The Taking of Jack Livingston
Get Out meets Holly Jackson in this YA social thriller where survival is not a guarantee.
Sixteen-year-old Jake Livingston sees dead people everywhere. But he can't decide what's worse: being a medium forced to watch the dead play out their last moments on a loop or being at the mercy of racist teachers as one of the few Black students at St. Clair Prep. Both are a living nightmare he wishes he could wake up from. But things at St. Clair start looking up with the arrival of another Black student—the handsome Allister—and for the first time, romance is on the horizon for Jake. Unfortunately, life as a medium is getting worse.
Call number: FIC DOU
Genre: YA Fiction, Paranormal, Thriller
Reading level: 7-9
Length: 256 pages
Availability: MHHS
Bad Witch Burning
For fans of Lovecraft Country and Candyman comes a witchy story full of Black girl magic as one girl's dark ability to summon the dead offers her a chance at a new life, while revealing to her an even darker future.
Katrell can talk to the dead. And she wishes it made more money. She’s been able to support her unemployed mother—and Mom’s deadbeat-boyfriend-of-the-week—so far, but it isn’t enough. Money’s still tight, and to complicate things, Katrell has started to draw attention. Not from this world—from beyond. And it comes with a warning: STOP or there will be consequences.
Call number: FIC LEW
Genre: YA Fantasy
Reading level: 9-12
Length: 352 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fantasy, Fiction
The Woods Are Always Watching
New from bestselling author Stephanie Perkins, and the perfect companion to her New York Times bestseller There's Someone Inside Your House, coming to Netflix October 6!
Bears aren’t the only predators in these woods.
Best friends Neena and Josie spent high school as outsiders, but at least they had each other. Now, with college and a two-thousand-mile separation looming on the horizon, they have one last chance to be together—a three-day hike deep into the woods of the Pisgah National Forest.
Simmering tensions lead to a detour off the trail and straight into a waking nightmare … and then into something far worse. Something that will test them in horrifying ways.
Call number: FIC PER
Genre: YA Horror, Suspense, Thriller
Reading level: 9-12
Length: 240 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fiction
How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love with the Universe
The Hating Game meets I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter in this irresistible romance starring a Mexican American teen who discovers love and profound truths about the universe when she spends her summer on a road trip across the country.
When her twin sister reaches social media stardom, Moon Fuentez accepts her fate as the ugly, unwanted sister hidden in the background, destined to be nothing more than her sister’s camerawoman. But this summer, Moon also takes a job as the “merch girl” on a tour bus full of beautiful influencers and her fate begins to shift in the best way possible.
Call number: FIC VAS
Genre: YA Romance
Reading level: 9-12
Length: 432 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fiction
The Wild Ones
Nafiza Azad comes a thrilling, feminist fantasy about a group of teenage girls endowed with special powers who must band together to save the life of the boy whose magic saved them all.
We are the Wild Ones, and we will not be silenced.
We are girls who have tasted the worst this world can offer. Our story begins with Paheli, who was once betrayed by her mother, sold to a man in exchange for a favor. When Paheli escaped, she ran headlong into Taraana—a boy with stars in his eyes, a boy as battered as she was. He tossed Paheli a box of stars before disappearing. With the stars, Paheli gained access to the Between, a place of pure magic and mystery. Now, Paheli collects girls like us, and we use our magic to travel the world, helping to save other girls from our pain, our scars.
Call number: FIC AZA
Genre: YA Fantasy, Romance
Reading level: 9-12
Length: 352 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fantasy, Fiction
City of Shattered Light
As darkness closes in on the city of shattered light, an heiress and an outlaw must decide whether to fend for themselves or fight for each other.
As heiress to a powerful tech empire, seventeen-year-old Asa Almeida strives to prove she's more than her manipulative father's shadow. But when he uploads her rebellious sister’s mind to an experimental brain, Asa will do anything to save her sister from reprogramming—including fleeing her predetermined future with her sister’s digitized mind in tow. With a bounty on her head and a rogue AI hunting her, Asa’s getaway ship crash-lands in the worst possible place: the neon-drenched outlaw paradise, Requiem.
Call number: FIC WIN
Genre: YA Fiction, Fantasy
Reading level: 10-12
Length: 400 pages
Availability: MHHS
Letters to a Young Athlete
A legendary NBA player shares his remarkable story, infused with hard-earned wisdom about the journey to self-mastery from a life at the highest level of professional sports.
Chris Bosh, NBA Hall of Famer, eleven-time All-Star, two-time NBA champion, Olympic gold medalist, and the league’s Global Ambassador, had his playing days cut short at their prime by a freak medical condition. His extraordinary career ended not at a time of his choosing but “in a doctor’s office in the middle of the afternoon.” Forced to reckon with how to find meaning to carry forward, he found himself looking back over his path, from a teenager in Dallas who balanced basketball with the high school robotics club to the pinnacle of the NBA and beyond.
Call number: 796.323 BOS
Genre: Nonfiction, Autobiography, Sports
Reading level: 9-12
Length: 256 pages
Availability: MHHS
Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievements: Autobiography, Nonfiction
Cracking the AP Human Geography Exam
2020 Edition - The Princeton Review
Call number: 304.2 PRI
Genre: Nonfiction, AP study guide
Reading level: 9-12
Length: 448 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Nonfiction
Making Friends: Third Time's A Charm
GRAPHIC NOVEL
Dany's sketchbook is at it again, but this time it's not Dany's doing!
Dany and Madison are living a new reality. Rather than best friends, the pair now believe they are twins -- and that isn't the only part of their lives that has been completely rewritten. Their mom is a novelist, their dad is a rock star, and Dany has suddenly become a diligent student.
Things. Aren't. Adding. Up.
Dany and Madison start sleuthing and discover that someone has drastically altered the universe! Can the pair put things back the way they were, or is this magic beyond their control?
GRAPHIC NOVEL
Call number: 741.5 GUD
Genre: YA Graphic Novel, Fantasy
Reading level: 10-12
Length: 204 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievements: Fantasy, Fiction
The Jasmine Project
Jenny Han meets The Bachelorette in this effervescent romantic comedy about a teen Korean American adoptee who unwittingly finds herself at the center of a competition for her heart, as orchestrated by her overbearing, loving family.
Jasmine Yap’s life is great. Well, it’s okay. She’s about to move in with her long-time boyfriend, Paul, before starting a nursing program at community college—all of which she mostly wants. But her stable world is turned upside down when she catches Paul cheating. To her giant, overprotective family, Paul’s loss is their golden ticket to showing Jasmine that she deserves much more. The only problem is, Jasmine refuses to meet anyone new.
Call number: FIC IRE
Genre: YA Fiction, Romance, Humor
Reading level: 7-9
Length: 400 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievements: Fiction
Bewilderment
A heartrending new novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning and #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Overstory.
The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while single-handedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin, following the death of his wife. Robin is a warm, kind boy who spends hours painting elaborate pictures of endangered animals. He’s also about to be expelled from third grade for smashing his friend in the face. As his son grows more troubled, Theo hopes to keep him off psychoactive drugs. He learns of an experimental neurofeedback treatment to bolster Robin’s emotional control, one that involves training the boy on the recorded patterns of his mother’s brain…
Call number: FIC POW
Genre: Fiction
Reading level: 11-12
Length: 288 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fiction
Revolution in Our Time
With passion and precision, Kekla Magoon relays an essential account of the Black Panthers—as militant revolutionaries and as human rights advocates working to defend and protect their community.
In this comprehensive, inspiring, and all-too-relevant history of the Black Panther Party, Kekla Magoon introduces readers to the Panthers’ community activism, grounded in the concept of self-defense, which taught Black Americans how to protect and support themselves in a country that treated them like second-class citizens. For too long the Panthers’ story has been a footnote to the civil rights movement rather than what it was: a revolutionary socialist movement that drew thousands of members—mostly women—and became the target of one of the most sustained repression efforts ever made by the U.S. government against its own citizens.
Call number: TBD
Genre: YA Nonfiction, U.S. History, Geography
Reading level: 7-9
Length: 400 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievements: History, Nonfiction
Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds
A singular atlas of 100 infographic maps from thought-provoking to flat-out fun.
Which countries don’t have rivers? Which ones have North Korean embassies? Who drives on the “wrong” side of the road? How many national economies are bigger than California’s? And where can you still find lions in the wild? You’ll learn answers to these questions and many more in Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds. This one-of-a-kind atlas is packed with eye-opening analysis (Which nations have had female leaders?), whimsical insight (Where can’t you find a McDonald’s?), and surprising connections that illuminate the contours of culture, history, and politics.
Each of these 100 maps will change the way you see the world—and your place in it.
Call number: 912 WRI
Genre: Nonfiction, Atlas
Reading level: 9-12
Length: 208 pages
Availability: MHHS
Djeliya: A West African Fantasy Epic
GRAPHIC NOVEL
Inspired by West African folklore and stories handed over centuries, this unique graphic novel follows the adventures of Mansour Keita, last prince of a dying kingdom, and Awa Kouyaté, his loyal Djeli, or 'royal storyteller' as they journey to meet the great wizard who destroyed their world and then withdrew into his tower, never to be seen again.
On their journey they'll cross paths with friend and foe, from myth and legend alike, and revisit the traditions, tales, and stories that gave birth to their people and nurture them still. But what dark secret lies at the heart of these stories, and what purpose do their tellers truly serve?
GRAPHIC NOVEL
Call number: 741.5 BA
Genre: Graphic novel, Fiction
Reading level: 10-12
Length: 180 pages
Availability: MHHS
The Other Talk
Reckoning with Our White Privilege
Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Brendan Kiely starts a conversation with white kids about race in this accessible introduction to white privilege and why allyship is so vital.
Talking about racism can be hard, but...
Most kids of color grow up talking about racism. They have “The Talk” with their families—the honest talk about survival in a racist world.
But white kids don’t. They’re barely spoken to about race at all—and that needs to change. Because not talking about racism doesn’t make it go away. Not talking about white privilege doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
The Other Talk begins this much-needed conversation for white kids. In an instantly relatable and deeply honest account of his own life, Brendan Kiely offers young readers a way to understand one’s own white privilege and why allyship is so vital, so that we can all start doing our part—today.
Call number: 305.809 KIE
Genre: YA Nonfiction
Reading level: 7-9
Length: 272 pages
Availability: MHHS
Contact the MHHS Library
Email: mhhs.library@smusd.org
Website: missionhillshigh.smusd.org/resources/library
Location: 1 Mission Hills Court, San Marcos, CA, USA
Phone: 760-290-2730