1. Mission Statement
HGHS Summer Read
HGHS Summer Read mission is to HGHS Literacy Team Initiative
encourage our teens to read enjoyable,
quality literature that will stimulate
Disclaimer
imagination, awaken curiosity, expand
horizons, enhance verbal fluency, and This program is designed to entice our
foster critical thinking and a lifelong love students to read. In order to engage
for reading and learning. their interest and to provide a spur to
critical thinking, the book selections
include those that involve sensitive
Guidelines issues. The content of some of the titles
Books nominated for the HGHS Summer Read will may be more mature than younger
be chosen to: students may have encountered. Not
every book selected will suit every
* Engage high school students.
student. In a democratic society, a
* Reflects interests of high school
students variety of ideas must find voice. As a
reader, teens have a choice to read the
HGHS
* Represents a variety of genres, formats,
reading levels, viewpoints, and ethnic and more mature titles or to close the book.
cultural perspectives
* Include both books written for young
Summer
people and those written for adults.
* Nominations by our faculty, staff and students Please email questions to
carmenconcepcion@dadeschools.net
The copyright of the books is within the last three
years.
It is understood that all books on the list may not
appeal to all teen readers; however, books selected
READ
for the list will be of interest to a general young
audience and will deal with relevant issues and
topics of interest in the lives of teenagers.
Students will be encouraged to read all of the
books on the list of nominations, but it is
required for students to read two books over 2011-2012
the summer and complete a creative book
report on each book. hghs.dadeschools.net
Visit our reading blog for project ideas: 11700 Hialeah Gardens Blvd.
BOOK List
http://readingheadquartersathghs.blogspot.com/ Hialeah Gardens, Florida, 33018
Phone: 305-698-5000 Ext. 2167
Fax: 305-698-5001

2. Florida Teen Read – Award Winners Breathing Under Water by Alen Flinn
The Orange Houses by Paul Griffin – October $7.99 Out of his desperate need for her came all the mean words and the
Three misunderstood teens; Tamika, half-deaf, Jimmi, an eighteen- hitting. But now Caitlin’s family has procured a restraining order to
Borderline by Allan Stratton – February $8.99 year-old veteran, and Fatima, an illegal refugee from Africa, become keep Nick away, and the judge has sentenced him to Mario Ortega’s
Muslim Sami doesn’t get along well with his father, and is very upset friends and struggle to survive in their racist, violent, and anti- Family Violence class, to sit around every week with six other angry
when his father doesn’t take him on a promised trip to Toronto. immigrant neighborhood in the Bronx. guys who hit their girlfriends.
When his father is arrested in the middle of the night for being a Reading Level: 3.3 HL670L Reading Level: 2.7 510L
terrorist, Sami decides to find out the truth. Recommended by Mr. Binder
Reading Level: 3.0 HL560L Paranormalcy by Kiesten White – July $8.99
Sixteen-year-old Evie works for the International Paranormal
She Said Yes by Misty Bernall $7.99
Bruiser by Neal Shusterman – October $8.99 Containment Agency bagging and tagging paranormals, but secretly
An "intense and fascinating memoir" of an ordinary teenager
Twins Tennyson and Bronte alternate the story of Brewster, a huge she longs to be a regular girl. When shape shifter Lend infiltrates the
growing up in suburban Colorado faced with difficult choices and
misfit of a student who everyone thinks is a menace. Covered in agency, the two of them must discover why paranormals are being
pressures. It is only now, when the world knows Cassie Bernall as
scrapes and bruises, Brewster looks like the poster-child for abused murdered, and the truth behind who Evie really is.
one of the Columbine High students killed by two rampaging
children; but inside lurks the heart of someone who really cares Reading Level: 3.2 HL580L
schoolmates, that the choices she made offer a profound relevance
about the people he loves. for us all.
Reading Level: 5.2 820L Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi - September $9.99 Reading Level: 7.8 1030L
Nailer is trying to survive by taking apart oil tankers that have run
Recommended by Mrs. Cancela
Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares aground on the futuristic Gulf Coast when he discovers a clipper
by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan – October $8.99 ship stranded by a hurricane that is full of riches. Should he make off
Lily has left a red notebook of challenges on a favorite bookstore with his fortune, or rescue the lone survivor, a beautiful girl who is The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak $12.99
shelf, waiting for just the right guy to come along and accept the escaping from a traitor in her family? This is a story told by Death. It is set in Germany during World
dares. Is Dash the right guy? Or are Dash and Lily only destined to Reading Level: 4.1 HL690L War II. It is also a story of a young girl, who in spite of having a life
trade dares, dreams, and desires in the notebook they pass back and that no one would wish on anyone, still manages to have glimpses of
forth throughout New York City at Christmas time? Soul Enchilada by David Macinnis Gill - $8.99 pleasure through many small things, including the few books that she
Reading Level: 5.5 860L Eunice “Bug” Smoot’s grandfather sold his soul to the devil for a manages to acquire (or shall we say, steal).
1958 Cadillac Biarritz, then reneged on the deal from the afterlife. Reading Level: 4.3 730L
Dirty Little Secrets by C.J. Omololu - $8.99 Now a demonic repossession agent is after the car, and Bug’s soul. Recommended by Ashley Algaze
Lucy has a secret. Her mother is a hoarder and her house is stuffed Bug is about to lose her apartment and her job, wreck her car,
with garbage. When her mother dies, Lucy is scared to call 911 deliver a pizza to a dead guy, and fall in love. Will she beat the Devil? The Devil and Miss Prym by Paolo Coelho $13.95
because then her secret will be out, but the mess is too big to Reading Level: 4.3 HL720L The characters who populate the author's fictional village, are
handle on her own. immediately thrust into the center of the timeless conflict between
Reading Level: 6.0 890L Split by Swati Avasthi - $16.99 right and wrong when a stranger bearing 2 bars of gold and
Jace Witherspoon is kicked out of his house after he finally hits back accompanied by the devil arrives in Viscos. Will the townsfolk
Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok - $15.00 the father who has been abusing the family for years. He shows up succumb to temptation, confirming that man is inherently evil; or
When Ah-Kim (Kimberly) Chang and her mother arrive from Hong on the doorstep of his brother who escaped the abuse five years will goodness triumph over evil?
Kong to New York, they are forced to live in a roach infested earlier by running away. They are safe, for now, but their mother is Recommended by Carlos Concepcion & Flavia Leon
apartment and work at a sweatshop for hardly any pay. Kim is great still living with the monster that is their father.
at school, but can she succeed without knowing the language or The Misfits by James Howe
culture? Stitches (mature reader) by David Small - $15.95 What do a 12-year-old student who moonlights as a tie salesman, a
In this affecting graphic memoir, David Small tells the story of his tall, outspoken girl, a gay middle schooler and a kid branded as a
Heist Society by Ally Carter - $8.99 horrific childhood with uncommunicative and neglectful parents, who hooligan have in common? Best friends for years, they’ve all been
Kat Bishop swore that scamming her way into the prestigious refused to tell him that the surgery he had when he was fourteen the target of cruel name-calling and now that they’re in seventh
Colgan School would be her last con, but she cannot escape from that removed most of his vocal cords was because of cancer. grade, they’re not about to take it anymore.
her past. Her father is accused of stealing paintings from a powerful Reading Level: 6.7 960L
criminal, so Kat assembles a team of teen accomplices, travels across The Miles Between by Mary Pearson - $8.99
Recommended by Mrs. Nadel
Europe, and plots an impossible art heist to save her dad. All Destiny wants is “one fair day,” and an unauthorized road trip
Reading Level: 5.0 800L offers her and three classmates from her exclusive boarding school
Theodore Boone – The Abduction by John Grisham
an opportunity to have just that.
Theodore Boone is back in a new adventure, and the stakes are
Incarceron by Catherine Fisher - $9.99 Reading Level: 3.7 HL650L
higher than ever. When his best friend, April, disappears from her
Claudia is outside, hoping to escape an arranged marriage; Finn is bedroom in the middle of the night, no one, not even Theo Boone-
inside the prison Incarceron hoping to be the first to escape outside. HGHS Award Winners who knows April better than anyone-has answers. As fear ripples
When they both discover a crystal key and realize they can through his small hometown and the police hit dead ends, it's up to
communicate with the other, escape for both seems more likely, but Theo to use his legal knowledge and investigative skills to chase
the prison Incarceron refuses to give up its mysteries. Breaking Night by Liza Murray $14.99 down the truth and save April.
Reading Level: 3.3 HL600L Born to drug-addicted, mentally ill parents, Liz grew up largely
Recommended by Dr. Algaze
neglected. More than a memoir, Breaking Night is an eye-opening
Maze Runner by James Dashner - $9.99 account of the realities of poverty and drug use in our cities, what it
Thomas awakes in the middle of a maze, with no memory. The other does to children, and how difficult it is to break the cycle, to
boys have been searching for a way out for two years, and when the somehow overcome the lack of options that defines poverty.
first girl to ever arrive bears a strange message, time is running out. Recommended by Mrs. Concepcion & Ms. Estrada
Thomas realizes he may hold the answer, if he can ever access his
memory.
Reading Level: 4.7 HL770L