LibGuides: eastlibrary.org: SUMMER READING

Summer Reading 2024

Summer Reading 2024. Blue background scattered with pineapples, sandals, sun, shells, life preservers, and palm trees.

Dear Glenbard East Parents & Guardians,

We pride ourselves on creating a community of readers and writers, and one important facet of that literary community is growing your personal reading practice during the summer. Remember, reading is a muscle; it needs continuous practice to stay strong! The English Department encourages all incoming freshmen and future sophomores, juniors and seniors to read at least one book during the summer. However, with this amazing list of titles chosen to meet the needs and interests of our Glenbard East student community, we certainly encourage you to read as many titles as you like.

Beginning-of-the-year activities in all English classes will allow students myriad opportunities to share their thoughts and demonstrate understanding of the title(s) they read. In order to fully engage in these opportunities, you might find it beneficial to use post-it notes or make margin comments as you read with connections, questions, thoughts or to mark important sections. As our Glenbard East community includes the wonderful partnerships we have with our families, we also encourage parents/guardians to read alongside their students and engage in discussion.

All summer reading titles will be available to current students in the Sora app by June 1st! Future GBE Rams will be able to access titles on their school-issued iPad as soon as they complete registration and receive their device in the mail. Additionally, all community libraries have been informed of our summer reading titles. Please review the graphic below to begin your summer reading journey, starting with checking out our summer reading website which houses the list of titles and all other necessary details.

We look forward to meeting you in August. In the meantime, enjoy the rays and a great read!

Sincerely,
The Glenbard East English Department

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Click Here to Browse by Genre!

All Thirteen by Christina Soontornvat
12 soccer players and their coach enter a cave in Thailand. But it floods and the boys are trapped! News spreads, launching a 17 day rescue involving rescuers from around the globe. People begin to wonder: how long can a group of ordinary kids survive in complete darkness, with no food or clean water?

NonFiction, Survival
Becoming Muhammad Ali by James Patterson; Kwame Alexander; Dawud Anyabwile (Illustrator)
Before he was famous, Cassius Clay was a kid. The authors depict his life in both prose and verse, including his childhood, struggles in school, the racism he faced, and his discovery of boxing. After a thief stole his bike, Cassius began training as an amateur boxer at age twelve. Before long, he won his first Golden Gloves and began his transformation into Muhammad Ali.

Sports, Biographical Novel
Being Jazz by Jazz Jennings
An autobiography of Jazz Jennings in which she shares her experiences of transitioning for male to female and becoming an advocate for transgender youth.

Autobiography, TV Adaptation
Bomb (Graphic Novel) by Steve Sheinkin; Nick Bertozzi (Illustrator)
This graphic adaptation examines the history of the atomic bomb, discussing the discovery of the behavior of uranium when placed next to radioactive material, the race to build a bomb, and the impact of the weapon on societies around the world.

Graphic Novel, Nonfiction, War
Brown Boy Nowhere by Sheeryl Lim
*This book is not available in Sora; If you would like to check it out, feel free to visit your local library.
16 year old Filipino American Angelo is uprooted from San Diego to live in the middle of nowhere. He misses the sun, sand, and skateboarding. He meets Kirsten, an ex-cheerleader/graffiti artist, and Larry, a self-proclaimed invisible band geek, and things start to look up.

Realistic
Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman
The presidential inaugural poet--and new voice in American poetry--presents a collection of poems that includes the poem read at the inauguration of the forty-sixth President of the United States.

Poetry
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Zauner tells of growing up the only Asian-American kid at her school and of struggling with her mother's expectations of her. As she grew up, her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant. It was her mother's diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.

One Book One Glenbard, Memoir
A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson
Five years ago, schoolgirl Andie Bell was murdered by Sal Singh. The police know he did it. Everyone knows he did it. But having grown up in the same town that was consumed by the murder, Pippa Fitz-Amobi isn't so sure. When she chooses the case as the topic for her final year project, she starts to uncover secrets that someone in town desperately wants to stay hidden. If the real killer is still out there, how far will they go to keep Pip from the truth?

Mystery, Thriller
Grenade by Alan Gratz
On April 1, 1945 with the battle of Okinawa beginning, fourteen-year-old native Okinawan Hideki, drafted into the Blood and Iron Student Corps, is handed two grenades and told to go kill American soldiers; small for his age Hideki does not really want to kill anyone, he just wants to find his family, and his struggle across the island will finally bring him face-to-face with Ray, a marine in his very first battle--and the choice he makes then will change his life forever.

Realistic, Historical, War, Action
Love in English by Maria E. Andreu
Ana has moved to the US from Argentina. She’s a lover of language—but now, she can barely understand what’s going on around her. All Ana wants to do is go home—until she meets Harrison, a cute American boy. And then there’s Neo, the Greek boy she’s partners with in ESL class, and Altagracia, who is fluent in Spanish and helps her. But is she becoming too American? And what does it mean when her feelings for Harrison and Neo start to change?

Romance, Realistic
Nyxia by Scott Reintgen
Emmett accepts an interstellar space contract but learns en route that to win the promised fortune he and nine other recruits face a brutal competition, putting their very humanity at risk.

SciFi, Dystopia
Opposite of Always by Justin A. Reynolds
When Jack and Kate meet at a party, bonding until sunrise over their mutual love of Froot Loops and their favorite flicks, Jack knows he's falling--hard. But then Kate dies. And their story should end there. Yet Kate's death sends Jack back to the beginning, the moment they first meet, and Kate's there again. Jack isn't sure if he's losing his mind. Still, if he has a chance to prevent Kate's death, he'll take it. Even if that means believing in time travel.

Romance, SciFi
Rez Ball by Byron Graves
These days, Tre Brun is happiest when he is playing basketball on the Red Lake Reservation high school team--even though he can't help but be constantly gut-punched with memories of his big brother, Jaxon, who died in an accident. When Jaxon's former teammates on the varsity team offer to take Tre under their wing, he sees this as his shot to represent his Ojibwe rez all the way to their first state championship. This is the first step toward his dream of playing in the NBA, no matter how much the odds are stacked against him.

Sports, Realistic
This Light Between Us: a Novel of World War II by Andrew Fukuda
In 1935, Alex Maki of Bainbridge Island, Washington, is horrified to discover that his new pen pal, Charlie Lévy of Paris, France, is a girl, but in spite of his initial reluctance, their letters continue over the years and they fight for their friendship even as Charlie endures the Nazi occupation and Alex leaves his family in an internment camp and joins the Army.

War, Historical, Realistic
When We Were Lost by Kevin Wignall
When their plane crashes in a remote rainforest with no adults left alive, a group of high school students struggles to survive against sinister threats from the jungle—and one another—in this tense thriller.

Action, Realistic, Thriller
The Wicked Bargain by Gabe Cole Novoa
On Mar León de la Rosa's 16th birthday, el Diablo comes calling. Mar is a transmasculine nonbinary pirate hiding their ability to manipulate fire and ice. But their magic isn't enough to reverse a wicked bargain made by their father, and now el Diablo has come to collect his payment. For the first time in their life, Mar may have the courage to use their magic. It could be their only redemption--or it could mean certain death.

Fantasy

Download the E1 Summer Reading Letter

Download the E1 Honors Summer Reading Letter

blue spaceman with text use your sora app to find ebooks and audiobooks

Here is a quick video on how to access your holds in Sora. You will need to be logged in to your Glenbard Gmail to access!

Summer Reading 2024 Banner. Turquoise background featuring sun, sandals, pineapples, shells, beach balls, watermelon, a sandy island with two palms

Click Here to Browse by Genre!

Accountable by Dashka Slater
Tells the story of how an Albany High School handled a racist social media incident that caused lasting and devastating consequences.

Nonfiction, Biography
Artifice by Sharon Cameron
Isa de Smit grew up in her parents' art gallery in Amsterdam, but in the middle of the war she survives by selling fake paintings to the Nazis while trying to help her friend, Truus, smuggle Jewish babies to safety--but in 1943 it is hard to know who to trust.

Historical Fiction, War
Barely Missing Everything by Matt Mendez
Three Mexican-American teens--Juan, JD, and Fabi--each try to overcome their individual struggles as they all grapple with how to make a better life for themselves when it seems like brown lives don't matter.

Realistic Fiction
Black Birds in the Sky by Brandy Colbert
In the early morning of June 1, 1921, a white mob marched across the train tracks in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and into its predominantly Black Greenwood District known as America's Black Wall Street. In a few short hours, they'd razed thirty-five square blocks to the ground, leaving hundreds dead. The Tulsa Race Massacre is one of the most devastating acts of racial violence in US history. But how did it come to pass?

Nonfiction
Blackout by Dhonielle Clayton; Tiffany D. Jackson; Nic Stone; Angie Thomas; Ashley Woodfolk; Nicola Yoon
Six authors bring the warmth and electricity of Black teen love to this interlinked novel of stories that shine a bright light through the dark.

Romance, Realistic Fiction
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Zauner tells of growing up the only Asian-American kid at her school and of struggling with her mother's expectations of her. As she grew up, her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant. It was her mother's diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.

One Book One Glenbard, Memoir
Ducks by Kate Beaton
After university, Katie heads out west to take advantage of Alberta's oil rush. With the singular goal of paying off her student loans, what the journey will actually cost Katie will be far more than she anticipates.

Memoir, Graphic Novel
Family Style by Thien Pham
Told through the lens of meaningful food and meals, this graphic memoir chronicles the author's [life], beginning with his childhood immigration to America, where food takes on new meaning as he and his family search for belonging, for happiness and for the American dream.

Memoir, Graphic Novel
Forget Me Not by Alyson Derrick
Fifteen-year-old Stevie and Nora's plan to abandon their conservative small town for California so they can be together is shattered when a terrible fall steals every trace of Stevie's relationship with Nora from her memory.

Romance, Realistic Fiction
Frontera by Julio Anta; Jacoby Salcedo (Illustrator)
Mateo makes the dangerous journey back home to the United States through the Sonoran Desert with the help of a new friend, a ghost named Guillermo.

Realistic Fiction, Graphic Novel
The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi
Paris, 1889: In this city, no one keeps tabs on secrets better than treasure-hunter Séverin Montagnet-Alarie. But when the all-powerful Order of Babel, seeks him out, Séverin is offered a treasure that he never imagined. To find the ancient artifact the Order seeks, Séverin will need help from a band of experts: An engineer with a debt to pay. A historian who can't yet go home. A dancer with a sinister past. And a brother in all but blood.

Historical, Fantasy
The Half-Life of Love by Brianna Bourne
Flint Larson has known when he was going to die since he was eight because of the Half-Life Institute, and he is spending the last forty-one days quietly with his divorced parents; September is a vibrant aspiring scientist who wants to cure 'half-life', especially since she has met Flint--but their time together is getting short.

SciFi, Romance
Hollow Fires by Samira Ahmed
After discovering the body of fourteen-year-old Jawad Ali in Jackson Park, seventeen-year-old journalism student Safiya Mirza begins investigating his murder and ends up confronting white supremacy in her own high school.

Mystery, Realistic Fiction
How Basketball Can Save the World by David Hollander
A thought-provoking exploration of how basketball-and the values rooted in the game-can solve today's most pressing issues, and provide a new blueprint for addressing our diverse challenges and showing what's possible beyond the court.

Sports, Nonfiction
Invisible Son by Kim Johnson
After spending two months in a juvenile detention center for a crime he did not commit, seventeen-year-old Andre Jackson returns home and tries to adapt to a Covid-19 world and find his missing best friend.

Realistic Fiction
Lost at Sea by John Wukovits (Contribution by)
The forgotten story of American war hero Eddie Rickenbacker's crash landing in the Pacific during World War II, and his incredible 23-day crusade to keep his crew alive.

War, Biography, Action
The Luis Ortega Survival Club by Sonora Reyes
After Ari is assaulted at a party by her crush, Luis, she finds a mysterious note in her locker that eventually leads her to a group of students determined to expose Luis for the predator he is.

Realistic Fiction
Messi vs. Ronaldo by Jonathan Clegg; Joshua Robinson
Offer a deeply reported account of the intertwined sagas and legacies of two of the greatest soccer players of all time--Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo--examining how their rivalry has grown from a personal competition to a multi-billion-dollar industry, paralleling the stunning rise, overwhelming excesses, and uncertain future of modern international soccer.

Biography, Sports
Nothing More to Tell by Karen M. McManus
Brynn Gallagher uses her internship at a new true crime show to investigate the unsolved murder of her favorite teacher, uncovering secrets about her school, her teacher, and her ex-best friend in the process.

Mystery, Thriller
The Red Palace by June Hur
While investigating a series of grisly murders, eighteen-year-old palace nurse Hyeon navigates royal and political intrigue and becomes entangled with a young police inspector.

Historical Fiction, Mystery
Work with What You Got: a Memoir by Zion Clark; James S. Hirsch
In this inspirational story of courage, determination, strength, and self-invention, an elite wheelchair racer and wrestler recounts a childhood of abuse and neglect until he meets two saviors--a wrestling coach who sensed his "warrior spirit" and his adoptive mother who set him up for success.

Biography, Sports, Nonfiction