Daniel Hand Freshmen Lit & Writing List (2025)

Books from DHHS Freshmen summer reading list in LION

Showing 1 - 20 of 114  There are a total of 114 valid entries on the list.

1. 1984

Book cover for "1984"
Star rating for 1984
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
"Winston Smith lives in a society where the government controls people's lives every second of the day. Alone in his small, one-room apartment, Winston dreams of a better life. Is freedom from this life of suffering possible? There must be something that the Party cannot control - something like love, perhaps?"--Page 4 of cover.
Book cover for "Accountable"
Star rating for Accountable
Description:
"When a high school student started a private Instagram account that used racist and sexist memes to make his friends laugh, he thought of it as “edgy” humor. Over time, the edge got sharper. Then a few other kids found out about the account. Pretty soon, everyone knew. Ultimately no one in the small town of Albany, California, was safe from the repercussions of the account’s discovery. Not the girls targeted by the posts. Not the boy who created...
Book cover for "The Agathas"
Star rating for The Agathas
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
"Alice Ogilvie's disappearance last summer is the biggest scandal at Castle Cove High School--until her ex-boyfriend is accused of murdering his new girlfriend, and Alice must pair up with her tutor Iris Adams to clear his name by relying on the wisdom of Agatha Christie." --
Book cover for "All American boys"
Star rating for All American boys
Average Rating:
3.6 stars
Description:
When sixteen-year-old Rashad is mistakenly accused of stealing, classmate Quinn witnesses his brutal beating at the hands of a police officer who happens to be the older brother of his best friend. Told through Rashad and Quinn's alternating viewpoints.
Book cover for "All quiet on the western front"
Star rating for All quiet on the western front
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"On the hundredth anniversary of the end of World War I: a hardcover edition of the classic tale of a young German soldier's harrowing experiences in the trenches, widely acclaimed as the greatest war novel of all time. When twenty-year-old Paul Baumer and his classmates enlist in the German army during World War I, they are full of youthful enthusiam. But the world of duty, culture, and progress they had been taught to believe in shatters under...
Book cover for "All we have left"
Star rating for All we have left
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
In interweaving stories of sixteen-year-olds, modern-day Jesse tries to cope with the ramifications of her brother's death on 9/11, while in 2001, Alia, a Muslim, gets trapped in one of the Twin Towers and meets a boy who changes everything for her as flames rage around them.

7. Allies

Book cover for "Allies"
Star rating for Allies
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
It is June 6, 1944, D-Day, and Dee Carpenter (true name Dietrich Zimmermann), an underage private in the United States Army, is headed for Omaha Beach, seeking revenge for his uncle, who was arrested by Nazis when Dee was a little boy; meanwhile, Samira Zidano, an eleven-year old French-Algerian girl is looking for the French resistance, desperate to deliver the message that the invasion is about to begin, and get their help in freeing her mother--this...
Book cover for "Animal farm"
Star rating for Animal farm
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
Animal Farm is an allegorical novella by George Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945. The book tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy. Ultimately, however, the rebellion is betrayed, and the farm ends up in a state as bad as it was before, under the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon. According to Orwell, the fable...
Book cover for "Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe"
Star rating for Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe
Average Rating:
4.7 stars
Description:
Fifteen-year-old Ari Mendoza is an angry loner with a brother in prison, but when he meets Dante and they become friends, Ari starts to ask questions about himself, his parents, and his family that he has never asked before.
Book cover for "Be more chill"
Star rating for Be more chill
Description:
"Jeremy Heere is your average high school dork. Day after day, he stares at beautiful Christine, the girl he can never have, and dryly notes the small humiliations that come his way. Until the day he learns about the "squip." A pill-sized supercomputer that you swallow, the squip is guaranteed to bring you whatever you most desire in life. By instructing him on everything from what to wear, to how to talk and walk, the squip transforms Jeremy from...
Book cover for "Beartown"
Star rating for Beartown
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
"From the New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove, My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry, and Britt-Marie Was Here, comes a poignant, charming novel about a forgotten town fractured by scandal, and the amateur hockey team that might just change everything. Winning a junior ice hockey championship might not mean a lot to the average person, but it means everything to the residents of Beartown, a community slowly being eaten...
Book cover for "Becoming Muhammad Ali"
Star rating for Becoming Muhammad Ali
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Before he became the legend, Muhammad Ali, young Cassius Clay learned history and card tricks from his grandfather, hid report cards from his parents, and biked around Louisville with his pals. Bu8t when his bike is stolen, Cassius decides there's something else he wants: to be able to fend off bullies by becoming a boxer. Cassius also has a best friend, Lucky, who sticks by him whether his fists are raised in victory or his back is against the ropes....
Book cover for "Between shades of gray"
Star rating for Between shades of gray
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
In 1941, fifteen-year-old Lina is preparing for art school, first dates, and all that summer has to offer. But one night, the Soviet secret police barge violently into her home, deporting her, along with her mother and younger brother, by cattle car to Siberia. Lina's father has been separated from the family and sentenced to death in a prison camp. All seems to be lost, but Lina refuses to give up hope. Will that be enough to keep her alive?
Book cover for "Binti"
Star rating for Binti
Description:
Binti ©2015 -- Binti: Home ©2017 -- Binti: the night masquerade ©2018 -- Binti: Sacred fire ©2019. Includes a brand-new Binti story! Collected for the first time in an omnibus edition, the Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning Binti trilogy, the story of one extraordinary girl's journey from her home to distant Oomza University. In her Hugo- and Nebula-winning novella, Nnedi Okorafor introduced us to Binti, a young Himba girl with the chance of a lifetime:...
Book cover for "The black kids"
Star rating for The black kids
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
Los Angeles, 1992. It's the end of senior year and Ashley Bennett and her friends are spending more time at the beach than in the classroom. When four LAPD officers are acquitted after beating a black man named Rodney King half to death, violent protests engulf LA and the city burns. Ashley tries to continue on as if life were normal; her self-destructive sister gets dangerously involved in the riots. The model black family façade her wealthy and...
Book cover for "The Bletchley riddle"
Star rating for The Bletchley riddle
Description:
Follows siblings Jakob Novis and his quirky younger sister Lizzie as they find themselves at Bletchley Park, the home of WWII codebreakers working to decrypt the Nazi's Enigma cipher, where the two struggle to unravel a mystery surrounding their mother's disappearance against the backdrop of the Battle of Britain and Hitler's feared invasion.
Book cover for "The catcher in the rye"
Star rating for The catcher in the rye
Average Rating:
3.2 stars
Description:
Story of Holden Caufield with his idiosyncrasies, penetrating insight, confusion, sensitivity and negativism. The hero-narrator of "The Catcher in the Rye" is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caulfield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days. The boy himself is at once too simple and too complex...
Book cover for "Chaos theory"
Star rating for Chaos theory
Author:
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Since Shelbi enrolled at Windward Academy as a senior and won't be there very long, she hasn't bothered making friends. What her classmates don't know about her can't be used to hurt her--you know, like it did at her last school. Andy Criddle is not okay. At all. He's had far too much to drink. Again. Which is bad. And things are about to get worse. When Shelbi sees Andy at his lowest, she can relate. So she doesn't resist reaching out. And there's...
Book cover for "A child called "it""
Star rating for A child called "it"
Average Rating:
4 stars
Book cover for "Children of blood and bone"
Star rating for Children of blood and bone
Average Rating:
4.6 stars
Description:
Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie's Reaper mother summoned forth souls. But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope. Now Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie...