Winter Break Book Recommendations

Winter Break Book Recommendations
By Brianna Easter


Romance - Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

Vampire Academy, by Richelle Mead, is a Paranormal Romance novel centered around main character Rose Hathaway, a Dhampir, or half-human/half-vampire, who is charged with protecting her best friend, Lissa Dragomir, a Moroi, or mortal vampire. Rose and Lissa go to St. Vladimir’s Academy, where they are faced with the indefinite threat of Strigoi, monstrous vampires, as well as general high school things, like aggravating administration, gossip fueled by hate, and fellow peers with vendettas. Though a bit slow at first, the first novel in this series of six becomes quite the page turner once you learn the different dynamics of characters and their motives.


​Non-Fiction - The Borden Murders: Lizzie Borden and the Trial of the Century by Sarah Miller

Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks
When she saw what she had done
She gave her father forty-one

An infamous nursery rhyme based on one of the most intriguing crimes of the 17th century, The Borden Murders by Sarah Miller tells the truth behind the court case that haunted people for over a century. Did Lizzie Borden kill her father and stepmother? Was she a guilty woman who walked free or an innocent girl subjected to lifelong scrutiny and suspicion?


Poetry - Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty by Christine Heppermann

Poisoned Apples is a short collection of poetry aimed at young girls growing up in our modern, and sometimes, cruel world. Heppermann uses the stories of classic fairy tales and princesses and inserts them into a modern day setting with modern day girls, which leads to a thought provoking and eye-opening selection of poetry about what it means to be a woman in today’s world. Read with caution though, as the poems in this book do contain some heavy material, such as eating disorders and bullying.


Graphic Novel - Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang

Simultaneously set in the 1980s and in the present day, Paper Girls is a science fiction comic that follows four young newspaper delivery girls. Erin, MacKenzie, KJ, and Tiffany, who are along their usual route on Halloween morning, when they are interrupted by an invasion of some mysterious origin from the future.


Fantasy- His Dark Materials Book I: The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

Set in an alternate reality where daemons are the animal companions of humans, and a representation of their human’s soul. The book centers around a girl named Lyra, Lyra’s shape shifting daemon Pantalaimon, and the discovery of a particle known as Dust. The dust has the power to unite whole universes; a kind of power that makes people afraid. When Lyra’s best friend, Roger, is kidnapped by the people who fear dust, she must go through countless adventures, rough terrain, and The Gobblers to find him.


Historical Crime- The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson

The true tale of two very different men in 1893 Chicago during the World’s Columbian Exposition. Daniel H. Burnham, an architect, labored tirelessly to finish the World’s Fair in time for its grand opening and put Chicago on the map as one of the best cities in America. Dr. H. H. Holmes, on the other hand, was working on a more sinister project: The Murder Hotel.


Memoir- October Sky by Homer Hickam

      A memoir about a boy from Coalwood, West Virginia and his struggle to make his dreams come true, avoid following in his father’s footsteps, and escape the confines of his small town. In October 1957, the Cold War is in full bloom, and the Russians have launched the first artificial satellite. Sputnik can be seen from the sky from all around the world, including in Coalwood. Homer Hickam is inspired by this event. With the help of his friends, the Rocket Boys, they build and launch their own rockets to earn scholarships and make something of themselves.