Daniel Hand Freshmen Lit & Writing List (2025)

Books from DHHS Freshmen summer reading list in LION

Showing 1 - 20 of 61  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 "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...

4. 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 "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 "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 "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...
Book cover for "City of bones"
Star rating for City of bones
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
Suddenly able to see demons and the Darkhunters who are dedicated to returning them to their own dimension, fifteen-year-old Clary Fray is drawn into this bizzare world when her mother disappears and Clary herself is almost killed by a monster.
Book cover for "Concrete rose"
Star rating for Concrete rose
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
"A gang leader's son finds his effort to go straight for the sake of his child challenged by a loved one's brutal murder, in a poignant exploration of Black coming-of-age- set seventeen years before the events of the award-winning 'The Hate U Give'"--
Book cover for "The cruel prince"
Star rating for The cruel prince
Author:
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
Jude, seventeen and mortal, gets tangled in palace intrigues while trying to win a place in the treacherous High Court of Faerie, where she and her sisters have lived for a decade. Jude was seven years old when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans....
Book cover for "Dear Martin"
Star rating for Dear Martin
Author:
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
Writing letters to the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., seventeen-year-old college-bound Justyce McAllister struggles to face the reality of race relations today and how they are shaping him.
Book cover for "Divergent"
Star rating for Divergent
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
Beatrice Prior's society is divided into five factions--Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). Beatrice must choose between staying with her Abnegation family and transferring factions. Her choice will shock her community and herself. But the newly christened Tris also has a secret, one she's determined to keep hidden, because in this world, what makes you different...

17. Dracula

Book cover for "Dracula"
Star rating for Dracula
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
"A dreary castle, blood-thirsty vampires, open graves at midnight, and other gothic touches fill this hardcover Dover Bookshelf edition of the chilling tale about a young Englishman's confrontation with the evil Count Dracula"-- "By night, Abraham "Bram" Stoker (1847-1912) navigated the flourishing world of Victorian theater, yet, in the shadows, he was the brilliant mind behind the chilling vampire masterpiece Dracula, a tale of insatiable hunger...

18. Dune

Book cover for "Dune"
Star rating for Dune
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"Science fiction's supreme masterpiece, Dune will be forever considered a triumph of the imagination. Set on the desert planet Arrakis, it is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who will become the mysterious man known as Muad'Dib. Paul's noble family is named stewards of Arrakis, whose sands are the only source of a powerful drug called "the spice." After his family is brought down in a traitorous plot, Paul must go undercover to seek revenge, and...
Book cover for "Every day"
Star rating for Every day
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
Every morning A wakes in a different person's body, in a different person's life, learning over the years to never get too attached, until he wakes up in the body of Justin and falls in love with Justin's girlfriend, Rhiannon.
Book cover for "Fahrenheit 451"
Star rating for Fahrenheit 451
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
In a future totalitarian state where books are banned and destroyed by the government, Guy Montag, a fireman in charge of burning books, meets a revolutionary schoolteacher who dares to read and a girl who tells him of a past when people did not live in fear.