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BOOK LIST

This School Year's Best-Selling Books for Grades 9-12

Your students will appreciate these riveting best-sellers with compelling characters and engaging plots.

 

By Scholastic Editors
December 10, 2024

This School Year's Best-Selling Books for Grades 9-12

Students from grades 9-12 engage in captivating stories with complex characters and strong plots. This list of best-selling books will prompt stimulating discussions. Themes like the refugee crisis and self-identity will teach your student about themselves and the world around them. 

Try Sunshine, a touching story of author and illustrator Jarrett J. Krosoczka, who attended a camp as a counselor for sick children and their families when he was in high school. Anticipating an emotionally challenging time, Jarrett instead discovers that Camp Sunshine is instead full of hope and determination, something that winds up rippling through Jarrett's own life. 

Meanwhile, The Library of Broken Worlds introduces a world full of magic to fantasy fans. As the daughter of a library god, Frieda has spent her whole life roaming its ever-shifting tunnels and communicating with gods. But when Frieda meets Joshua and Nergui, she is determined to help them save their people. But in order to do so, Frieda must venture deeper into the library than she'd ever imagined, all the while confronting atrocities from the past and the truth of her own origins. 

Use these unforgettable stories to guide classroom discussions about truth, history, human nature, and the power of friendship. These novels will help your students appreciate powerful stories with good messages. 

Shop best-selling books for grades 9-12 below! You can find all books and activities at The Teacher Store.

Paperback Book

Hatchet

Grades 6 - 12
$5.96$7.95
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A story of survival and of transformation, this riveting book has sparked many a reader's interest in venturing into the wild.

Paperback Book

Prisoner B-3087

Grades 6 - 12
$5.99$7.99
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As a Jewish boy in 1930s Poland, Yanek is at the mercy of the Nazis who have taken over. Everything he has, and everyone he loves, have been snatched brutally from him. And then Yanek himself is taken prisoner, his arm tattooed with the words PRISONER B-3087.

Paperback Book

Ground Zero

Grades 7 - 10
$6.74$8.99
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With his trademark skill, Alan Gratz delivers an action-packed and insightful story of two kids whose lives connect in unexpected ways, and reminds us how the past and present are always more linked than we think.

Paperback Book

Stars in Their Eyes: A Graphic Novel

Grades 7 and up
$11.99$15.99
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Maisie is on her way to Fancon! She's looking forward to meeting her idol, Kara Bufano, the action hero from her favorite TV show, who has a lower-leg amputation, just like Maisie. But when Maisie and her mom arrive at the convention center, she is stopped in her tracks by Ollie, a cute volunteer working the show. They are kind, charming, and geek out about nerd culture just as much as Maisie does. And as the day wears on, Maisie notices feelings for Ollie that she's never had before. Is this what it feels like to fall in love?

Hardcover Book

This Time It's Real

Grades 7 and up
$14.24$18.99
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When seventeen-year-old Eliza Lin's essay about meeting the love of her life unexpectedly goes viral, her entire life changes overnight. Now she has the approval of her classmates at her new international school in Beijing, a career-launching internship opportunity at her favorite magazine...and a massive secret to keep.

$11.24$14.99
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Colin isn't excited about baseball. In the words of five-time all-star MLB player Adam Jones, "Baseball is a white man's game." Colin looks up to athletes like Allen Iverson: talented, hyper-competitive, unapologetically Black, and dominating their sports while staying true to themselves. College football looks a lot more fun than sleeping on hotel room floors in the minor leagues of baseball. But Colin doesn't have a single offer to play football. Yet.


This touching graphic novel explores the story of how a young change-maker learned to find himself and never compromise. How the right decision is very rarely the easy one, but taking the road less traveled can make all the difference in the world.

Hardcover Book

Rebel of Fire and Flight

Grades 7 and up
$14.99$19.99
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Khadija loves the ancient tales of jinn and renegade princesses... but real life is closing in and her destiny as a ghadæan girl is marriage and boredom. When her father arranges a match, Khadija leaps at the chance of escape - a rogue hot air balloon fighting its ropes for the sky. Soon, Khadija is flying over the desert sands, away from everything she knows.Khadija finds an unlikely ally in a poor young glassmaker's apprentice, Jacob.

Hardcover Book

Love Letters for Joy

Grades 7 and up
$14.24$18.99
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Less than a year away from graduation, seventeen-year-old Joy is too busy overachieving to be worried about relationships. She's determined to be Caldwell Prep's first disabled valedictorian. And she only has one person to beat, her academic rival Nathaniel.

But it's senior year and everyone seems to be obsessed with pairing up. One of her best friends may be developing feelings for her and the other uses Caldwell's anonymous love-letter writer to snag the girl of her dreams. Joy starts to wonder if she has missed out on a quintessential high school experience. She is asexual, but that's no reason she can't experience first love, right?

Paperback Book

That's Not What Happened

Grades 7 - 12
$8.24$10.99
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From New York Times bestseller Kody Keplinger comes an astonishing and thought-provoking exploration of the aftermath of tragedy, the power of narrative, and how we remember what we've lost.

Paperback Book

Sunshine

Grades 7 - 12
$11.24$14.99
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Instead of the shadow of death, Jarrett found something else at Camp Sunshine: the hope and determination that gets people through the most troubled of times. Not only was he subject to some of the usual rituals that come with being a camp counselor (wilderness challenges, spooky campfire stories, an extremely stinky mascot costume), but he also got a chance to meet some extraordinary kids facing extraordinary circumstances. He learned about the captivity of illness, for sure . . . but he also learned about the freedom a safe space can bring.

Hardcover Book

This Indian Kid

Grades 8 - 10
$14.99$19.99
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Growing up impoverished and shuttled between different households made life hard for Eddie Chuculate. Despite the challenges--from occasional racism to food insecurity-- his upbringing was rich with love and bountiful lessons from his Creek and Cherokee heritage, deep-rooted traditions he embraced even as he learned to live within the culture of white, small-town America that dominated his migratory childhood. A love letter to his Native American roots and an inspiring and essential message for young readers everywhere.

Paperback Book

Code Talker

Grades 9
$5.96$7.95
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After being taught in a boarding school run by whites that Navajo is a useless language, Ned Begay and other Navajo men are recruited by the Marines to become Code Talkers, sending messages during World War II in their native tongue.

Paperback Book

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

Grades 9 - 12
$6.71$8.95
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When fourteen-year-old William Kamkwamba's Malawi village was hit by a drought, everyone's crops began to fail. Without enough money for food, let alone school, William spent his days in the library...and figured out how to bring electricity to his village. Persevering against the odds, William built a functioning windmill out of junkyard scraps, and thus became the local hero who harnessed the wind.

Paperback Book

Same But Different

Grades 9 - 12
$4.49$5.99
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With insight and humor, Same but Different explores the many aspects of teen autism while daring to address issues and feelings nobody talks about. This powerfully rendered book is timely and one of a kind. It paints an important story of hope for teens and families living with autism, and lets us see that everybody's unique rhythm is worth dancing to.

Paperback Book

Beastly Beauty

Grades 9 - 12
$9.74$12.99
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A swapped retelling of Beauty and the Beast that will forever change how you think about beauty, power, and what it really means to follow your heart. What exactly makes a girl "beastly?"

Paperback Book

The Lunar Chronicles: Winter

Grades 9 - 12
$9.74$12.99
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This critically acclaimed, high-octane fairy-tale/sci-fi/steampunk mash-up series stars a kickass cyborg mechanic in a plague ridden future world.

Paperback Book

Obsessed

Grades 9 - 12
$8.21$10.95
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An unflinching account of how obsessive-compulsive disorder dismantled 15-year-old Allison Britz's life-until she asked for help and fought for clarity.

Hardcover Book

The Library of Broken Worlds

Grades 9 and up
$16.49$21.99
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With the world at the brink of war, Freida embarks on a journey to fulfill her destiny, one that pits her against an ancient war god. Her mission is straightforward: Destroy the god before he can rain hellfire upon thousands of innocent lives -- if he doesn't destroy her first.

 

Paperback Book

Hunger Games: The Hunger Games

Grades 9 - 12
$11.24$14.99
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In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Paperback Book

Catching Fire

Grades 9 - 12
$11.24$14.99
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Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the annual Hunger Games with fellow district tribute Peeta Mellark. But it was a victory won by defiance of the Capitol and their harsh rules. Katniss and Peeta should be happy. After all, they have just won for themselves and their families a life of safety and plenty. But there are rumors of rebellion among the subjects, and Katniss and Peeta, to their horror, are the faces of that rebellion. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge.

Paperback Book

Mockingjay

Grades 9 - 12
$11.24$14.99
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Powerful and haunting, this thrilling final installment of Suzanne Collins's groundbreaking The Hunger Games trilogy promises to be one of the most talked about books of the year.

$12.74$16.99
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It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to outcharm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute.

Hardcover Book

This Winter

Grades 9 and up
$13.49$17.99
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Reuniting Tori Spring, her little brother Charlie, and Charlie's boyfriend Nick, this novella sees the Spring siblings brave a particularly difficult festive season.

Paperback Book

Where You See Yourself

Grades 10 - 12
$8.24$10.99
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Where You See Yourself combines an unforgettable coming-of-age tale, a swoon-worthy romance, and much-needed disability representation in this story about a girl who's determined to follow her dreams.