The seven husbands of Evelin Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Recommended by: Megan Baker, yearbook and multimedia productions teacher

Age rating: 15+

Why do you like this book? “It usually takes me a bit to get into books, but from the first page, I was hooked. I could not put it down. It was a beautifully written piece of literature.”

Genre: Mystery, romance

Themes: LGBTQ+

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One of us is lying by Karen M. McManus

Recommended by: Mitchell Berman, assistant librarian 

Age Rating: 15+

Why do you recommend this book? “It’s a fast paced suspenseful thriller where every page unlocks a clue to the mystery.”

Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Realistic fiction

Themes: School, Teens

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Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

Recommended by: Mitchell Berman, assistant librarian 

Age Rating: 15+

Why do you recommend this book? “This is a historical 80s fiction, so it’s fun to teach kids 80s pop culture references. It’s a teen love story, and it’s about a red-headed frizzy haired girl who rides the bus every day with an Asian boy named Park. She sees him reading a comic and they start to connect as friends, and things progress from there.”

Genre: Realistic Fiction, Teen Romance, Family

Themes: 80s, Abuse, Bullying, Adversity

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Americanized Rebel Without a Green Card by Sarah Saedi 

Recommended by: Mitchell Berman, assistant librarian 

Age Rating: 15+

Why do you recommend this book? “This is a book that is very topical right now with the Talaban in the Middle East. It’s about a girl who comes home from school and finds out her parents are getting deported. They are from Iran. It’s about how she tries to keep her parents in the country and keep her family intact.”

Genre: Non-Fiction, cultural, 

Themes: Written Like a Story, Deportation, Teen, Middle East, Living in a Foreign Country

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A Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley 

Recommended by: Cynthia Carro, world literature teacher

Age Rating: 15+

What is the book about? “This book is about a girl who just graduated high school and ends up going to a community college. While she’s there, her best friend gets murdered. Soon after, a few other people are murdered. She’s trying to figure out why all these Native Americans are getting murdered.”

Genre: Mystery

Themes: Native American culture

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See no stranger by Valarie Kaur

Recommended by: Cynthia Carro, world literature teacher

Age Rating: 15+

What is this book about? “This book is about a girl on the path of revolutionary love. Which is essentially anti racism, but more of the love path. It tells us her life story and experiences in both the political and non-political world.”

Genre: Memoir 

Themes: Revolutionary love

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The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

Recommended by: Nataly Ortega-Nolasco, sophomore 

Age Rating: 10+

Why do you recommend this book? “This book is full of fantastically worded vignettes [short stories]. It is one of my favorites as of now, and I have not even finished the book.”

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Themes: Racial Privilege

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Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

Recommended by: Valeriia Ivashchenko – Sophomore

Age Rating: 15+

What is this book about? “This book is about fascinating and chilling stories of Caste in America over time, such as during the elections and during slavery. It also includes the author’s personal stories and experiences. This book emphasizes how racism is different from Caste, and goes into detail of where Caste beliefs come from, as well as what keeps them going to this day. It also compares the Caste systems of Nazi Germany, India, and the U.S., and explains why Caste is bad for us. It seems like a boring book, but it’s one of the best I’ve read in my life and is eye opening and educational.”

Genre: Non-fiction

Themes: Caste, Racism

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Is This Anything by Jerry Steinfeld

Recommended by: Laura Wagner, College speech, College Comp., and world lit. And comp. teacher

Age Rating: 15+

Why would you recommend this book? “Have you ever wanted to hear Jerry Steinfeld’s voice in your head? Do you want to laugh? You can hear his voice as you read. This book is a collection of some of Jerry Seinfeld’s best bits from the last 30 years. Seinfeld is a comedian known for his observational humor. He has a great attention to detail for the minutiae of our lives and takes his observations to ridiculous, bizarre extremes. I was laughing (and crying) out loud to myself as I read.”

Genre: Comedy

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The dreamers by Karen Thomson Walker

Recommended by: Laura Wagner, College speech, College Comp., and world lit. And comp. teacher

Age rating: 15+

Why would you recommend this book? “This book is a novel with a surrealist twist. I think it’s a great book to read during this time of COVID because the characters’ experiences during this fictitious pandemic where people fall into a contagious sleep which they cannot be woken eerily parallels our early experiences with COVID, even though the book was published in 2019. I mean, they even run out of toilet paper at the store.”

Genre: Non-Fiction