Summer Reading for NCCS Upper School Students 2025

"Six critically acclaimed, bestselling, and award-winning authors bring the glowing warmth and electricity of Black teen love to this interlinked novel of charming, hilarious, and heartwarming stories that shine a bright light through the dark. Grade 8-12

After picking up a book from the library, Yvette--who has given up on love--gains the ability to see how other people's romantic relationships will end. Grade 7+ (Lexile: 650)

Harlem teenager Nala is looking forward to a summer of movies and ice cream until she falls in love with the very woke Tye and pretends to be a social activist. Grade 7-10

After being dumped at the beginning of freshman year, Iranian-American Parvin Mohammadi sets out to win the ultimate date to Homecoming. Grade 7-10

High school seniors Bàao and Linh, whose feuding families own competing Vietnamese restaurants, conceal their budding romance, as well as Linh's desire to become an artist. Grade 7+ (Lexile: 710)

Eighteen-year-old flamenco dancer Zarela Zalvidar must work with a disgraced dragon hunter to learn the ways of a Dragador and save her ancestral home. Grade 8-12

After her family is brutally murdered, a teenage mafia princess must team up with the heir to her family's rival mafia to catch the killer. Grades 7-12.

MJ Rodriguez has spent her life hiding in the human world, keeping a heavy secret: she's half-encanto. As the only child of King Vivencio of the Sirena Court, she' s also next in line for the throne. And now, upon her estranged father's sudden death, MJ must claim her place as rightful heir. ... [She] has to win over a backstabbing council that objects to a half-human ruler. And when it looks like her father's passing wasn't natural but possibly inflicted by a curse, she must hunt down the sorceress behind this merciless magic. Grade 7-11 (Lexile: 660)

Eighteen-year-old Aihui Ying dreams of becoming a world-class engineer like her father, but after his sudden murder, her life falls apart. Left with only a journal of her father’s engineering secrets and a jade pendant snatched from the assassin, a heartbroken Ying follows the trail to the capital and the prestigious Engineers Guild—a place that harbors her father’s hidden past—determined to discover why anyone would threaten a man who ultimately chose a quiet life over fame and fortune. Disguised as her brother, Ying manages to infiltrate the guild’s male-only apprenticeship trial with the help of an unlikely ally—Aogiya Ye-yang, the taciturn eighth prince of the High Command. With her father’s renown placing a target firmly on her back, Ying must stay one step ahead of her fellow competitors, the jealous guild masters, and the killer still hunting for her father’s journal. Complicating everything is her increasingly tangled relationship with the prince, who may have mysterious plans of his own. The secrets concealed within the guild can be as deadly as the weapons they build—and with her life and the future of her homeland at stake, Ying doesn’t know who to trust. Can she avenge her father even if it means going against everything he stood for, or will she be next in the mastermind’s line of fire? Grades 7-12

In a land where the supernatural is believed to be real, non-believer Ellery and familiar Knox from the Other World form an unexpected alliance to strike a deal that could alter their lives forever. Grades 7-11

Eighth-grader Ingrid runs a popular blog anonymously and has online personal more popular than she is, but when a wrong-number text message offers her a chance at connection, Ingrid opens herself to the opportunity to make a real live friend. Grades 5-8

A hilarious and heartfelt novel about a young Haitian girl navigating high school, friendship, and crushes.

Fifteen-year-old Fancy Augustine is a Haitian American girl with simple desires. She’d like to trade in her floppy, oversize boobs for cute, perky ones. She’d love a boyfriend. And she’s desperate for an invite to the biggest event of the school year: Imani Park’s birthday party. When Fancy learns her BFF, Tilly, has received a coveted invite and has a secret boyfriend, she is (understandably) devastated and wholeheartedly determined to do whatever it takes to get her own happily ever after. So what if she makes a deal with the devil (Imani) that guarantees her an invite—but only if she can bring a boyfriend? And what’s so bad about letting her crush, Rahim, believe that she can create a voodoo potion for him in exchange for him posing as her boyfriend? And, yeah, maybe she’s destroying her friendship with Tilly and falling hopelessly behind in her schoolwork, but Fancy knows it’ll all be worth it in the end. Plus, it’s not like Fancy’s parents would really make good on their threats of sending her back to Haiti...right? Grades 7-11

Best friends Eve and Andrew go to their first eight grade dance together, and suddenly everybody assumes they are dating, so they each try and arrange a break-up--except they are both beginning to feel a different kind of attraction. Grades 5-8

Seventeen-year-old Lilah, who wears hearing aids, returns to a summer camp for the Deaf and Blind as a counselor, eager to improve her ASL and find her place in the community, but she did not expect to also find romance along the way. Grade 7-10 (Lexile: 720)

Don't call this mermaid "little"--call her "captain," unless you want to walk the plank. Mary is in love with the so-called prince of Charles Town, except he doesn't love her back. Which is inconvenient. Since she's a mermaid, being brokenhearted means she'll--poof!--turn into sea-foam. But instead, Mary finds herself pulled out of the sea and up onto a pirate ship. To survive, she joins them. But Mary isn't willing to just sing the yo-ho-hos. She wants the pirate life, all of it, and she's ready to make a splash...by becoming captain. But when Blackbeard dies suddenly, Mary has a chance to become so much more: Pirate King...or Queen. She won't let anyone stop her--not Blackbeard's cute son, not her best friend from back under the sea who's having a bit too much fun with his new legs, and certainly not everyone who says she can't be a pirate just because she's a girl. She may not be the best man for the job, but she'll definitely prove that she's worth her salt. Grades 7-11

Told in alternating voices, determined to make a difference and heal from their troubled pasts, teens Ana and Leandro fight to protect California wildlife and the endangered puma. Grades 7-10

When a hurricane exposes Soleida's family's secret sculpture garden, the Cuban government arrests her artist parents, forcing her to escape alone to Central America where she meets Dariel, a Cuban American boy, and together they work to protect the environment and bring attention to the imprisoned artists in Cuba. Grade 7-10 (In Verse)