Saugus High School Summer Reading 2021

Every high school student is encouraged to choose at least one of the texts listed below for discussion, and potential assignments, in the Fall of 2021.  It is also recommended that you take notes, to help you remember characters, conflict, plot sequence, and theme.   

AP Literature 
​How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster

AP Language  
Autobiography and nonfiction are strongly recommended
​
The following titles are strongly recommended for each of the following:
​Grade 9 The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
Grade 10 American Street by Ibi Zoboi
Grade 11 On The Come Up by Angie Thomas  
Grade 12 A text from either the Autobiography or Nonfiction list

(Other Options for all HS grades) 

​Fiction
A Very Large Expanse of Sea … by Mafi
Angel of Greenwood … by Pink
Anger is a Gift … by Oshiro
Born Confused … by Desai-Hidier
Color Me In … by Diaz
Darius The Great is Not Okay … by Khorram
Dear Martin … by Stone
Does My Head Look Big in This? … by Abdel-Fattah
Fat Angie … by Charlton-Trujillo
Felix Ever After … by Callender
Fountains of Silence … by Sepetys
Frankly In Love … by Yoon 
Gabi, A Girl In Pieces … by Quintero
Girl Mans Up … by Girard 
Give Me Some Truth … by Gansworth
Grasshopper Jungle … by Smith
Let Me Hear a Rhyme … by Jackson
One Man Guy … by Barakiva 
Rani Patel in Full Effect … by Patel
Slay … by Morris
The Astonishing Color of After … by Pan
The Downstairs Girl … by Lee
The Education of Margot Sanchez … by Rivera
The Love and Lies of Rukshana Ali … by Khan 
The Patron Saints of Nothing … by Ribay 
The Place Between Breaths … by Na
The Rock and the River … by Magoon
Rules for a Knight ... by Ethan Hawke
We are Not From Here Torres … by Sanchez
White Rose … by Wilson
With the Fire on High … by Acevedo


Mystery & Suspense
Fake ID … by Giles
Jane Anonymous … by Stolarz
Monday’s Not Coming … by Jackson
One of Us is Lying … by McManus
Sadie … by Summers
Stork … by Disappeared
Three Truths and a Lie … by Hartinger


Science Fiction & Fantasy
An Ember in the Ashes … by Tahir
Ash … by Lo
Children of Blood and Bone … by Adeyemi 
Labyrinth Lost … by Cordova
Legendborn … by Deonn 
Leviathan / Behemoth / Goliath … by Westerfeld
The City of Sand … by Bachang
The Marrow Thieves … by Dimaline 
The Scorpio Races … by Stiefvater
The Wrath & the Dawn / The Rose & the Dagger … by Ahdieh
They Both Die at the End … by Silvera
We Set the Dark on Fire … by Mejia


Anthologies
#NotYourPrincess … Charleyboy & Leatherdale (ed.)
A Thousand Beginnings and Endings … Oh (ed.)
All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories Of Queer Teens Through The Ages … Mitchell (ed.)
Black Enough … Zoboi (ed.)
Come On In Alsadi … by (ed.)
Dreaming in Indian: Contemporary Native American Voices … Charleyboy & Leatherdale (ed.)
Fresh Ink … Giles (ed.)
Here We Are: Feminism for the Real World … Jensen (ed.)
Once Upon an Eid … Ali (ed.) 
Take the Mic!: Fictional Stories of Everyday Resistance … by Morrow 


Graphic Novels
Almost American Girl … by Ha
Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World … by Bagieu
March (series) … by Lewis
Monster: A Graphic Novel … by Myers
The Best We Could Do … by Bui
The Magic Fish … by Nguyen 
The Outside Circle: A Graphic Novel … by LaBoucane-Benson
The Prince and the Dressmaker … by Wang
They Called Us Enemy … by Takei
Witch Hat Atelier … by Shirahama


Biography & Autobiography
All Boys Aren’t Blue … by Johnson 
Autobiography of Malcolm X … by X Becoming Maria … by Manzano Chadwick Boseman: Forever Our King … by Johnson
From Broken Glass … by Ross
I am Malala: The Girl Who Stood up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban … by Yousafzai
Lost Boy, Lost Girl: Escaping Civil War in Sudan … by Dau
Notes of a Native Son … by Baldwin
Queer, There, and Everywhere: 23 People Who Changed the World … by Prager 
Sachiko: A Nagasaki Bomb Survivor’s Story … by Caren
The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates … by Moore
The Truths We Hold … by Harris
Things That Make White People Uncomfortable … by Bennett
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running … by Murakami


Non-Fiction
An Indigenous People’s History for Young People … by Reese 
Are Prisons Obsolete … by Davis
Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out … by Kuklin
Big Ideas Simply Explained (series) … by DK (pub.)
Disability Visibility … by Wong
Dragon Hoops … by Yang 
The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World … by Wohlleben
Just Mercy (Young Readers edition) … by Stevenson 
Letters to a Young Brother: MANifest Your Destiny … by Harper
Marvel Comics: The Untold Story … by Howe
Period Power: A Manifesto for the Menstrual Movement … by Okamoto
Simeon’s Story: An Eyewitness Account of the Kidnapping of Emmett Till … by Wright
Spies of Mississippi: The True Story of the Spy Network that Tried to Destroy the Civil Rights Movement … by Bowers
Stamped: Racism, Anti Racism and You … by Reynolds & Kendi 
The 57 Bus … by Slater
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks … by Skloot
Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team … by Sheinkin
Voces sin fronteras: Our Stories. Our Truth / Nuestras historias, nuestra verdad … by Latin American Youth Center
What if?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions … by Munroe


Poetry
A Time to Dance … by Venkatraman 
Between the Lines … by Grimes
Burned / Smoke … by Hopkins
Clap When You Land … by Acevedo
Long Way Down … by Reynolds
Punching the Air … by Zoboi 
The Sun and Her Flowers … by Kaur
​Under the Mesquite … by McCall

Everyone that lives, or works, in Massachusetts qualifies for a Boston Public Library eCard

Picture
Use Your Boston Public Library eCard and get access to 800,000 eBooks and audiobooks.
Picture
Sign up for a Free eCard. Free to all who live, or work, in Massachusetts. Click here to sign up for your free BPL eCard

2019 Summer Reading

Teacher/book lists: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cBCbfCpaHDSuSqMCTRLzoO13OrT_k8UglDOB9NDbffw/edit?usp=sharing

Room Assignments:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XACS_UbNkHDpImM6rGpHdJHLIIg_dQF_9faaExYvq70/edit?usp=sharing

Pinette and Norton
I Will Always Write Back by Caitlin Alifirenka

PictureAudio Book & eBook available for free through Boston Public Library - Click on the image above.
The true story of an all-American girl and a boy from an impoverished city in Zimbabwe and the letter that changed both of their lives forever.

It started as an assignment. Everyone in Caitlin's class wrote to an unknown student somewhere in a distant place. All the other kids picked countries like France or Germany, but when Caitlin saw Zimbabwe written on the board, it sounded like the most exotic place she had ever heard of--so she chose it. 
Martin was lucky to even receive a pen pal letter. There were only ten letters, and forty kids in his class. But he was the top student, so he got the first one.

That letter was the beginning of a correspondence that spanned six years and changed two lives.

In this compelling dual memoir, Caitlin and Martin recount how they became best friends --and better people--through letters. Their story will inspire readers to look beyond their own lives and wonder about the world at large and their place in it.
If you don't have a free Boston Public Library Card - click here to sign up..

Mahoney-Locke
Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices #2) by Cassandra Clare

PictureAudio Book & eBook available for free through Boston Public Library - Click on the image above
A Shadowhunter’s life is bound by duty. Constrained by honor. The word of a Shadowhunter is a solemn pledge, and no vow is more sacred than the vow that binds parabatai, warrior partners—sworn to fight together, die together, but never to fall in love.

Emma Carstairs has learned that the love she shares with her parabatai, Julian Blackthorn, isn’t just forbidden—it could destroy them both. She knows she should run from Julian. But how can she when the Blackthorns are threatened by enemies on all sides?

Their only hope is the Black Volume of the Dead, a spell book of terrible power. Everyone wants it. Only the Blackthorns can find it. Spurred on by a dark bargain with the Seelie Queen, Emma; her best friend, Cristina; and Mark and Julian Blackthorn journey into the Courts of Faerie, where glittering revels hide bloody danger and no promise can be trusted. Meanwhile, rising tension between Shadowhunters and Downworlders has produced the Cohort, an extremist group of Shadowhunters dedicated to registering Downworlders and “unsuitable” Nephilim. They’ll do anything in their power to expose Julian’s secrets and take the Los Angeles Institute for their own.

When Downworlders turn against the Clave, a new threat rises in the form of the Lord of Shadows—the Unseelie King, who sends his greatest warriors to slaughter those with Blackthorn blood and seize the Black Volume. As dangers close in, Julian devises a risky scheme that depends on the cooperation of an unpredictable enemy. But success may come with a price he and Emma cannot even imagine, one that will bring with it a reckoning of blood that could have repercussions for everyone and everything they hold dear. ​
If you don't have a free Boston Public Library Card - click here to sign up..

B. Sullivan
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt
 

PictureClick on the image above to get audio & eBook through the Saugus Public Library
Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? What kind of impact did Roe v. Wade have on violent crime? Freakonomics will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.

These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much heralded scholar who studies the stuff and riddles of everyday life -- from cheating and crime to sports and child rearing -- and whose conclusions regularly turn the conventional wisdom on its head. He usually begins with a mountain of data and a simple, unasked question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: freakonomics.

Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and co-author Stephen J. Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives -- how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they set out to explore the hidden side of ... well, everything. The inner workings of a crack gang. The truth about real-estate agents. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. The secrets of the Ku Klux Klan.

What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world, despite a surfeit of obfuscation, complication, and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and -- if the right questions are asked -- is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking. Steven Levitt, through devilishly clever and clear-eyed thinking, shows how to see through all the clutter.

Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.

D. Hall
How to Win Friends and Influence People: by Dale Carnegie

PictureAudio Book & eBook available for free through Boston Public Library - Click on the image above
How to Win Friends and Influence People is a world-wide phenomenon, selling over 15 million copies in over 30 languages since it was written in 1936. It was also the first self-help book to reach international bestseller status. The book was originally written based on notes from Dale Carnegie's business training course. Throughout its history, the book has guided people in finding business and personal success, leading the Library of Congress to include it in its "Books that Shaped America" exhibition in 2012. ​
​If you don't have a free Boston Public Library Card - click here to sign up.

McVoy
I Am That Girl by Alexis Jones 

Pictureaudio & eBook not available
In a crazy, media distracted world the important questions often get lost like: What’s your passion? What’s your purpose? Who do you want to be? Alexis Jones has built a career listening to and helping girls around the world figure out those questions in order to inspire them to think for themselves, to speak their truth, to discover their purpose, and to dream HUGE! Alexis believes that you’re not broken nor do you need to be fixed. You already are that girl who creates magic wherever she goes, who lives fearlessly, who inspires those around her to dream bigger, and who will leave the world better, just for having been in it.  
Stop listening to that voice inside your head that tells you you’re not good enough. Stop worrying that you don’t have the perfect body, perfect job, perfect relationship, or perfect anything for that matter. Stop letting other people draw boundaries and limits around your life. And start living the life that you truly want (now!), the one you didn’t think you had the courage to imagine, but the one that’s absolutely possible! Including stories from thirty incredible women, Alexis has compiled everything she’s learned into one complete guide to being That Girl, the best version of you.

DeAvilla and Walsh
Be Different: Adventures of a Free-Range Aspergian by John Elder Robison

PictureClick on the image above to get eBook through the Saugus Public Library
“I believe those of us with Asperger’s are here for a reason, and we have much to offer. This book will help you bring out those gifts.”

In his bestselling memoir, Look Me in the Eye, John Elder Robison described growing up with Asperger’s syndrome at a time when the diagnosis didn’t exist. He was intelligent but socially isolated; his talents won him jobs with toy makers and rock bands but did little to endear him to authority figures and classmates, who were put off by his inclination to blurt out non sequiturs and avoid eye contact.

By the time he was diagnosed at age forty, John had already developed a myriad of coping strategies that helped him achieve a seemingly normal, even highly successful, life. In Be Different, Robison shares a new batch of endearing stories about his childhood, adolescence, and young adult years, giving the reader a rare window into the Aspergian mind.

In each story, he offers practical advice—for Aspergians and indeed for anyone who feels “different”—on how to improve the weak communication and social skills that keep so many people from taking full advantage of their often remarkable gifts. With his trademark honesty and unapologetic eccentricity, Robison addresses questions like:

• How to read others and follow their behaviors when in uncertain social situations
• Why manners matter
• How to harness your powers of concentration to master difficult skills
• How to deal with bullies
• When to make an effort to fit in, and when to embrace eccentricity
• How to identify special gifts and use them to your advantage

Every person, Aspergian or not, has something unique to offer the world, and every person has the capacity to create strong, loving bonds with their friends and family. Be Different will help readers and those they love find their path to success.

Broderick
Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable by Tim S. Grover

PictureAudio Book available for free through Boston Public Library - Click on the image above
For more than two decades, legendary trainer Tim Grover has taken the greats—Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, and dozens more—and made them greater. Now, for the first time in paperback, he reveals what it takes to get those results, showing you how to be relentless and achieve whatever you desire.

Fore more than two decades, legendary trainer Tim Grover has taken the greats—Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Wade, and dozens more—and made them greater. Now, for the first time ever, he reveals what it takes to get those results, showing you how to be relentless and achieve whatever you desire.

Direct, blunt, and brutally honest, Grover breaks down what it takes to be unstoppable: you keep going when everyone else is giving up, you thrive under pressure, you never let your emotions make you weak. In “The Relentless 13,” he details the essential traits shared by the most intense competitors and achievers in sports, business, and all walks of life. Relentless shows you how to trust your instincts and get in the Zone; how to control and adapt to any situation; how to find your opponent’s weakness and attack. Grover gives you the same advice he gives his world-class clients—“don’t think”—and shows you that anything is possible. Packed with previously untold stories and unparalleled insight into the psyches of the most successful and accomplished athletes of our time, Relentless shows you how even the best get better . . . and how you can too. ​
If you don't have a free Boston Public Library Card - click here to sign up

Oliver
The Diary of Jasmine Grace
by Jasmine Grace Marino

Pictureaudio & eBook not available
Jasmine grew up in Saugus, and when she was 19, she met a guy at local night club. They got to know each other and began to date, and he would later become her pimp. Before Jasmine realized what was happening, she was sucked into a life of sexual exploitation, from which it was difficult to escape. Throughout her time as a prostitute and drug addict, she kept a diary. Ten years later, on the road to healing and recovery, Jasmine published this diary, giving readers a rare inside look at the brainwashing and trauma that exists inside the commercial sex trade. After each original diary entry, Jasmine reflects on her experiences as a young adult with a new perspective and discusses how faith influenced her and how recovery and restoration were eventually possible. Today Jasmine works as a speaker, mentor, and advocate in the anti-trafficking movement; she aims to help others understand more about modern-day exploitation, addiction, recovery, healing, and hope.
​If you don't have a free Boston Public Library Card - click here to sign up..

Doucette
Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse #1)
​by James S.A. Corey 

PictureAudio Book & eBook available for free through Boston Public Library - Click on the image above.
Humanity has colonized the solar system - Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond - but the stars are still out of our reach.

Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, the Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for - and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.

Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to the Scopuli and rebel sympathizer Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything.

Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations - and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe. ​
​If you don't have a free Boston Public Library Card - click here to sign up..
Picture
Instantly borrow digital movies, music, eBooks and more, 24/7 with your library card. Saugus residents who hold a Saugus Public Library Card are able to borrow up to ten items per month for 21 days each. No waiting.
Picture
Audio & eBooks. Limits the number of patrons who may simultaneously borrow a title, much like a traditional book circulation. While OverDrive is more restrictive in this sense, it does contain more titles (particularly newer ones) than does Hoopla.

Black and Lee
The God of Carnage
by Yasmina Reza

PictureNot available in eBook or Audio form.
"A comedy of manners, without the manners" 

God of Carnage is a play by Yasmina Reza. One evening two sets of parents agree to meet to discuss a conflict between their children in a civilized manner.  While their focus should be on how to handle the fact that one child has hurt the other at a public park, the parents become increasingly childish as their conversation unravels, resulting in the evening devolving into comedic chaos.

God of Carnage won the Tony award in 2009 for best play! Actors Jeff Daniels. James Gandolfini, Marcia Gay Harden, & Hope Davis were all awarded Best Actor/Actress Awards. Additionally, God of Carnage won Best Direction.

Praise for God of Carnage: 
The New Yorker calls “ninety minutes of sustained mayhem.” 
In unanimous critical praise for its Broadway debut, God of Carnage has been hailed “first class”  by The New York Times.
The New York Post labeled it “the best play in town!” 
USA Today says “scabrously funny”.
Picture
Jeff Daniels, left, and James Gandolfini, who play husbands whose young sons have a fight in “God of Carnage.” “I think we have some of the same viewpoints,” Mr. Gandolfini said of Mr. Daniels. Credit Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Usseglio
Eat, Pray, Love   
by Elizabeth Gilbert

PictureClick on the image above to get audio & eBook through the Saugus Public Library
A celebrated writer's irresistible, candid, and eloquent account of her pursuit of worldly pleasure, spiritual devotion, and what she really wanted out of life. 

Around the time Elizabeth Gilbert turned thirty, she went through an early-onslaught midlife crisis. She had everything an educated, ambitious American woman was supposed to want—a husband, a house, a successful career. But instead of feeling happy and fulfilled, she was consumed with panic, grief, and confusion. She went through a divorce, a crushing depression, another failed love, and the eradication of everything she ever thought she was supposed to be. 

To recover from all this, Gilbert took a radical step. In order to give herself the time and space to find out who she really was and what she really wanted, she got rid of her belongings, quit her job, and undertook a yearlong journey around the world—all alone. Eat, Pray, Love is the absorbing chronicle of that year. Her aim was to visit three places where she could examine one aspect of her own nature set against the backdrop of a culture that has traditionally done that one thing very well. In Rome, she studied the art of pleasure, learning to speak Italian and gaining the twenty-three happiest pounds of her life. India was for the art of devotion, and with the help of a native guru and a surprisingly wise cowboy from Texas, she embarked on four uninterrupted months of spiritual exploration. In Bali, she studied the art of balance between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence. She became the pupil of an elderly medicine man and also fell in love the best way—unexpectedly. 

An intensely articulate and moving memoir of self-discovery, Eat, Pray, Love is about what can happen when you claim responsibility for your own contentment and stop trying to live in imitation of society’s ideals. It is certain to touch anyone who has ever woken up to the unrelenting need for change.

Vaporis
THE GUERNSEY LITERARY & POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY By Mary Ann Shaffer and Anne Barrows
Historical Fiction

Have you ever heard of Guernsey? It's the only part of England that the Nazis took over. Just off the coast of France the residences of Guernsey could see the coastal town in France being burned to the ground. Their Island was next..
PictureClick on the image above to get audio & eBook through the Saugus Public Library
The book is set in 1946 and is composed of letters written from one character to another. In January 1946, 32-year-old Juliet Ashton embarks on a cross-country tour across England to promote her latest book. 
 
After learning that the society began as a cover for residents breaking curfew during the German occupation of Guernsey, Juliet begins a correspondence with several members of the Society, hoping to work them into a book.
As she continues to write to the members of the Society and they to her, Juliet begins to plan a trip to Guernsey to conduct research for her book about the group and their experiences of the war.

Wakefield
In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway

PictureAudio Book & eBook available for free through Boston Public Library - Click on the image above
When In Our Time was published, it was praised by Ford Madox Ford, John Dos Passos, and F. Scott Fitzgerald for its simple and precise use of language to convey a wide range of complex emotions, and it earned Hemingway a place beside Sherwood Anderson and Gertrude Stein among the most promising American writers of that period. In Our Time contains several early Hemingway classics, including the famous Nick Adams stories "Indian Camp," "The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife," "The Three Day Blow," and "The Battler," and introduces readers to the hallmarks of the Hemingway style: a lean, tough prose -- enlivened by an ear for the colloquial and an eye for the realistic that suggests, through the simplest of statements, a sense of moral value and a clarity of heart. 
Now recognized as one of the most original short story collections in twentieth-century literature, In Our Time provides a key to Hemingway's later works.
If you don't have a free Boston Public Library Card - click here to sign up..

Webb
The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective Teens
by Sean Covey

PictureOnly eBook available for free through Boston Public Library - Click on the image above
Being a teenager is both wonderful and challenging. In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, author Sean Covey applies the timeless principles of the 7 Habits to teens and the tough issues and life-changing decisions they face. In an entertaining style, Covey provides a step-by-step guide to help teens improve self-image, build friendships, resist peer pressure, achieve their goals, get along with their parents, and much more. In addition, this book is stuffed with cartoons, clever ideas, great quotes, and incredible stories about real teens from all over the world. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens will engage teenagers unlike any other book.
An indispensable book for teens, as well as parents, grandparents, and any adult who influences young people, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens is destined to become the last word on surviving and thriving as a teen and beyond.
If you don't have a free Boston Public Library Card - click here to sign up

Corricelli
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch 
by Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman

PictureClick on the image above to get audio book through the Saugus Public Library
Amazon.com describes the story as:  “According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (the world's only completely accurate book of prophecies, written in 1655, before she exploded), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just before dinner.
So the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, Atlantis is rising, frogs are falling, tempers are flaring. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon—both of whom have lived amongst Earth's mortals since The Beginning and have grown rather fond of the lifestyle—are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture.
And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist . . .”
 
Picture Monty Python does The Omen.  The book is more enjoyable if you watch The Omen movie.

Gosselin and Sorensen
500 Words or Less by Juleah del Rosario

Pictureaudio & eBook not available
Nic Chen refuses to spend her senior year branded as the girl who cheated on her charismatic and lovable boyfriend. To redefine her reputation among her Ivy League–obsessed classmates, Nic begins writing their college admissions essays.

But the more essays Nic writes for other people, the less sure she becomes of herself, the kind of person she is, and whether her moral compass even points north anymore.

A Sweder and AE Lenart
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
by Stephen Chbosky

PictureAudio Book & eBook available for free through Boston Public Library - Click on the image above
Standing on the fringes of life...
offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see
what it looks like from the dance floor.

This haunting novel about the dilemma of passivity vs. passion marks the stunning debut of a provocative new voice in contemporary fiction: The Perks of Being A WALLFLOWER

This is the story of what it's like to grow up in high school. More intimate than a diary, Charlie's letters are singular and unique, hilarious and devastating. We may not know where he lives. We may not know to whom he is writing. All we know is the world he shares. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it puts him on a strange course through uncharted territory. The world of first dates and mixed tapes, family dramas and new friends. The world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that the perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite.

Through Charlie, Stephen Chbosky has created a deeply affecting coming-of-age story, a powerful novel that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller coaster days known as growing up.
​If you don't have a free Boston Public Library Card - click here to sign up..

Minkoff
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
by Yuval Noah Harari

PictureClick on the image above to get audio & eBook through the Saugus Public Library
100,000 years ago, at least six human species inhabited the earth. Today there is just one. Us. Homo sapiens. 

How did our species succeed in the battle for dominance? Why did our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms? How did we come to believe in gods, nations and human rights; to trust money, books and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables and consumerism? And what will our world be like in the millennia to come? 

In Sapiens, Dr Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history, from the very first humans to walk the earth to the radical – and sometimes devastating – breakthroughs of the Cognitive, Agricultural and Scientific Revolutions. Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, paleontology and economics, he explores how the currents of history have shaped our human societies, the animals and plants around us, and even our personalities. Have we become happier as history has unfolded? Can we ever free our behaviour from the heritage of our ancestors? And what, if anything, can we do to influence the course of the centuries to come? 

Bold, wide-ranging and provocative, Sapiens challenges everything we thought we knew about being human: our thoughts, our actions, our power ... and our future. ​

Books Listed Below Are Unavailable

Alongi
The Hate U Give By Angie Thomas
Fiction, Contemporary Issues

O'Brien
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
PictureClick on the image above to get audio & eBook through the Saugus Public Library
The Hate u Give is a book about contemporary issues and life for a high school student of color. A young black woman finding her voice. Star is the main character who lives in two different worlds her low income black community and her white private school.
​
Star feels torn between these two worlds. At home, and in her neighborhood, she is Star, and at her private school she is Star Version 2. Sometimes she has to hide who she is whether she is at home or at school. This is the story of her uneasy balance between these contrasting worlds. 
 
Everything changes in Star’s life when she and her friend are pulled over one night by a police officer. Facing pressure from both sides of each community, Starr must find her voice and decide to stand up for what's right. This is the story of her awakening and journey where she comes to the conclusion that she is going to be whom she wants to be. Not what those two, often conflicting, worlds tell her to be. 

Lavoie
Jaws by Peter Benchley

PictureAudio Book & eBook available for free through Boston Public Library - Click on the image above
"Relentless terror." The Philadelphia Inquirer.
The classic, blockbuster thriller of man-eating terror that inspired the Steven Spielberg movie and made millions of beachgoers afraid to go into the water. Experience the thrill of helpless horror again -- or for the first time!

Fisher
That Was Then, This Is Now by S.E. Hinton

PictureAudio Book & eBook available for free through Boston Public Library - Click on the image above
Since childhood, Bryon and Mark have been as close as brothers. Now things are changing. Bryon's growing up, spending a lot of time with girls, and thinking seriously about who he wants to be. Mark still just lives for the thrill of the moment. The two are growing apart - until Bryon makes a shocking discovery about Mark. Then Bryon faces a terrible decision - one that will change both of their lives forever.

Cox
Why Football Matters: My Education in the Game by Mark Edmundson

PictureAudio Book available for free through Boston Public Library - Click on the image above
Acclaimed essayist Mark Edmundson reflects on his own rite of passage as a high school football player to get to larger truths about the ways America's Game shapes its men

Football teaches young men self-discipline and teamwork. But football celebrates violence. Football is a showcase for athletic beauty and physical excellence. But football damages young bodies and minds, sometimes permanently. Football inspires confidence and direction. But football instills cockiness, a false sense of superiority. The athlete is a noble figure with a proud lineage. The jock is America at its worst.

When Mark Edmundson’s son began to play organized football, and proved to be very good at it, Edmundson had to come to terms with just what he thought about the game. Doing so took him back to his own childhood, when as a shy, soft boy growing up in a blue-collar Boston suburb in the sixties, he went out for the high school football team. Why Football Matters is the story of what happened to Edmundson when he tried to make himself into a football player.

What does it mean to be a football player? At first Edmundson was hapless on the field. He was an inept player and a bad teammate. But over time, he got over his fears and he got tougher. He learned to be a better player and came to feel a part of the team, during games but also on all sorts of escapades, not all of them savory. By playing football, Edmundson became what he and his father hoped he’d be, a tougher, stronger young man, better prepared for life.

But is football-instilled toughness always a good thing?  Do the character, courage, and loyalty football instills have a dark side?  Football, Edmundson found, can be full of bounties.  But it can also lead you into brutality and thoughtlessness.  So how do you get what’s best from the game and leave the worst behind?

Why Football Matters is moving, funny, vivid, and filled with the authentic anxiety and exhilaration of youth. Edmundson doesn’t regret playing football for a minute, and cherishes the experience. His triumph is to be able to see it in full, as something to celebrate, but also something to handle with care. For anyone who has ever played on a football team, is the parent of a player, or simply is reflective about its outsized influence on America, Why Football Matters is both a mirror and a lamp. ​

Fontanella
Life of Pi by Yann Martel

PictureClick on the image above to get audio & eBook through the Saugus Public Library
Life of Pi is a fantasy adventure novel by Yann Martel published in 2001. The protagonist, Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel, a Tamil boy from Pondicherry, explores issues of spirituality and practicality from an early age. He survives 227 days after a shipwreck while stranded on a boat in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.

Crepeau and Sisson
When Life Gives You Lululemons 
by Lauren Weisberger

PictureClick on the image above to get audio & eBook through the Saugus Public Library
New York Times bestselling author Lauren Weisberger returns with a novel starring one of her favorite characters from The Devil Wears Prada—Emily Charlton, first assistant to Miranda Priestly, now a highly successful image consultant who’s just landed the client of a lifetime.

Welcome to Greenwich, CT, where the lawns and the women are perfectly manicured, the Tito’s and sodas are extra strong, and everyone has something to say about the infamous new neighbor.

Let’s be clear: Emily Charlton, Miranda Priestly’s ex-assistant, does not do the suburbs. She’s working in Hollywood as an image consultant to the stars, but recently, Emily’s lost a few clients. She’s hopeless with social media. The new guard is nipping at her heels. She needs a big opportunity, and she needs it now.

Karolina Hartwell is as A-list as they come. She’s the former face of L’Oreal. A mega-supermodel recognized the world over. And now, the gorgeous wife of the newly elected senator from New York, Graham, who also has his eye on the presidency. It’s all very Kennedy-esque, right down to the public philandering and Karolina’s arrest for a DUI—with a Suburban full of other people’s children.

Miriam is the link between them. Until recently she was a partner at one of Manhattan’s most prestigious law firms. But when Miriam moves to Greenwich and takes time off to spend with her children, she never could have predicted that being stay-at-home mom in an uber-wealthy town could have more pitfalls than a stressful legal career. 

Emily, Karolina, and Miriam make an unlikely trio, but they desperately need each other. Together, they’ll navigate the social landmines of life in America’s favorite suburb on steroids, revealing the truths—and the lies—that simmer just below the glittering surface. With her signature biting style, Lauren Weisberger offers a dazzling look into another sexy, over-the-top world, where nothing is as it appears.

Breau
Lose Well by Chris Gethard

Pictureaudio & eBook not available
A laugh-out-loud, kick-in-the-pants self-help narrative for anyone who ever felt like they didn’t fit in or couldn’t catch a break—comedian and cult hero Chris Gethard shows us how to get over our fear of failure and start living life on our own terms.

Let’s face it: we all want a seat at the cool table, a great job, and loads of money. But most of us won’t be able to achieve this widely accepted, black-or-white, definition of winning, which makes us feel like failures, that we’re destined to a life of loserdom. That’s the conventional wisdom. It’s also crap, according to comedian and cult hero Chris Gethard, who knows a thing of two about losing. Failing is an art form, he argues; in fact, it’s the only the way we’re ever going to discover who we are, what we really want, and how to live the kind of life we only dreamed about.

Setting flame to vision boards and tossing out the "seven simple steps" to achieving anything, the host of the eponymous Trutv talk show and the wildly popular podcast Beautiful Stories from Anonymous People illustrates his personal and professional manifesto with hilarious and ultimately empowering stories about his own set-backs, missteps, and public failures, from the cancellation of his Comedy Central sitcom after seven episodes to rediscovering his comedic voice and life’s purpose on a public access channel.

With his trademark wit and inspiring storytelling—a cross between David Sedaris and Jenny Lawson—Gethard teaches us how to power through our own hero’s journey, whether we’re a fifteen-year-old starting a punk band or a fifty-year-old mother of three launching an Etsy page. In the process, he shows us how to fail with grace, laugh on the way down, and as we dust ourselves off, how to transform inevitable failures into endless opportunities. It might get a little messy, but that’s exactly the point. Because the first step in living on your own terms is learning how to lose well, and more often than not, the revolutionary act of failing lets us witness firsthand what awaits us on the other side. ​

Fox
The Road by Cormac McCarthy

PictureClick on the image above to get audio & eBook through the Saugus Public Library
​A searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy’s masterpiece.

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,” are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.

Donahue
Flags of Our Fathers by James D. Bradley

PictureAudio Book & eBook available for free through Boston Public Library - Click on the image above.
In this unforgettable chronicle of perhaps the most famous moment in American military history, James Bradley has captured the glory, the triumph, the heartbreak, and the legacy of the six men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima. Here is the true story behind the immortal photograph that has come to symbolize the courage and indomitable will of America.

In February 1945, American Marines plunged into the surf at Iwo Jima—and into history. Through a hail of machine-gun and mortar fire that left the beaches strewn with comrades, they battled to the island's highest peak. And after climbing through a landscape of hell itself, they raised a flag.

Now the son of one of the flagraisers has written a powerful account of six very different young men who came together in a moment that will live forever.

To his family, John Bradley never spoke of the photograph or the war. But after his death at age seventy, his family discovered closed boxes of letters and photos. In Flags of Our Fathers, James Bradley draws on those documents to retrace the lives of his father and the men of Easy Company. Following these men's paths to Iwo Jima, James Bradley has written a classic story of the heroic battle for the Pacific's most crucial island—an island riddled with Japanese tunnels and 22,000 fanatic defenders who would fight to the last man.

But perhaps the most interesting part of the story is what happened after the victory. The men in the photo—three were killed during the battle—were proclaimed heroes and flown home, to become reluctant symbols. For two of them, the adulation was shattering. Only James Bradley's father truly survived, displaying no copy of the famous photograph in his home, telling his son only: "The real heroes of Iwo Jima were the guys who didn't come back."

Few books ever have captured the complexity and furor of war and its aftermath as well as Flags of Our Fathers. A penetrating, epic look at a generation at war, this is history told with keen insight, enormous honesty, and the passion of a son paying homage to his father. It is the story of the difference between truth and myth, the meaning of being a hero, and the essence of the human experience of war.

Agola
The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

PictureClick on the image above to get audio & eBook through the Saugus Public Library
Natasha: I’m a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. I’m definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when my family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Falling in love with him won’t be my story.

Daniel: I’ve always been the good son, the good student, living up to my parents’ high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. But when I see her, I forget about all that. Something about Natasha makes me think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store—for both of us.

The Universe: Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true?
 PictureClick on the image above to get audio & eBook through the Saugus Public Library
Robert Neville is the last living man on Earth... but he is not alone. Every other man, woman and child on the planet has become a vampire, and they are hungry for Neville's blood.

By day he is the hunter, stalking the undead through the ruins of civilisation. By night, he barricades himself in his home and prays for the dawn.

How long can one man survive like this?

Reid
Personal Foul by Tim Donaghy

PictureeBook available for free through Boston Public Library - Click on the image above
The media has speculated and sports fans have debated, but until now no one has known the real story. Personal Foul takes an in-depth look at former NBA referee Tim Donaghy and the betting scandal that rocked professional basketball. Containing never-before-seen documentation and correspondence between the league office, referees, coaches, players and owners, this is the decisive book that reveals exactly what was done and how it all happened. Which games were affected and how? Is it true that referees targeted particular players? Just how much did the NBA know and when? How did the mafia get involved? Personal Foul answers all of these questions and more. Thrilling and poignant, Personal Foul takes the reader on the journey of one man wrestling his own demons and shines a light on a culture of gambling and "directive" officiating in the NBA that promises to change the way sports fans view the game forever.

Barbarick
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

PictureClick on the image above to get eBook through the Saugus Public Library
In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo's CosoNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he's a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that's striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about infocalypse. Snow Crash is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous… you'll recognize it immediately.

Dawn Comproni and Lindesay Cutter
One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus 

PictureClick on the image above to get audio & eBook through the Saugus Public Library
The Breakfast Club meets Pretty Little Liars, One of Us Is Lying is the story of what happens when five strangers walk into detention and only four walk out alive. Everyone is a suspect, and everyone has something to hide. 

Pay close attention and you might solve this.

On Monday afternoon, five students at Bayview High walk into detention.
Bronwyn, the brain, is Yale-bound and never breaks a rule. 
Addy, the beauty, is the picture-perfect homecoming princess. 
Nate, the criminal, is already on probation for dealing.
Cooper, the athlete, is the all-star baseball pitcher.
And Simon, the outcast, is the creator of Bayview High's notorious gossip app.

Only, Simon never makes it out of that classroom. Before the end of detention, Simon's dead. And according to investigators, his death wasn't an accident. On Monday, he died. But on Tuesday, he'd planned to post juicy reveals about all four of his high-profile classmates, which makes all four of them suspects in his murder. Or are they the perfect patsies for a killer who's still on the loose? 
Everyone has secrets, right? What really matters is how far you would go to protect them. ​

Bontempo
Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

PictureeBook available for free through Boston Public Library - Click on the image above
This is a story for people who follow their hearts and make their own rules...people who get special pleasure out of doing something well, even if only for themselves...people who know there's more to this living than meets the eye: they’ll be right there with Jonathan, flying higher and faster than ever they dreamed.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull is no ordinary bird. He believes it is every gull's right to fly, to reach the ultimate freedom of challenge and discovery, finding his greatest reward in teaching younger gulls the joy of flight and the power of dreams. The special 20th anniversary release of this spiritual classic!

Bursaw
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

PictureClick on the image above to get audio & eBook through the Saugus Public Library
Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time, Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world's great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous firebombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we fear most.

Carnevale
​Mastering Your Mean Girl: The No-BS Guide to Silencing Your Inner Critic and Becoming Wildly Wealthy, Fabulously Healthy, and Bursting with Love
by Melissa Ambrosini

PictureAudio Book & eBook available for free through Boston Public Library - Click on the image above.
Ladies, do you have a mean girl in your head that tells you you're not good enough, skinny enough, pretty enough, wealthy enough? I know I do. I read this book last summer, and it helped me identify how mean I was being to myself. If you want to break the cycle of negative mental chatter, come read this book with me and get empowered! Melissa tells you her story and gives you ways to help catch and stop that inner mean girl.
Melissa Ambrosini Instagram: melissaambrosini

G. Hashem and Vanikiotis
Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight 

PictureAudio Book & eBook available for free through Boston Public Library - Click on the image above
In Reconstructing Amelia, the stunning debut novel from Kimberly McCreight, Kate's in the middle of the biggest meeting of her career when she gets the telephone call from Grace Hall, her daughter’s exclusive private school in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Amelia has been suspended, effective immediately, and Kate must come get her daughter—now. But Kate’s stress over leaving work quickly turns to panic when she arrives at the school and finds it surrounded by police officers, fire trucks, and an ambulance. By then it’s already too late for Amelia. And for Kate.
An academic overachiever despondent over getting caught cheating has jumped to her death.At least that’s the story Grace Hall tells Kate. And clouded as she is by her guilt and grief, it is the one she forces herself to believe. Until she gets an anonymous text: She didn’t jump.
Reconstructing Amelia is about secret first loves, old friendships, and an all-girls club steeped in tradition. But, most of all, it’s the story of how far a mother will go to vindicate the memory of a daughter whose life she couldn’t save.

Hashem, M
The First Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill George Washington by Brad Meltzer

Picture
Click on the image above to get audio & eBook through the Saugus Public Library
In 1776, an elite group of soldiers were handpicked to serve as George Washington’s bodyguards. Washington trusted them; relied on them. But unbeknownst to Washington, some of them were part of a treasonous plan. In the months leading up to the Revolutionary War, these traitorous soldiers, along with the Governor of New York William Tryon and Mayor David Mathews, launched a deadly plot against the most important member of the military: George Washington himself.

This is the story of the secret plot and how it was revealed. It is a story of leaders, liars, counterfeiters, and jailhouse confessors. It also shows just how hard the battle was for George Washington—and how close America was to losing the Revolutionary War.

Taking place during the most critical period of our nation’s birth, The First Conspiracy tells a remarkable and previously untold piece of American history that not only reveals George Washington’s character, but also illuminates the origins of America’s counterintelligence movement that led to the modern day CIA.

Lucier
Monster by Walter Dean Myers

PictureClick on the image above to get audio & eBook through the Saugus Public Library
Sometimes I feel like I have walked into the middle of a movie. Maybe I can make my own movie. The film will be the story of my life. No, not my life, but of this experience. I'll call it what the lady who is the prosecutor called me. Monster.

Fade In: Interior Court. A guard sits at a desk behind Steve. Kathy O'Brien, Steve's lawyer, is all business as she talks to Steve.

O'Brien
Let me make sure you understand what's going on. Both you and this king character are on trial for felony murder. Felony Murder is as serious as it gets. . . . When you're in court, you sit there and pay attetion. You let the jury know that you think the case is a serious as they do. . . .

Steve
You think we're going to win ?

O'Brien (seriously)
It probably depends on what you mean by "win."

Sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon is on trial for murder. A Harlem drugstore owner was shot and killed in his store, and the word is that Steve served as the lookout.

Guilty or innocent, Steve becomes a pawn in the hands of "the system," cluttered with cynical authority figures and unscrupulous inmates, who will turn in anyone to shorten their own sentences. For the first time, Steve is forced to think about who he is as he faces prison, where he may spend all the tomorrows of his life.

As a way of coping with the horrific events that entangle him, Steve, an amateur filmmaker, decides to transcribe his trial into a script, just like in the movies. He writes it all down, scene by scene, the story of how his whole life was turned around in an instant. But despite his efforts, reality is blurred and his vision obscured until he can no longer tell who he is or what is the truth. This compelling novel is Walter Dean Myers's writing at its best.

G Valerio
Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win by Jocko Willink 

PictureAudio Book & eBook available for free through Boston Public Library - Click on the image above.
The #1 New York Times bestseller

"An incredible book... you teach guys and gals about leadership and you've helped not only military guys but families." - Megyn Kelly

"You show in the book how to motivate... thanks for writing the book Extreme Ownership." Bill O'Reilly

"[Jocko] is the co-author of an incredible new book - which I've been loving. Trust me. Buy it." - Tim Ferriss

"This is a life-learning lesson for everyone... the book is awesome." - Sean Hannity

Sent to the most violent battlefield in Iraq, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin’s SEAL task unit faced a seemingly impossible mission: help U.S. forces secure Ramadi, a city deemed “all but lost.” In gripping firsthand accounts of heroism, tragic loss, and hard-won victories in SEAL Team Three’s Task Unit Bruiser, they learned that leadership—at every level—is the most important factor in whether a team succeeds or fails.Willink and Babin returned home from deployment and instituted SEAL leadership training that helped forge the next generation of SEAL leaders. After departing the SEAL Teams, they launched Echelon Front, a company that teaches these same leadership principles to businesses and organizations. From promising startups to Fortune 500 companies, Babin and Willink have helped scores of clients across a broad range of industries build their own high-performance teams and dominate their battlefields.
Now, detailing the mind-set and principles that enable SEAL units to accomplish the most difficult missions in combat, Extreme Ownership shows how to apply them to any team, family or organization. Each chapter focuses on a specific topic such as Cover and Move, Decentralized Command, and Leading Up the Chain, explaining what they are, why they are important, and how to implement them in any leadership environment.
A compelling narrative with powerful instruction and direct application, Extreme Ownership revolutionizes business management and challenges leaders everywhere to fulfill their ultimate purpose: lead and win.
Works Cited
Some Book Reviews from:
https://www.goodreads.com/