Summer Reading for NCCS Upper School Students 2024

hirteen-year-old twins Hope and Gordon enter a spelling bee in a last-ditch effort to save their family from financial ruin, only to find themselves in a cut-throat competition to uncover a fortune and dark secrets about the wealthy relations they have never known. Grades 4-7

Dare Coates is sure of it. No drifter or ruffian could have killed her father, the Captain of the Guard, while he was on patrol. But everyone insists that monsters have been gone for years now. Dare's mother. Her classmates. Even the governor, who swiftly marries her mother just months after her father's death. Dare's suspicions grow even stronger when the governor suddenly ships her off to the mainland, away from any hope of uncovering the truth about her father's death. Or so she thinks. Soon Dare finds solid proof that monsters still exist and she starts to question everything she's always known. Was her father who she thought he was? Who can she trust? Where is the line between good and evil? The truth hides behind danger and deception. But with the help of an unlikely crew of cohorts and a stray beastie, nothing can stop Dare from finding out what happened to her father and exposing who the real monsters are. Grades 5-8

When fifteen-year-old Valdez Jones VIII, a.k.a. Wrecker, unwittingly becomes entangled with a group of smugglers and grave robbers, he must deep-dive into their shady dealings in order to escape their twisted net. Grades 6-9 (Lexile: 810)

A pair of tween vampires hide their true nature from the humans in their town. Grades 4-7

When fifteen-year-old Valdez Jones VIII, a.k.a. Wrecker, unwittingly becomes entangled with a group of smugglers and grave robbers, he must deep-dive into their shady dealings in order to escape their twisted net. Grades 6-9 (Lexile: 810)

Dare Coates is sure of it. No drifter or ruffian could have killed her father, the Captain of the Guard, while he was on patrol. But everyone insists that monsters have been gone for years now. Dare's mother. Her classmates. Even the governor, who swiftly marries her mother just months after her father's death. Dare's suspicions grow even stronger when the governor suddenly ships her off to the mainland, away from any hope of uncovering the truth about her father's death. Or so she thinks. Soon Dare finds solid proof that monsters still exist and she starts to question everything she's always known. Was her father who she thought he was? Who can she trust? Where is the line between good and evil? The truth hides behind danger and deception. But with the help of an unlikely crew of cohorts and a stray beastie, nothing can stop Dare from finding out what happened to her father and exposing who the real monsters are. Grades 5-8

Three girls who arrive to an abandoned island must outwit and outlast the mysterious killer who awaits them there. Grades 9-12

Michael Linden--or just Linden to his preppy boarding school pals--doesn't belong in wealthy, storied Martha's Vineyard. But when his roommate Jasper invites him to spend the end of summer at his massive beachfront home, August House, Linden tries his best to fit in. Linden wouldn't call it lying, exactly. Though it turns out August House is full of liars. Then someone is found unconscious in Jasper's pool, and everyone has something to hide--Jasper, his beautiful sister Eliza, their older brother Wells, and their friends. The accident is written off as just that--an accident--but Linden begins to wonder... Enter: Holiday Proctor. Linden's childhood friend, and the one person on the island who knows the truth about Linden. There's nothing Holiday loves more than a good old-fashioned mystery and she's convinced there's a potential killer on the Vineyard. Grades 8-11 (Lexile: 900)

When fifteen-year-old Valdez Jones VIII, a.k.a. Wrecker, unwittingly becomes entangled with a group of smugglers and grave robbers, he must deep-dive into their shady dealings in order to escape their twisted net. Grades 6-9 (Lexile: 810)