High School Reads!

by Renee Watson Lexile:  680 Genre:  Realistic Fiction Jade attends St. Francis High School on a scholarship and she is tired of people thinking that she needs help if she is going to "make it" in the world.  She has to get up very early and take the city bus out of her neighborhood to attend the mostly white high school.  Her counselor recommends her for a mentorship program that could result in a college scholarship if she completes the program.  Jade has some reservations about accepting yet another offer of "help",  and when she meets her mentee, Maxine, she has even more concerns.  Is Maxine another person who thinks she needs saving?

by Benjamin Alire Saenz Lexile:  HL450 Genre:  Realistic Fiction It's the first day of Sal and Sam's senior year.  They have been friends forever, but the start of this final school year feels strange to Sal.  He can't shake the feeling that things are changing whether or not he wants them to.  Sal has grown up with his adoptive gay father and everyone says his father is the best.  Sal agrees, but he has questions about his mom and his biological father that are bothering him more and more now.  And then there is his best friend, Sam.  She has a mother with whom she is constantly fighting with especially when it comes to her future.  Will their senior year be the best or the worst year of their lives?

by Ibi Zoboi Lexile:  690 Genre:  Realistic Fiction Fabiola and her mother are leaving their lives in Haiti behind as they prepare to immigrate to the United States to live in Detroit with her mother's sister and daughters.  Fabiola is unprepared for having to finish her journey alone as her mother is detained by immigration in New Jersey and Fabiola is forced to travel on to Detroit without her.  Her cousins are eager to integrate her into the American life, but Fab is focused on only one thing:  gaining her mother's freedom.

by Angela Thomas Lexile:  590 Genre:  Realistic Fiction Starr Carter lives in two different worlds.  During the day she is an honors student at an all white suburban high school.  At night, she helps out in her father's store in Garden Heights which is in the predominately black neighborhood where she lives.  She feels as though she must maintain two Starrs - the one at school and the one at home.  But when Starr witnesses the murder of her friend Khalil, her entire life changes.  Starr has to decide if she has the courage to speak the truth about what she witnessed.