Whether you’re starting high school or heading to college this fall, you probably have a lot of things on your mind.  There is a lot of prep to do before you head off to your next educational challenge, but there is at least one thing you can do to make it a little easier – read books!

This may seems like a simple thing, but really, reading provides you with the tools you will need to be successful in almost every avenue of your life. Reading prepares you with basic knowledge, sharpens your comprehension skills, helps you with stress, and improves your empathy and memory. See? What’s not to like about reading?

As a high schooler, you will be introduced to a variety of prose and poetry, so what you read can also affect how you infer for the rest of your life.

Books to Read in High School

Because you may be going to high school or college soon, you should take the time to read a variety of books, but deciding what to read can sometimes be overwhelming with the hundreds of millions of books out there. So below is a short list of just 50 books every high school student should read.

Classic Books Every High Schooler Should Read

The summer is a great time to catch up on your reading. Take a minute to check out this list of classic novels every high school student should read before graduation.

• 1984 by George Orwell
• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
• Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• Dracula by Bram Stoker
• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
• Hamlet by William Shakespeare
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
• Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
• Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
• The Good Earth by Pearl S Buck
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
• The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
• The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
• “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe

Contemporary Fiction and Nonfiction Books Every High School Student Should Read

If you’ve read a lot of classics, then maybe you’ll be interested in some contemporary fiction or nonfiction. The books below offer a wide sample of great genre fiction and nonfiction to whet any reader’s appetite.

• American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
• And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
• A Kestral for a Knave by Barry Bines
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
• Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
• Charlotte’s Web by EB White
• Danny, Champion of the World by Roald Dahl
• Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
• Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser
• Hiroshima by John Hersey
• I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai by Christina Lamb
• Life of Pi by Yann Martel
• Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
• Night by Elie Wiesel
• The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander
• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
• The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
• The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
• The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
• The Giver by Lois Lowry
• The Harry Potter Series by JK Rowling
• The Help by Kathryn Stockett
• The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
• The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
• The Outsiders by SE Hinton
• The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
• The Princess Bride by William Goldman
• The Story of My Life by Hellen Keller
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy
• The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• The Stand by Stephen King
• The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
• Watership Down by Richard Adams
• Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

Even if you don’t get a chance to read many of these books before the end of high school, you’ll still have your whole life to immerse yourself in the worlds these incredible authors have created. Their stories will help to elevate your critical thinking and response to problems in school and life.

What great books for high schoolers would you recommend?

Author: Nicole Acevedo, Teacher Manager at A Grade Ahead