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In an effort to continue to encourage reading over the summer, we have again created a list of top-rated reading choices with the help of our student body. Students at Delran High School will be able to read a book of their choice over the summer. View this presentation for information about the reading choices. Included you will find plot descriptions, grade-level recommendations and parental information.

After consulting with their parents, students should choose their top 3 choices of books to read this summer. After all students have chosen, students will be notified which of their choices they will read this summer. Each student is only responsible for reading one book.

A school wide culminating assessment will follow at the beginning of the 2018-19 school year.

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Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

Spanning a mere one minute and seven seconds, Reynolds’ new free-verse novel is an intense snapshot of the chain reaction caused by pulling a trigger. First, 15-year-old Will Holloman sets the scene by relating his brother’s, Shawn’s, murder two days prior—gunned down while buying soap for their mother. Next, he lays out The Rules: don’t cry, don’t snitch, always get revenge. Now that the reader is up to speed, Will tucks Shawn’s gun into his waistband and steps into an elevator, steeled to execute rule number three and shoot his brother’s killer. Yet, the simple seven-floor descent becomes a revelatory trip. At each floor, the doors open to admit someone killed by the same cycle of violence that Will’s about to enter. He’s properly freaked out, but as the seconds tick by and floors countdown, each new occupant drops some knowledge and pushes Will to examine his plans for that gun. Reynolds’ concise verses echo like shots against the white space of the page, their impact resounding. He peels back the individual stories that led to this moment in the elevator and exposes a culture inured to violence because poverty, gang life, or injustice has left them with no other option. In this all too real portrait of survival, Reynolds goes toe-to-toe with where, or even if, love and choice are allowed to exist. (Booklist Online, STARRED REVIEW July 1st, 2017)

Recommended for grades 9-12

WHAT PARENTS NEED TO KNOW

Parents need to know that Long Way Down is a novel in verse by National Book Award Finalist and New York Times best-selling author Jason Reynolds that tells the story of an African-American teen boy at a crossroads. Determined to avenge his 19-year-old brother's death, Will, age 15, takes his brother's gun out of their shared bedroom to kill the person he's certain is the murderer, but it's a long way down in the elevator. Almost the whole novel takes place in the span of the 60-second ride from the seventh floor to the lobby, as Will's past and "The Rules" he's learned about being tough flash before him, aided by conversations with the ghosts of friends and relatives who were victims of gun violence. Multiple incidents of shootings, death, and grief are recalled and described. There's infrequent strong language (including one-time uses of "s--t" and "f----rs"), adult drinking, and smoking by teen and adult ghosts. Parents should be prepared to have conversations about grief, loss, gun violence, and sound decision-making.

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Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

The story centers around 16-year-old Aza Holmes, a high school student living with multiple anxiety disorders, and her search for a fugitive billionaire. The only other details of the plot known to the public before release were that it contains, either literally or figuratively, tuatara, Star Wars fanfiction, an unexpected reunion, friendship and values of life.

Speaking about the novel, Green stated: "This is my first attempt to write directly about the kind of mental illness that has affected my life since childhood, so while the story is fictional, it is also quite personal."^[2]

Wikipedia contributors. "Turtles All the Way Down (novel)." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 7 Mar. 2018. Web. 12 Mar. 2018.

Recommended for grades 9-12

Parents need to know that Turtles All the Way Down is best-selling author John Green's first novel since 2012's runaway success, The Fault in Our Stars. While that book tackled the issue of teens with cancer, this book centers on a protagonist suffering from anxiety and obsessive-compulsive thoughts and behavior. Green, who has publicly shared he also has OCD, based the main character's struggles on his own lived experience. As in all of Green's books, the teen characters are unabashed nerds: incredibly intelligent, well read, and able to discuss everything from architecture and visual art to philosophy and microbiology with as much ease as they talk about Star Wars trivia and the joys of fanfiction. There is nothing age-inappropriate in the book, so expect a smattering of strong language (including occasional use of "f--k" and "s--t") and some brief kissing scenes, but no sex. Parents who read this book with their teens should have a host of topics to discuss with them, starting with the importance of adolescent mental health.

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Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

“Are you happy with your life?” Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. Before a man Jason’s never met smiles down at him and says, “Welcome back, my friend.” In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible. Is it this world or the other that’s the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could’ve imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe.

Author), Blake Crouch (Goodreads, et al. “Dark Matter.” By Blake Crouch, www.goodreads.com/book/show/27833670-dark-matter.

Recommended for grades 11-12

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Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D.Vance

From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, a probing look at the struggles of America’s white working class through the author’s own story of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town

Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of poor, white Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for over forty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. In Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hanging around your neck.

Recommended for grades 11-12

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Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

In 1945, World War II is drawing to a close in East Prussia and thousands of refugees are on a desperate trek toward freedom, almost all of them with something to hide. Among them are Joana, Emilia, and Florian, whose paths converge en route to the ship that promises salvation, the Wilhelm Gustloff. Forced by circumstance to unite, the three find their strength, courage, and trust in each other tested with each step closer toward safety. Just when it seems freedom is within their grasp, tragedy strikes. Not country, nor culture, nor status matter as all ten thousand people aboard must fight for the same thing: survival.

A tribute to the people of Lithuania, Poland, and East Prussia, Ruta Sepetys unearths a shockingly little-known casualty of a gruesome war, and proves that humanity can prevail, even in the darkest of hours.

* A #1 New York Times Bestseller

* An International Bestseller

* A Carnegie Medal Winner

Recommended for grades 9-12

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Irena’s Children: A True Story of Courage by Mary Cronk Farrell

From New York Times bestselling author Tilar Mazzeo comes the extraordinary and long forgotten story of Irena Sendler--the "female Oskar Schindler"--who took staggering risks to save 2,500 children from death and deportation in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II--now adapted for a younger audience.Irena Sendler was a young Polish woman living in Warsaw during World War II with an incredible story of survival and selflessness. And she's been long forgotten by history. Until now.

This young readers edition of Irena's Children tells Irena's unbelievable story set during one of the worst times in modern history. With guts of steel and unfaltering bravery, Irena smuggled thousands of children out of the walled Jewish ghetto in toolboxes and coffins, snuck them under overcoats at checkpoints, and slipped them through the dank sewers and into secret passages that led to abandoned buildings, where she convinced her friends and underground resistance network to hide them.

In this heroic tale of survival and resilience in the face of impossible odds, Tilar Mazzeo and adapter Mary Cronk Farrell share the true story of this bold and brave woman, overlooked by history, who risked her life to save innocent children from the horrors of the Holocaust.

Recommended for grades 9-12

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One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus

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.

Recommended for grades 9-12

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Brightest Day Volume 1 by Geoff Johns

The follow-up to the best selling comics event BLACKEST NIGHT, written by Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi. Once dead, twelve heroes and villains have been resurrected by a white light expelled deep within the center of the earth. Called a miracle by many and a sign of the apocalypse by others, the reasons behind their rebirth remain a mystery. Now, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, Firestorm, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Deadman, Jade, Osiris, Hawk, Captain Boomerang and Zoom must discover the mysterious reason behind their return and uncover the secret that binds them all in this first volume of a three part series.

Recommended for grades 9-12

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Mrs. Kennedy and Me by Clint Hill

A New York Times Bestseller -- In the four years Clint Hill was the Secret Service agent assigned to guard the glamorous and intensely private Jacqueline Kennedy, he went from reluctant guardian to fiercely loyal watchdog and, in many ways, her closest friend. Looking back fifty years, Hill tells his story for the first time -- a tender, enthralling, and tragic portrayal of a man doing the most exciting job in the world, with a woman the world loved, and the tragedy that ended it.

Recommended for grades 9-12

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Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

The compelling, inspiring, and comically sublime New York Times bestseller about one man’s coming-of-age, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followed.

Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.

Recommended for grades 9-12