Daniel Hand Freshmen Lit & Writing List (2025)

Books from DHHS Freshmen summer reading list in LION

Showing 1 - 20 of 46  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 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.

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 "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 "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 "Clap when you land"
Star rating for Clap when you land
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people... In New York City, Yahaira Rios is called to the principal's office, where her mother is waiting to tell her that her father, her hero, has died in a plane crash. Separated by distance -- and Papi's secrets -- the two girls are forced to...
Book cover for "Code of honor"
Star rating for Code of honor
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
When Iranian-American Kamran Smith learns that his big brother, Darius, has been labeled a terrorist, he sets out to piece together the codes and clues that will save his brother's life and his country from a deadly terrorist attack.
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 "Curveball"
Star rating for Curveball
Description:
After an injury ends former star pitcher Peter Friedman's athletic dreams, he concentrates on photography which leads him to a girlfriend, new fame as a high school sports photographer, and a deeper relationship with the beloved grandfather who, when he realizes he is becoming senile, gives Pete all of his professional camera gear.
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...

15. 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...
Book cover for "Drums, girls, & dangerous pie"
Star rating for Drums, girls, & dangerous pie
Average Rating:
4.7 stars
Description:
When his younger brother is diagnosed with leukemia, thirteen-year-old Steven tries to deal with his complicated emotions, his school life, and his desire to support his family.
Book cover for "Everything you left me"
Star rating for Everything you left me
Description:
When the police come knocking at her door, Maybeth is worried her mother is caught up in their small town's drug scene again. Instead, the police are there to question Maybeth about her beloved and long-absent father. He has become the lead suspect in a string of unsolved murders across the Maybeth may be the key to convicting him. Trapped between her scientific mind and her love for her father, Maybeth is forced to confront the reality of who her...
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.
Book cover for "Far from the tree"
Star rating for Far from the tree
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
Grace, adopted at birth, is raised as an only child. At sixteen she's just put her own baby up for adoption, and now is looking for her biological family. She discovers Maya, her loudmouthed younger bio sister who was also adopted ; and Joaquin, their stoic older bio brother, who has no interest in bonding over their shared biological mother after seventeen years in the foster care system. Grace struggles between cautious joy at having found them,...
Book cover for "The hate u give"
Star rating for The hate u give
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
"Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters...