoust
There was and there was not, as all stories begin, a princess cursed to be poisonous to the touch. But for Soraya, who has lived her life hidden away, apart from her family, safe only in her gardens, it’s not just a story.
Kazuo Ishiguro
An “Artificial Friend” is a robot girl with artificial intelligence designed as a playmate for real children. From her place in the store, she watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, hopeful that a customer will soon choose her. A thrilling story that offers a look at our changing world.
The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein
Kiersten White
Elizabeth is on the verge of being thrown into the streets, until she is brought to the home of Victor Frankenstein, an unsmiling, solitary boy who has everything. Except a friend. But her new life comes at a price.
BE INSPIRED
*Americanized: Rebel Without a Green Card
Sara Saedi
At 13, bright-eyed, straight-A student Sara Saedi uncovered a terrible family secret: she was breaking the law simply by living in the United States. Only two years old when her parents fled Iran, she didn’t learn of her undocumented status until a teen. She desperately wanted a green card, along with clear skin, her own car, and a boyfriend.
Caste: The Origins of our Discontents
Isabel Wilkersen
As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power--which groups have it and which do not.
Bonnie Tsui
The author, a swimmer herself, dives into the deep, from the San Francisco Bay to the South China Sea, investigating what it is about water that seduces us, despite its dangers, and why we come back to it again and again.
Christopher Voss
After a stint policing the rough streets of Kansas City, Missouri, Chris Voss joined the FBI, where his career as a hostage negotiator brought him face-to-face with a range of criminals, including bank robbers and terrorists.
Richard Engel
Reporting as NBC’s Chief Foreign Correspondent, Richard Engel reveals his unparalleled access to major figures, soldiers and victims in the Middle East during the last two decades. He takes chances, keeps a level head and a sense of humor, as well as a grasp of history-in-the-making in this can’t-put-down read.
Dan Harris
This humble, funny story tells how one man found a way to navigate the non-stop stresses and demands of modern life, and make his way back to humanity by finally learning to sit around, unplug, and do nothing.
Hope Nation: YA Authors Share Moments of Personal Inspiration
Rose Brock
This amazing outpouring of strength and honesty offers inspirational personal stories for every reader who wonders what to do when everything seems impossible.
HISTORICAL FACT OR FICTION
Dan Schilling & Lori Chapman Longfritz
The true account of John Chapman, Medal of Honor recipient and Special Ops Combat Controller, and his heroic one-man stand during the Afghan War, as he sacrificed his life to save the lives of 23 comrades-in-arms.
Julie Berry
A sweeping, multi-layered romance set in the perilous days of World Wars I and II where gods hold the fates--and the hearts--of four mortals in their hands.
Natalie Jenner
Set in the tiny village of Chawton during and after World War II, this is a story about eight
people from very different backgrounds--from a farmer to a movie starlet--who, in saving
the house Jane Austen last lived in from developers, unexpectedly save themselves
from loneliness, grief and loss.
Ariel Lawhon
This page-turner is based on the thrilling real-life story of socialite spy Nancy Wake, the astonishing woman who killed a Nazi with her bare hands and went on to become one of the most decorated women in World War II.
*Everything Sad is Untrue: (a true story)
Daniel Hayeri
This autobiographical novel is told in the unforgettable and hilarious voice of a young Iranian refugee, and urges readers to speak their truth and be heard. Who owns the truth? Who speaks it? Who believes it?