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READS: SSR Guide

Fiction is when stories are made-up or imaginary.

Fiction books can be about anything - fantasy, science fiction, romance, historical fiction, mystery, horror, adventure - or like real life stories, but they always come from the writer's imagination.

Fiction - click arrows for more

Kingdom of the Golden Dragon - YA

Sixteen-year-old Alexander Cold accompanies his grandmother, a writer for a geography magazine, to the remote Forbidden Kingdom in the Himalayas to help locate a sacred statue of a golden dragon before it is stolen by a greedy outsider. 437 pages.

White Fang

The adventures in the northern wilderness of a dog who is part wolf and how he comes to make his peace with man. 252 pages.

In a Dark, Dark Wood

What should be a cozy and fun-filled weekend deep in the English countryside takes a sinister turn in Ruth Ware's suspenseful, compulsive, and darkly twisted psychological thriller.  310 pages.

Drive - YA

Driver, a man who makes a living doing stunt driving for films during the day and by driving for criminals at night, finds himself caught in the middle when he is double-crossed by some former partners and is forced to take violent means to protect himself and to seek revenge on his betrayers. 158 pages.

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

Funny contemporary YA about losing a sister and finding yourself amid the pressures, expectations, and stereotypes of growing up in a Mexican-American home. 

The Book of Unknown Americans

Maribel is from Mexico, Mayor is from Panama. They meet in a Dollar Store and fall in love. Their story is interwoven with testimonials of men & women who have come to the US from all over Latin America. 285 pages.

Love, Hate and Other Filters

17-year-old Maya Aziz is torn between worlds. There's the proper one her parents expect for their good Indian daughter: a good school, an arranged marriage. And then there is the world of her dreams: going to film school, living in New York City, pursuing the boy she's liked for ages.

Rot and Ruin - YA

Zombies! Bennie has to work at 15 or not eat so he takes a job whacking zombies. The surprise is that he learns what being human means. Followed by "Dust & Decay", "Flesh & Bone" and "Fire and Ash" 458 pages.

Twilight - YA

When seventeen-year-old Bella leaves Phoenix to live with her father in Forks, Washington, she meets an exquisitely handsome boy at school for whom she feels an overwhelming attraction and who she comes to realize is not wholly human. 498 pages. Followed by New Moon

Esperanza Rising

Forced to leave a life of privilege in Mexico, Esperanza must face a life of farm labor. 262 apges.

Ramón and Julieta

When fate and tacos bring Ramon and Julieta together on the Day of the Dead, the star-crossed pair must make a choice: accept the bitter food rivalry that drives them apart or surrender to a love that consumes them.289 pages.

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The City of Ember

4 Book Series. Book 1: n the year 241, twelve-year-old Lina trades jobs on Assignment Day to be a Messenger to run to new places in her decaying but beloved city, perhaps even to glimpse Unknown Regions. 270 pages. Followed by The People of Sparks, The Diamond of Darkhold and The Prophet of Yonwood.

The Lightning Thief - YA

After learning that he is the son of a mortal woman and Poseidon, god of the sea, twelve-year-old Percy is sent to a summer camp for demigods like himself, and joins his new friends on a quest to prevent a war between the gods. 377 pages. Followed by The Sea of Monsters and The Titan's Curse

The Raven Boys

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them-not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her. 

Cemetery Boys

A trans boy determined to prove his gender to his traditional Latinx family summons a ghost who refuses to leave. 

Just Another Jihadi Jane - YA

A novel about friendship, faith, and alienation, Just Another Jihadi Jane tells the tale of Islamist radicalization from the inside. Two children of Muslim immigrants in England's industrial north--thoughtful Jamilla and rebellious Ameena--become best friends, and find in religion and social media a community as welcoming and encouraging as their public education is estranging. The two girls leave England and join the Islamist cause in Syria.  230 pages.

Jimmy Bluefeather - YA

Old Keb Wisting is somewhere around ninety-five years old and the last living canoe carver in the village of Jinkaat, in Southeast Alaska. When his grandson, James, a promising basketball player, ruins his leg in a logging accident Old Keb comes alive and finishes his last canoe, with help from his grandson.They embark on a great canoe journey. He and the others paddle deep into wild Alaska, but mostly into the human heart, in a story of adventure, love, and reconciliation. 264 pages.

Dead River - YA

A weekend rafting trip turns deadly when ghosts start turning up ... and want something from high school senior Kiandra that she isn't sure she can give them 242 pages.

I Know What You Did Last Summer - YA

Four teen-agers who have desperately tried to conceal their responsibility for a hit-and-run accident are pursued by a mystery figure seeking revenge. 200 pages.

The Fault in Our Stars - YA

Sixteen-year-old Hazel, a stage IV thyroid cancer patient, has accepted her terminal diagnosis until a chance meeting with a boy at cancer support group forces her to reexamine her perspective on love, loss, and life. 318 pages.

The Goodbye Quilt

As her only child Molly readies for college, local fabric shop owner Linda Davis shares one last adventure with her daughter -- a cross-country road trip to move Molly into her dorm. As they make their way through the heart of the country, Linda pieces together the scraps that make up Molly's young life. 217 pages.

The Music of Bees

Forty-four-year-old Alice Holtzman is stuck in a dead-end job, bereft of family, and now reeling from the unexpected death of her husband. Alice has begun having panic attacks whenever she thinks about how her life hasn't turned out the way she dreamed. Even the beloved honeybees she raises in her spare time aren't helping her feel better these days. In the grip of a panic attack, she nearly collides with Jake - a troubled, paraplegic teenager with the tallest mohawk in Hood River County - while carrying 120,000 honeybees in the back of her pickup truck. 322 pages.

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IOU Dead

Keno is stuck in a rut as a debt collector when one night he runs into a serial killer leaving the house of his latest victim. Instead of going to the police, Keno and his collecting partner decide to blackmail him. When their plan goes sideways, Keno must decide if he will do the right thing or run. 132 pages.

Miss Marple: the complete short stories

Miss Marple looks like an older lady to be overlooked. But she is great at solving mysteries in the small English towns she visits. She is one of Agatha Christie's most beloved characters. Stories are short, less than 20 pages.

Talking God

Reunited by a grave robber and a corpse, Navajo Tribal Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn is trying to determine the identity of a murder victim, while Officer Jim Chee is arresting Smithsonian conservator Henry Highhawk for ransacking the sacred bones of his ancestors. 239 pages.

The Couple Next Door

A domestic suspense debut about a young couple and their apparently friendly neighbors--a twisty, rollercoaster ride of lies, betrayal, and the secrets between husbands and wives. 308 pages.

Small-town browny : cosecha de la vida - YA

About a young man struggling to understand his turbulent past, his place in a family of farm workers, and his identity. 94 pages.

Into the Beautiful North

Inspired by The Magnificent Seven, 19 yr. old Nayeli leaves her small Mexican village for the US. She needs to find 7 men to help fight the nasty drug-dealers attacking the village. 338 pages.

Butterfly boy : memories of a Chicano - YA

Heartbreaking, poetic, and intensely personal, this is a unique coming-out and coming-of-age story of a first-generation Chicano who trades one life for another, only to discover that history and memory are not exchangeable or forgettable. 207 pages.

It: a novel

They were seven teenagers when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they were grown-up men and women who had gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But none of them could withstand the force that drew them back to Derry, Maine to face the nightmare without an end, and the evil without a name. 1156 pages.

Calico Joe

In John Grisham's novel baseball is thrilling but what happens on the field makes this book a classic. 198 pages.

Friday night lights : a town, a team, and a dream

You may have seen the TV show, read the book it was based on. It chronicles a season for Odessa Texas and the Permian High School Panthers football team. 367 pages.

The Next Sure Thing

A young blues guitar player risks everything when he signs on to pick winning horses at the racetrack for a violent mobster. 134 pages.

Playing for Pizza

After a bad performance for the Cleveland Browns Rick is cut. His agent gets him a position for the Panthers of Parma, Italy! Not what he expected and holding a few surprises. 262 pages.

Covert ops: License2Chill

Intellectual opera-loving explosive expert, ex-SEAL Chance Neville and Mac Mackenzie, cocky womanizing ex-Navy fighter pilot are a deeply embedded covert ops team. 243 pages Followed by Covert Ops: Take It Back and Covert Ops: Apocalypso

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