Summer Reading List 2012 — Students entering Grade 9
Read at least two books from your grade list; read more if you can. You may choose one or two books
from the All Access table. In the coming school year, your chosen reading will be used for writing
assignments and class discussions.
FICTION
Anonymous – Go Ask Alice
The acclaimed, bestselling first-person account of a teenage girl's harrowing descent into the world of
drugs.
Asher, Jay – 13 Reasons Why
High school student Clay Jenkins receives a box in the mail containing seven cassette tapes recorded by
his crush, Hannah Baker, who committed suicide, and spends a bewildering and heartbreaking night
crisscrossing their town, listening to Hannah's voice recounting the events leading up to her death.
Christopher, Lucy – Stolen YA
Sixteen-year-old Gemma, a British city-dweller, is abducted while on vacation with her parents and taken
to the Australian outback, where she soon realizes that escape attempts are futile, and in time she learns
that her captor is not as despicable as she first believed.
Dessen, Sarah – Dreamland
After her older sister runs away, sixteen-year-old Caitlin decides that she needs to make a major change
in her own life and begins an abusive relationship with a boy who is controlling and dangerous.
Efaw, Amy – After YA
Devon Davenport is a straight-A student and prominent player on her school's soccer team, but when she
is linked to an abandoned baby found in the trash she is accused of attempted murder.
Fantaskey, Beth – Jessica’s Guide to Dating on the Dark Side
Seventeen-year-old Jessica, adopted and raised in Pennsylvania, learns that she is descended from a
royal line of Romanian vampires and that she is betrothed to a vampire prince, who poses as a foreign
exchange student while courting her.
Itani, Francis –The Deafening
Set on the eve of the Great War, The Deafening spans two continents and the lives of a young deaf
woman and her beloved husband.
King, A.S. – Please Ignore Vera Dietz YA
When her best friend, whom she secretly loves, betrays her and then dies under mysterious
circumstances, high school senior Vera Dietz struggles with secrets that could help clear his name.
Follow @branksomehall and use the hashtag #bhsummerreading to comment on your favourite book!
Summer Reading List 2012 — Students entering Grade 9
Lee, Harper – To Kill a Mockingbird
Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of a lawyer in the Deep South defending a black man charged with the rape
of a white girl. One of the best-loved stories of all time.
Mackler, Carolyn – The Earth, My Butt and Other Big, Round Things
Feeling as if she does not fit in with the other members of her family, who are all thin, brilliant, and goodlooking, fifteen-year-old Virginia tries to deal with her self-image, her first physical relationship, and her
disillusionment with some of the people closest to her.
McCormick, Patricia – Sold
A novel in vignettes, in which Lakshmi, a thirteen-year-old girl from Nepal, is sold into prostitution in India.
Milner, Donna – After River
Natalie Ward finds life at her family's dairy farm in British Columbia thrown into a tailspin after a longhaired stranger arrives looking for work, setting in motion a chain of events that will impact Natalie's family
for decades to come.
Roth, Veronica – Divergent
In a future Chicago, sixteen-year-old Beatrice Prior must choose among five predetermined factions to
define her identity for the rest of her life, a decision made more difficult when she discovers that she is an
anomaly who does not fit into any one group, and that the society she lives in is not perfect after all.
Smith, Betty- A Tree Grows In Brooklyn
Young Francie Nolan experiences the challenges of growing up in a Brooklyn, New York slum in the early
nineteen hundreds — an American classic.
Young, Moira – Blood Red Road YA
In a distant future, eighteen-year-old Lugh is kidnapped, and while his twin sister Saba and nine-year-old
Emmi are trailing him across bleak Sandsea they are captured, too, and taken to brutal Hopetown, where
Saba is forced to be a cage fighter until new friends help plan an escape.
NON-FICTION
Scowen, Kate – I.D.: Stuff that Happens to Define Us YA
Presents twelve first-person accounts of pivotal moments in adolescence that include reflections on first
love, domestic abuse, self-acceptance, identity and friendship.
Walls, Jeannette – The Glass Castle
Ms Walls begins her memoir of growing up in an eccentric, dysfunctional family with this sentence: “I was
sitting in a taxi, wondering if I had overdressed for the evening, when I looked out the window and saw
Mom rooting through a dumpster.”
Follow @branksomehall and use the hashtag #bhsummerreading to comment on your favourite book!
Summer Reading List 2012 — Students entering Grade 9
Romance
Biography
Movie
Mystery
Historical
Humour
Fantasy
Science Fiction
World Lit.
Canadian
Award Winner
YA
Young Adult
BH Favourite
Follow @branksomehall and use the hashtag #bhsummerreading to comment on your favourite book!