Whoops! This is last year's summer reading!

If you're looking for the 2016 summer reading list, visit this link for this year's website: http://uhs2016summerreading.blogspot.com/.

Enjoy your summer reading, and please contact Ms. Charpentier if you have any questions!

If you liked your summer reading book, there's more where that came from!

Right now, collections of books like each of the summer reading options are on display in the library. If you liked the book you read or are looking for something just a little bit different, check out these displays!

Follow UHS Library's board Like your summer reading book? (September 2015) on Pinterest.

Summer Reading Room Assignments

Summer Reading Discussion Day is Wednesday, September 16. The schedule and list of rooms for each discussion group were emailed out today, so check that out!

Scroll down for the full list of summer reading options, or click on one of the genre/topic tags to narrow down the list.

award winner     biography/memoir     contemporary fiction     dystopian     fantasy     fiction     historical fiction     history     horror     inspirational      military     mystery      nonfiction     science fiction    science/tech     sports     Summer Reading Option Requested by UHS Students     supernatural     thriller     war     young adult

The Hit by David Baldacci

(Sequel to UHS summer reading option from 2014, The Innocent)

Description from Goodreads: "Will Robie is a master of killing. A highly-skilled assassin, Robie is the man the U.S. government calls on to eliminate the worst of the worst. No one else can match Robie's talents as a hitman; no one, except Jessica Reel. A fellow assassin, equally professional and dangerous, Reel is every bit as lethal as Robie. And now, she's gone rogue, turning her gun sights on other members of their agency. To stop one of their own, the government looks again to Will Robie. His mission: bring in Reel, dead or alive. Only a killer can catch another killer, they tell him. But as Robie pursues Reel, he quickly finds that there is more to her betrayal than meets the eye."

Check out the book trailer on YouTube.

Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High by Melba Pattillo Beals

1995 ALA Notable Book

Description from Goodreads: "In 1957, well before Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech, Melba Pattillo Beals and eight other teenagers became iconic symbols for the Civil Rights Movement and the dismantling of Jim Crow in the American South as they integrated Little Rock's Central High School in the wake of the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling, Brown v. Board of Education. Throughout her harrowing ordeal, Melba was taunted by her schoolmates and their parents, threatened by a lynch mob's rope, attacked with lighted sticks of dynamite, and injured by acid sprayed in her eyes. But through it all, she acted with dignity and courage, and refused to back down."

Check out this book discussion with Melba Beals.

Kindred by Octavia Butler

Description from Goodreads: "Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana's life will end, long before it has a chance to begin."

Shadowland by Meg Cabot

Description from Goodreads: "Suze is a mediator - a liaison between the living and the dead. In other words, she sees dead people. And they won't leave her alone until she helps them resolve their unfinished business with the living. But Jesse, the hot ghost haunting her bedroom, doesn't seem to need her help. Which is a relief, because Suze has just moved to sunny California and plans to start fresh, with trips to the mall instead of the cemetery, and surfing instead of spectral visitations. But the very first day at her new school, Suze realizes it's not that easy. There's a ghost with revenge on her mind ... and Suze happens to be in the way."

Read about how Meg Cabot got the idea for The Mediator series. 

The Timeless Ones by Susan Catalano

Author Susan Catalano will be leading this discussion group!

Description from Goodreads: "Merry Chalmers, accused witch, has a secret so hidden that she's nearly forgotten what she really is. All she desires is for the witch-hunts to end and to marry her secret love, William Darling. But hysteria has taken hold in Salem Village, and the Tall Man, spawned by tales of his existence, is born to fulfill his dark purpose. Soon Merry and William find their lives taking unthinkable paths. For when Merry leaps from the 17th century into modern-day Salem, she must accept that unlike others who were accused and hanged for being a witch, she truly is one."

Learn more at her website.

Season of '42: Joe D., Teddy Ballgame, and Baseball's Fight to Survive a Turbulent First Year of War by Jack Cavanaugh

Description from Goodreads: "Big league baseball would seem to have been a hard sell in 1942. World War II was not going well for the United States. Moreover, Uncle Sam needed men, millions of them, including those from twenty-one through thirty-five years of age who had been ordered to register for the draft, the age range of most big league baseball players. The 1942 season would be overshadowed by war, though, with many people wondering whether it was really all right for four hundred seemingly healthy and athletic men to play a child’s game and earn far more money than the thousands of young Americans whose lives were at risk as they fought the Germans and Japanese abroad."

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Description from Goodreads: "When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his name. He’s surrounded by strangers—boys whose memories are also gone. Outside the towering stone walls that surround the Glade is a limitless, ever-changing maze. It’s the only way out—and no one’s ever made it through alive. Then a girl arrives. The first girl ever. And the message she delivers is terrifying. Remember. Survive. Run."

Check out the trailer for the movie adaptation on YouTube.

The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen

Description from Goodreads: "Luke is the perfect boyfriend. He and Emaline have been together all through high school in Colby, the beach town where they both grew up. But now, in the summer before college, Emaline wonders if perfect is good enough. Enter Theo, a super-ambitious outsider assisting on a documentary film about a reclusive local artist. Theo's sophisticated, exciting, and, best of all, he thinks Emaline is much too smart for Colby. Emaline's mostly-absentee father, too, thinks Emaline should have a bigger life, and he's convinced that an Ivy League education is the only route to realizing her potential. Emaline is attracted to the bright future that Theo and her father promise, but she also clings to the deep roots of her loving mother, stepfather, and sisters. Emaline wants the moon and more, but how can she balance where she comes from with where she's going?"

Check out the book trailer on YouTube.

My Sister's Grave by Robert Dugoni

Description from Goodreads: "Tracy Crosswhite has spent twenty years questioning the facts surrounding her sister Sarah’s disappearance and the murder trial that followed. She doesn’t believe that Edmund House — a convicted rapist and the man condemned for Sarah’s murder — is the guilty party. Motivated by the opportunity to obtain real justice, Tracy became a homicide detective with the Seattle PD and dedicated her life to tracking down killers. When Sarah’s remains are finally discovered near their hometown in the northern Cascade mountains of Washington State, Tracy is determined to get the answers she’s been seeking. As she searches for the real killer, she unearths dark, long-kept secrets that will forever change her relationship to her past — and open the door to deadly danger."

Check out Robert Dugoni talking about what makes a murder mystery realistic.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Description from Goodreads: "A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home, and although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what."

Here's the author reading a bit from the novel (he also narrates the audiobook, if you really enjoyed this clip).

The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Description from Goodreads: "This is a dynamic history of the first decade of the Progressive era, that tumultuous time when the nation was coming unseamed and reform was in the air. The story is told through the intense friendship of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft; a close relationship that strengthens both men before it ruptures in 1912, when they engage in a brutal fight for the presidential nomination that divides their wives, their children, and their closest friends, while crippling the progressive wing of the Republican Party. The Bully Pulpit is also the story of the muckraking press, which arouses the spirit of reform that helps Roosevelt push the government to shed its laissez-faire attitude toward robber barons, corrupt politicians, and corporate exploiters of our natural resources."

Here are 5 facts about Roosevelt, Taft, and the Progressive Era from the author.

Looking for Alaska by John Green

Winner of the 2006 Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature

Description from Goodreads: "Before: Miles 'Pudge' Halter's whole existence has been one big non-event. He heads off to the sometimes crazy, possibly unstable, and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed-up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young, who is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world and steals his heart. After: Nothing is ever the same."

Here's John Green talking very quickly about this novel, how novels get written and published, and winning the Printz.

Paper Towns by John Green

Description from Goodreads: "Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs into his life—dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge—he follows. After their all-nighter ends, and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues—and they're for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees the girl he thought he knew ..."

Check out the trailer for the upcoming movie adaptation on YouTube.

October Sky by Homer Hickam

(Originally published as Rocket Boys) 

Description from Goodreads: "It was 1957, the year Sputnik raced across the Appalachian sky, and the small town of Coalwood, West Virginia, was slowly dying. Faced with an uncertain future, Homer Hickam nurtured a dream: to send rockets into outer space. The introspective son of the mine’s superintendent and a mother determined to get him out of Coalwood forever, Homer fell in with a group of misfits who learned not only how to turn scraps of metal into sophisticated rockets but how to sustain their hope in a town that swallowed its men alive."

Check out the trailer for the 1999 film.

Glory O'Brien's History of the Future by A.S. King

Description from Goodreads: "Graduating from high school is a time of limitless possibilities--but not for Glory, who has no plan for what's next. Her mother committed suicide when Glory was only four years old, and she's never stopped wondering if she will eventually go the same way ... until a transformative night when she begins to experience an astonishing new power to see a person's infinite past and future. From ancient ancestors to many generations forward, Glory is bombarded with visions--and what she sees ahead of her is terrifying: A tyrannical new leader raises an army. Women's rights disappear. A violent second civil war breaks out. And young girls vanish daily, sold off or interned in camps. Glory makes it her mission to record everything she sees, hoping her notes will somehow make a difference. She may not see a future for herself, but she'll do anything to make sure this one doesn't come to pass."

The Green Mile by Stephen King

Description from Goodreads: "Set in the 1930s at Cold Mountain Penitentiary's death-row facility, The Green Mile is a riveting and tragic story of John Coffey, a giant, preternaturally gentle inmate condemned to death for the rape and murder of twin nine-year-old girls. It is a story narrated years later by Paul Edgecomb, the ward superintendent compelled to help every prisoner spend his last days peacefully and every man walk the green mile to execution with his humanity intact. Edgecomb has sent seventy-eight inmates to their date with "old sparky," but he's never encountered one like Coffey - a man who wants to die, yet has the power to heal. And in this place of ultimate retribution, Edgecomb discovers the terrible truth about Coffey's gift, a truth that challenges his most cherished beliefs - and ours."

Check out the trailer for the movie adaptation on YouTube.

American Sniper by Chris Kyle with Scott McEwan and Jim DeFelice

Description from Goodreads: "From 1999 to 2009, U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle recorded the most career sniper kills in United States military history. Iraqi insurgents feared Kyle so much they named him al-Shaitan (“the devil”) and placed a bounty on his head. Gripping and unforgettable, Kyle’s masterful account of his extraordinary battlefield experiences ranks as one of the great war memoirs of all time. Kyle talks honestly about the pain of war and in moving first-person accounts throughout, Kyle’s wife, Taya, speaks openly about the strains of war on their family."

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis

Description from Goodreads: "Billy Beane, general manager of MLB's Oakland A's and protagonist of Michael Lewis's Moneyball, had a problem: how to win in the Major Leagues with a budget that's smaller than that of nearly every other team. Conventional wisdom long held that big name, highly athletic hitters and young pitchers with rocket arms were the ticket to success. But Beane and his staff, buoyed by massive amounts of carefully interpreted statistical data, believed that wins could be had by more affordable methods such as hitters with high on-base percentage and pitchers who get lots of ground outs. Given this information and a tight budget, Beane defied tradition and his own scouting department to build winning teams of young affordable players and inexpensive castoff veterans."

Check out the trailer for the movie adaptation on YouTube.

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Description from Goodreads: "In a land without magic, where the king rules with an iron hand, an assassin is summoned to the castle. She comes not to kill the king, but to win her freedom. If she defeats twenty-three killers, thieves, and warriors in a competition, she is released from prison to serve as the king's champion. Her name is Celaena Sardothien. The Crown Prince will provoke her. The Captain of the Guard will protect her. But something evil dwells in the castle of glass--and it's there to kill. When her competitors start dying one by one, Celaena's fight for freedom becomes a fight for survival, and a desperate quest to root out the evil before it destroys her world."

Check out the book trailer on YouTube.

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

Description from Goodreads: "Summers span decades. Winter can last a lifetime. And the struggle for the Iron Throne has begun. As Warden of the north, Lord Eddard Stark counts it a curse when King Robert bestows on him the office of the Hand. His honor weighs him down at court where a true man does what he will, not what he must … and a dead enemy is a thing of beauty. The old gods have no power in the south, Stark’s family is split and there is treachery at court. Worse, the vengeance-mad heir of the deposed Dragon King has grown to maturity in exile in the Free Cities. He claims the Iron Throne."

I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

Winner of the 2015 Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature

Description from Goodreads: "Jude and her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them. But three years later, Jude and Noah are barely speaking. Something has happened to wreck the twins in different and dramatic ways ... until Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy, as well as an even more unpredictable new force in her life. The early years are Noah's story to tell. The later years are Jude's. What the twins don't realize is that if they could just find their way back to one another, they’d have a chance to remake their world."

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick

Winner of the 2000 National Book Award for Nonfiction

Description from Goodreads: "In 1820, the 240-ton Essex set sail from Nantucket on a routine voyage for whales. Fifteen months later, in the farthest reaches of the South Pacific, it was repeatedly rammed and sunk by an eighty-ton bull sperm whale. Its twenty-man crew, fearing cannibals on the islands to the west, made for the 3,000-mile-distant coast of South America in three tiny boats. During ninety days at sea under horrendous conditions, the survivors clung to life as one by one, they succumbed to hunger, thirst, disease, and fear. Philbrick interweaves his account of this extraordinary ordeal of ordinary men with a wealth of whale lore and with a brilliantly detailed portrait of the lost, unique community of Nantucket whalers."

Check out the trailer for the upcoming movie adaptation on YouTube.

Positive: Surviving My Bullies, Finding Hope, and Living to Change the World by Paige Rawl with Ali Benjamin

Description from Goodreads: "Paige Rawl has been HIV positive since birth…but growing up, she never felt like her illness defined her. It never prevented her from entering beauty pageants or playing soccer or making the honor role. On an unremarkable day in middle school, while attempting to console a friend, Paige disclosed her HIV-positive status—and within hours the bullying began. One night, desperate for escape, Paige swallowed fifteen sleeping pills—one for each year of her life to date. That could have been the end of her story. Instead, it was only the beginning."

Check out interviews with the teen author.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Publisher description: "When we first meet 14-year-old Susie Salmon, she is already in heaven. This was before milk carton photos and public service announcements, she tells us; back in 1973, when Susie mysteriously disappeared, people still believed these things didn't happen. In the sweet, untroubled voice of a precocious teenage girl, Susie relates the awful events of her death and her own adjustment to the strange new place she finds herself. It looks a lot like her school playground, with the good kind of swing sets. With love, longing, and a growing understanding, Susie watches her family as they cope with their grief and begin the difficult process of healing." 

See more about this book on Goodreads, and check out the trailer for the 2009 film.

The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen

Winner of the 2012 Schneider Family Book Award for Teen Books

Description from Goodreads: "Jessica thinks her life is over when she loses a leg in a car accident. She's not comforted by the news that she'll be able to walk with the help of a prosthetic leg. Who cares about walking when you live to run? As she struggles to cope with crutches and a first cyborg-like prosthetic, Jessica feels oddly both in the spotlight and invisible. People who don't know what to say, act like she's not there. Which she could handle better if she weren't now keenly aware that she'd done the same thing herself to a girl with CP named Rosa. With the support of family, friends, a coach, and her track teammates, Jessica may actually be able to run again. But that's not enough for her now. She doesn't just want to cross finish lines herself—she wants to take Rosa with her."

Check out this clip of Van Draanen talking about the inspiration for this book.

The Martian by Andy Weir

Description from Goodreads: "Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. Chances are, though, he won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment or plain-old "human error" are much more likely to kill him first. But Mark isn't ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?"

Check out the trailer for the upcoming movie on YouTube.

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Description from Goodreads: "Everybody gets to be supermodel gorgeous. What could be wrong with that? Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. Not for her license - for turning pretty. In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks Tally will be there. But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever ..."

Check out the book trailer on YouTube.

The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancey

(Sequel to UHS Summer Reading option from 2014, The 5th Wave)

Description from Goodreads: "How do you rid the Earth of seven billion humans? Rid the humans of their humanity. Surviving the first four waves was nearly impossible. Now Cassie Sullivan finds herself in a new world, a world in which the fundamental trust that binds us together is gone. As the 5th Wave rolls across the landscape, Cassie, Ben, and Ringer are forced to confront the Others’ ultimate goal: the extermination of the human race. Cassie and her friends haven’t seen the depths to which the Others will sink, nor have the Others seen the heights to which humanity will rise, in the ultimate battle between life and death, hope and despair, love and hate."

Check out the book trailers on YouTube.

Paper Valentine by Brenna Yovanoff

Description from Goodreads: "The city of Ludlow is gripped by the hottest July on record, and someone in Hannah’s peaceful suburban community is killing girls. Her best friend Lillian died six months ago, and Hannah just wants her life to go back to normal. But how can things be normal when Lillian’s ghost is haunting her, pushing her to investigate the mysterious string of murders? Hannah’s just trying to understand why her friend self-destructed, and where she fits now that Lillian isn’t there to save her a place among the social elite. And she must stop thinking about Finny, the big, enigmatic delinquent whose main hobbies seem to include petty larceny and surprising acts of kindness. With the entire city in a panic, Hannah soon finds herself drawn into a world of ghost girls and horrifying secrets. She realizes that only by confronting the Valentine Killer will she be able move on with her life—and it’s up to her to put together the pieces before he strikes again."