High School Summer Reading 

The Living

Taking a summer job on a Pacific luxury cruise liner to help his struggling family, Shy anticipates a season of lucrative tips and pretty girlfriends only to have everything radically transformed by a massive California earthquake that jeopardizes the survival of everyone he knows.

Ball Don’t Lie

Seventeen-year-old Sticky lives for basketball and plays at school and at the Lincoln Rec Center in Los Angeles but he is unaware of the many dangers–including his own past–that threaten his dream of playing professionally.

Mexican Whiteboy

Sixteen-year-old Danny searches for his identity amidst the confusion of being half-Mexican and half-white while spending a summer with his cousin and new friends on the baseball fields and back alleys of San Diego County, California.

Superman Dawnbreaker

Before he becomes Superman, Clark Kent must save his hometown of Smallville.

Princess and the Grilled Cheese by Deya Muniz

Lady Camembert wants to live life on her own terms, without marriage. But the law of the land is that women cannot inherit. So when her father passes away she disguises herself as a man and moves to the capital city of the Kingdom of Fromage to start over as Count Camembert. But it’s hard to keep a low profile when the beautiful Princess Brie, with her fierce activism and great sense of fashion, catches her attention.

The Hills of Estrella Roja by Ashley Robin Franklin

When college freshman Kat Fields receives a mysterious email urging her to visit a relatively unknown Texas town with “devil lights”, she takes a solo road trip to Estrella Roja. Alongside another new arrival to the town, Marisol, they work to uncover the dark legacy that the town was built on and learn that something hungry lurks beneath the strange stars and that in the hills of Estrella Roja, some secrets should stay buried.

Static Up All Night by Lamar Giles

Virgil (aka Static) can do amazing things with his vast array of electrical abilities, but instantly mending a broken heart isn’t in his skill set.

Courage to Dream: Tales of Hope in the Holocaust by Neal Shusterman

Woven from Jewish folklore and cultural history, this collection of stories, taking place during the Holocaust, shows what it means to face the extinction of everything and everyone you hold dear while exploring one common thread: the tradition of resistance and uplift. Stories use scifi and fantasy to subvert the traditional narrative. 

Gwen and Art are Not in Love

by Lex Croucher

Forced to spend the summer together at Camelot in the run up to their nuptials, Arthur and Gwendoline, betrothed since birth, discover they make better allies than enemies as they cover for each other so they can pursue their real romantic interests. 

Chaos Theory by Nik Stone

A senior at Windward Academy, Shelbi, who has a diagnosed mental illness, keeps to herself until she forms a connection with Andy Criddle, who is battling addiction, but the closer they get, the more the past threatens to pull them apart.

Queen Bee by Amalie Howard

Disguising herself as a mysterious heiress to infiltrate London’s elite, Lady Ela Dalvi questions whether vengeance is still her greatest desire when she reunites with the only boy she’s ever loved while seeking revenge against the friend who betrayed her.

Rez Ball by Byron Graves

When the varsity basketball team members take him under their wing, Tre Brun, representing his Ojibwe reservation, steps into his late brother’s shoes as star player but soon learns he can’t mess up–not on the court, not in school and not in love.

Saints of the Household by Ari Tison

When they break up a fight that harms their school’s star soccer player in the process, two BriBri American brothers find their dreams for the future threatened by their actions and must reach back to their Bribri roots to find their way forward.

Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Bouley

With the rising number of missing Indigenous women, her family’s involvement in a murder investigation and grave robbers profiting off her Anishinaabe tribe, Perry takes matters into her own hands to solve the mystery and reclaim her people’s inheritance.

We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds

When seventeen-year-old Avery moves to rural Georgia to live with her ailing grandmother, she encounters decade-old family secrets and a mystery surrounding the town’s racist past.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

When Janie Starks returns home, she seeks identity and independence as the small southern black community buzzes with gossip about the outcome of her affair with a younger man.

His Hideous Heart edited by Dahlia Adler

Thirteen of Poe’s terrifying works are reimagined in new and unexpected ways for modern readers. Poe’s own stories are included, so readers can compare.

Five Survive by Holly Jackson

Red Kenny is on a road trip for spring break with five friends: one of them a killer. When their RV breaks down in the middle of nowhere with no cell service, they soon realize this is no accident. They have been trapped by someone who clearly wants one of them dead. With eight hours until dawn, the six friends must escape, or figure out which of them is the target. But is there a liar among them? Buried secrets will be forced to light and tensions inside the RV will reach deadly levels.

Into the Sublime by Kate A. Boorman

With her cousin Sasha in a coma, guilt-stricken 17-year-old Amelie Desmarais, who is part of a meet-up for thrill seekers, searches an underground cave system for a lake rumored to reveal your deepest fears and discovers the truth about Sasha’s accident.

Stars and Smoke by Marie Lu

Nineteen-year old Winter Young, the world’s hottest superstar, is recruited by a covert organization to take down a criminal tycoon and finds himself paired with Sydney Cossette, a fierce and unpredictable secret agent, but suspicions soon turn to sparks as the two are drawn into a tangled web of secrets and deception.

You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight by Kalynn Bayron

Recreating scenes from a classic slasher film for a full-contact terror game, Charity Curtis, who plays the “final girl” at Camp Mirror Lake, finds her role turning all too real when a killer starts picking off her co-workers one by one.

Our Crooked Hearts by Melissa Albert

Told in alternating voices, years after it began, seventeen-year-old Ivy and her mom Dana’s shared story comes down to a reckoning among a daughter, a mother, and the dark forces they never should have messed with.

A Wilderness of Stars by Shea Ernshaw

After her mother’s death, Vega, the Last Astronomer, is forced to leave the protective boundaries of the valley and enters a world of sickness where she and a boy named Noah bear similar marks that could hold the key to the cure.

Star Splitter by Mathew J. Kirby

In 2199, 17-year-old Jessica Mathers wakes up on a desolate, post-extinction planet 14 light years from Earth and must make sense of the bloody destruction around her, as well as the questionable intentions of a familiar stranger.

Spell Bound by F.T. Lukens

Rival teenage apprentice sorcerers, Rook and Sun, must team up to save their teachers or risk losing their magic forever.

Walls by LM Elliott

In the days before the treacherous overnight raising of the Berlin Wall, teenage cousins Drew, an American army brat in West Berlin, and Matthias, a young communist in East Berlin, become wary friends on opposite sides of the Cold War. Interspersed throughout the story are captioned photographs from the era.

The Blackwoods by Brandy Colbert

Told from multiple points of view, Ardith and Hollis Blackwood’s lives are upended when their great-grandmother, legendary actress Blossom Blackwood, passes away, and family secrets emerge.

Just a Hat by S. Khubiar

In 1979 Texas, 13-year-old Joseph Nissan struggles to trust others and stay true to himself when the Iran hostage crisis, two neighborhood bullies and the local reverend’s beautiful daughter put him in danger, until he discovers he’s not alone.

Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives it Changed by Dashka Slater

This thought-provoking nonfiction narrative recounts the discovery of a racist social media account in the small town of Albany, California, that forever changes the lives of a group of high school students and leaves everyone wondering about accountability for harmful online speech.

The 21 : the True Story of the Youth Who Sued the U.S. Government Over Climate Change by Elizabeth Rusch

This gripping real-life legal and environmental thriller recounts the ongoing federal case of 21 young people who are suing the U.S. government for supporting the fossil-fuel industry that is actively contributing to climate change and asks readers to think deeply about our planet’s future.

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer

Using cutting-edge research, a surprising cultural history of memory, and venerable tricks of the mentalist’s trade to transform our understanding of human remembering. Under the tutelage of top “mental athletes,” Foer learns ancient techniques to memorize his speeches and to memorize entire books. Using methods that have been largely forgotten, he discovers that we can all dramatically improve our memories.