READING OLYMPICS HIGH SCHOOL BOOKLIST 2016
All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven
Told in alternating voices, when Theodore Finch and Violet Markey meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school,both teetering on the edge, it's the beginning of an unlikely relationship, a journey to discover the "natural wonders"of the state of Indiana, and two teens' desperate desire to heal and save one another. Includes bibliographical references. Fiction
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
Enzo, the dog of professional race car driver Denny Swift, recalls the memories of his life and shares his insight into the human condition that he learned from observing his owner. Non-Fiction
Because I am Furniture by Thalia Chaltas
The youngest of three siblings, fourteen-year-old Anke feels both relieved and neglected that her father abuses her brother and sister but ignores her, but when she catches him with one of her friends, she finally becomes angry enough to take action. Fiction
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Chronicles the mental breakdown of Esther Greenwood--a brilliant, beautiful, talented and successful young woman. Includes bibliographical references and index. Non-Fiction
Black and White by Paul Volponi
Two star high school basketball players, one black and one white, experience the justice system differently after committing a crime together and getting caught. Fiction
Borderline by Allan Stratton
Despite the strained relationship between them, teenaged Sami Sabiri risks his life to uncover the truth when his father is implicated in a terrorist plot. Fiction
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
A satirical novel about the utopia of the future, a world in which babies are decanted from bottles and the great Ford is worshipped. Fiction
Briar Rose by Jane Yolen
In this retelling of "Sleeping Beauty," a young woman learns that her grandmother had a secret past tied to the Holocaust. Fiction
Chanda’s Secrets by Allan Stratton
Chanda Kabelo, a sixteen-year-old in a small South African town, faces down shame and stigma in her efforts to help friends and family members who are dying of AIDS. Fiction
The Christopher Killer by Alane Ferguson
On the payroll as an assistant to her coroner father, seventeen-year-old Cameryn Mahoney uses her knowledge of forensic medicine to catch the killer of a friend while putting herself in terrible danger. Fiction
Copper Sun by Sharon M. Draper
Two fifteen-year-old girls--one a slave and the other an indentured servant--escape their Carolina plantation and try to make their way to Fort Moses, Florida, a Spanish colony that gives sanctuary to slaves. Includes bibliographical references. Fiction
Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
After spending her summer running the family farm and training the quarterback for her school's rival football team, sixteen-year-old D.J. decides to go out for the sport herself, not anticipating the reactions of those around her. Fiction
Dirty Little Secrets by CJ Omololu
When her unstable mother dies unexpectedly, sixteen-year-old Lucy must take control and find a way to keep the long-held secret of her mother's compulsive hoarding from being revealed to friends, neighbors, and especially the media. Fiction
The Diviners by Libba Bray
Seventeen-year-old Evie O'Neill is thrilled when she is exiled from small-town Ohio to New York City in 1926, even when a rash of occult-based murders thrusts Evie and her uncle, curator of The Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult, into the thick of the investigation. Fiction
Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
Set over the course of one school year in 1986, this is the story of two star-crossed misfits--smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try. Fiction
The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancey
Cassie Sullivan, the survivor of an alien invasion, must rescue her young brother from the enemy with help from a boy who may be one of them. Fiction
Flash Burnout by L.K. Madigan
Fifteen-year-old amateur photographer Blake gains self-awareness through his relationships with a girlfriend and a friend who he helps come to terms with her feelings about her homeless, methamphetamine-addicted mother. Includes bibliographical references. Fiction
Gabi, a Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero
Sixteen-year-old Gabi Hernandez chronicles her senior year in high school as she copes with her friend Cindy's pregnancy, her friend Sebastian's coming out, her father's meth habit, her own cravings for food and cute boys, and especially, the poetry that helps forge her identity. Fiction
Ghosts of War: the true story of a 19-year-old GI by Ryan Smithson
Ryan Smithson recounts the experiences he had serving his first tour of duty as an Army engineer in Iraq when he was only nineteen. Non-Fiction
Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok
Ah-Kim Chang and her mother immigrate to Brooklyn, where they work for Kim's Aunt Paula in a Chinatown clothing factory earning barely enough to keep them alive; however, Kim's perseverance and hard work earns her a place at an elite private school where she is befriended by Annette, who helps her adjust to American culture. Fiction
I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
A story of first love, family, loss, and betrayal told from different points in time, and in separate voices, by artists Jude and her twin brother Noah. Fiction
Jumped by Rita Williams-Garcia
The lives of Leticia, Dominique, and Trina are irrevocably intertwined through the course of one day in an urban high school after Leticia overhears Dominique's plans to beat up Trina and must decide whether or not to get involved. Fiction
A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest j. Gaines
Tells the story of a young African-American man sentenced to death for a murder he did not commit, and a teacher who tries to impart to him his learning and pride before the execution. Fiction
Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork
Marcelo Sandoval, a seventeen-year-old boy on the high-functioning end of the autistic spectrum, faces new challenges, including romance and injustice, when he goes to work for his father in the mailroom of a corporate law firm. Fiction
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
A circus known as Le Cirque des Reves features two illusionists, Celia and Marco, who are unknowingly competing in a game to which they have been irrevocably bound by their mercurial masters, and as the two fall deeply and passionately in love with each other, their masters intervene with dangerous consequences. Fiction
Noggin by John Corey Whaley
After dying at age sixteen, Travis Coates' head was removed and frozen for five years before being attached to another body, and now the old Travis and the new must find a way to coexist while figuring out changes in his relationships. Fiction
Num8ers by Rachel Ward
Fifteen-year-old Jem knows when she looks at someone the exact date they will die, so she avoids relationships and tries to keep out of the way, but when she meets a boy named Spider and they plan a day out together, they become more involved than either of them had planned. Fiction
Our Town by Thornton Wilder
Portrays life in Grover's Corner, New Hampshire, in the early 1900's through the routine daily events and the major moments in the lives of George Gibbs, Emily Webb, and their families; and how their lives, although mundane, are touched by the universal forces of love, despair, apathy, nature, and death. Non-Fiction
Pointe by Brandy Colbert
Four years after Theo's best friend, Donovan, disappeared at age thirteen, he is found and brought home and Theo puts her health at risk as she decides whether to tell the truth about the abductor, knowing her revelation could end her life-long dream of becoming a professional ballet dancer. Fiction
Port Chicago 50 by Steve Sheinkin
Describes the fifty black sailors who refused to work in unsafe and unfair conditions after an explosion in Port Chicago killed 320 servicemen, and how the incident influenced civil rights. Includes bibliographical references and index. Non-Fiction
Runner by Carl Deuker
Living with his alcoholic father on a broken-down sailboat on Puget Sound has been hard on seventeen-year-old Chance Taylor, but when his love of running leads to a high-paying job, he quickly learns that the money is not worth the risk. Fiction
The Scar Boys by Len Vlahos
Written as a college admission essay, eighteen-year-old Harry Jones recounts a childhood defined by the hideous scars he hid behind, and how forming a band brought self-confidence, friendship, and his first kiss. Fiction
Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Fourteen-year-old Lily and her companion, Rosaleen, an African-American woman who has cared for Lily since her mother's death ten years earlier, flee their home after Rosaleen is victimized by racist police officers, and find a safe haven in Tiburon, South Carolina at the home of three beekeeping sisters, May, June, and August. Fiction
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
In a world where dragons and humans coexist in an uneasy truce and dragons can assume human form, Seraphina, whose mother died giving birth to her, grapples with her own identity amid magical secrets and royal scandals, while she struggles to accept and develop her extraordinary musical talents. Fiction
Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
In a futuristic world, teenaged Nailer scavenges copper wiring from grounded oil tankers for a living, but when he finds a beached clipper ship with a girl in the wreckage, he has to decide if he should strip the ship for its wealth or rescue the girl. Fiction
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
A fourth-generation German-American is tortured by his memories of the firebombing of Dresden in 1944 which he witnessed while a prisoner of war. Fiction
Sold by Patricia McCormick
A novel in vignettes, in which Lakshmi, a thirteen-year-old girl from Nepal, is sold into prostitution in India. Fiction
Stitches: A Memoir by David Small
A graphic novel that chronicles the life of American author and illustrator David Small, detailing his sickly childhood and teenage years, relationship with his parents, his cancer, and more. Autobiography/ Non-Fiction
Three Little Words: A Memoir by Ashley Rhodes-Courter
Ashley Rhodes-Courter provides an account of her life, focusing on the nine years she spent in Florida's foster care system after being removed from her mother at the age of three, and explaining how her life changed after she was adopted. Autobiography/ Non-Fiction
Three Rivers Rising: A Novel of the Johnstown Flood by Jame Richards
Sixteen-year-old Celestia is a wealthy member of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, where she meets and falls in love with Peter, a hired hand who lives in the valley below, and by the time of the torrential rains that lead to the disastrous Johnstown flood of 1889, she has been disowned by her family and is staying with him in Johnstown.
Includes an author's note and historical timeline. Includes bibliographical references. Fiction
War Brothers: the Graphic Novel by Sharon McKay
A graphic novel adaptation of the author's novel about a group of boys in Uganda who are kidnapped and forced to join the Lord's Resistance Army, or LRA, and their desperate escape, only to return home to discover that their friends and family are afraid of them. Non-Fiction
We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
Spending the summers on her family's private island off the coast of Massachusetts with her cousins and a special boy named Gat, teenaged Cadence struggles to remember what happened during her fifteenth summer. Fiction
Winger by Andrew Smith
Two years younger than his classmates at a prestigious boarding school, fourteen-year-old Ryan Dean West grapples with living in the dorm for troublemakers, falling for his female best friend who thinks of him as just a kid, and playing wing on the Varsity rugby team with some of his frightening new dorm-mates. Fiction
The Young Elites by Marie Lu
Adelina Amouteru survived the blood fever, a deadly illness that killed many, but left others with strange markings and supernatural powers. Cast out by her family, Adelina joins the secret society of the Young Elites and discovers her own dangerous abilities. Fiction
Zel by Donna Napoli
Adapted from the fairy tale Rapunzel, the story is told in alternating chapters from the point of view of Zel, her mother, and the prince, as Zel falls in love with a young prince, and her mother tries everything she can to prevent Zel from leaving her. Fiction
