Reading at HGS
Our aim is for all students to develop a life-long passion for reading and we have a culture where reading is enjoyed and celebrated.
Reading is a core skill which not only helps to improve spelling, increase vocabulary and written skills but also stimulates the imagination and challenges beliefs and perspectives. Reading for pleasure boosts brain and memory function, reduces stress, promotes relaxation and improves sleep; this is why reading regularly is so important.
All students have access to a vibrant and inspiring library, where fiction and non-fiction texts can be borrowed. Whether these texts are complementary to their wider curricular studies or are simply being read for pleasure, our library has something for every reader.
The library can be accessed by all students before and after school and during every morning break and lunch times. Students in Year 7 and 8 also experience one library lesson per fortnight, in which they are able to browse the library, listen to motivating author talks and book recommendations and participate in engaging reading activities.
To achieve excellence in reading, we actively promote reading through form time and via home learning. We celebrate our annual Harrogate Grammar School Reading Week and participate in many national activities and competitions.
Suggested Texts
Looking for books to read to support your reading in school. Click on the links below to access suggest texts:
Recommended Reading
To support students and parents, we regularly share reading recommendations. Our most recent recommended reads are listed below. To access our recommended reading lists from previous months click on the grey box below.
Halloween Reads - Books that go bump in the night
Key stage 3
Terror Tower - Jennifer Killick Angelo and his friends have faced some truly fearsome foes, from mind-controlling parasties to deadly monsters of the deep and giant spiders to vampire birds...but their adventures are not over yet! Dread Wood High is suffering from an infestation of caterpillars. But these are no ordinary caterpillars. these creepy creatures grow into giant, mutant, killer moths with a taste for BLOOD! They will stop at nothing until everything - and everyone - is destroyed. It is Club Loser's toughest battle to date. It is all to play for....and everything is at stake. |
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Bite Risk – S. J. Willis Sel Archer lives in a normal town with normal residents, except for one night a month ... When the full moon comes out, almost all of the adults turn into werewolves, and it's up to the young people to protect themselves from danger. But, as this quiet life begins to unravel, and the Turned start to escape, can Sel and his friends uncover exactly who – or what – is watching their every move, before it's too late? Welcome, to the TOWN OF THE TURNED. |
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Seven Ghosts - Chris Priestley Jake and the other finalists in a writing competition have been invited to a stately house for a tour like no other. As their guide leads them through grand rooms, hidden nooks and magnificient grounds, they hear the stories of seven ghosts who haunt the halls. But strange shapes and shadows follow Jake as he journeys through the house and with each tale that Jake hears, he begins to feel more uneasy. All is not as it seems and soon Jake will discover that something is very, very wrong...old ghosts are stirred-up for Halloween in this spine-tingling, multi-narrative horror. |
Key stage 3/4
Witch - Finbar Hawkin Set in the 17th century, a breath-taking debut, and a potential prize-winner, about the power of women, witchcraft, fury, revenge and the ties that bind us. After witnessing the brutal murder of her mother by witch-hunters, Evey vows to avenge her and track down the killers. Fury burns in her bright and strong. But she promised her mother that she will keep Dill, her little sister safe. As the lust for blood and retribution rises to fever pitch, will Evey keep true to the bonds of sisterhood and to the magic that is her destiny? |
Key Stage 4
The Changing Man - Toni Oyemakinde Just because they let you in....it does not mean they will let you out. When Ife joins Nithercott School through its prestigious Urban Achievers Program, she knows immediately that she does not fit. Wandering its echoing halls, she must fend off cruel taunts from the students and condescending attitudes from the teachers. When she finds herself thrown into detention for the foreseeable future, she strikes up an unlikely alliance with Ben, a troublemaker with an annoyingly cute smile. They have both got reasons to want to get out of Nithercott - Ben's brother is missing, and no one seems to be bothering to find him. For Ife, it is just another strange element of this school that does not care about its students. But as more and more people start going missing, including one of Ife's only friends, she starts to feel haunted. Who is the figure she has started seeing in the shadowy halls, who looks mysteriously like herself? And is there any truth to the strange urban legend that travels the school like mist...the legend of the Changing Man?
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Key stage 4/5
A Tempest of Tea - Hafsah Faizal On the streets of White Roaring, Arthie Casimir is a criminal mastermind and collector of secrets. Her prestigious tearoom transforms into an illegal bloodhouse by dark, catering to the vampires feared by society. But when her establishment is threatened, Arthie is forced to strike an unlikely deal with an alluring adversary to save it - and sh cannot do the job alone. Calling on some of the city's most skilled outcasts, Arthie hatches a plan to infiltrate the dark and glittering vampire society known as the Athereum. But not everyone in her ragtag crew is on her side, and as the truth behind the hesist unfolds, Arthie finds herself in the midst of a conspiracy that will threaten the world as she knows it. |
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House of Hollow - Krystal Sutherland The Hollow sisters - Vivi, Grey and Iris - are as seductively glamourous as they are mysterious. They have black eyes and hair as white as milk. The Hollow sisters do not have friends - they do not need them. They move through the corridors like sharks, the other little fish parting around them, whispering behind their backs. And everyone knows the Hallow sisters are. Because one day the three Hollow sisters simply disappeared. And when they came back, one month later, with no memory of where they had been, it was if nothing had changed. Almost nothing. Apart from, for example, the little scar that had appeared in the hollow of their throats...and a whispering sense that something is not quite right about them, despite (or maybe because of) the terrible passion to be with them that they can exert on anybody at will... |
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The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson Eleanor is delighted to take up Dr Montague's invitation to spend a summer in the mysterious Hill House. Joining them are Theodora, an artistic 'sensitive', and Luke, heir to the house. But why begins as a light-hearted experiment is swiftly proven to be a trip into their darkest nightmares, and an investigation that one of their number may not survive. Twice films as The Haunting, and the inspiration for the 10-part Netflix series, The Haunting of Hill House is a powerful work of slow-burning psychological horror. |
Key stage 5
The Familiar - Leigh Bardugo in a shabby house in the new capital of Madrid, Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil. But when her scheming mistress discovers her scullion is hiding a talent for little miracles, she demands Luzia use those gifts to win over the royal court. Determined to seize this chance to better her fortunes, Luzia plunges into a world of power-hungry nobility, desperate kings, holy men and seers, where the lines between magic, science and fraud blur. With the pryes of the Inquisition burning, she must use every bit of her wit and resilience to win fame and hide the truth of her ancestry - even if that means enlisting the help of an embittered immortal familiar, whose own secrets could cost her everything. |
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Alley - Junji Ito Story Collection
A collection of grotesque imagination and surreal urban legends. Every night, a young man hears children playing outside his boarding house - but the alley below his window is fenced off from the world. Then, when a young woman's family starts acting strangely at the same time she begins having bizarre dreams, she decides to stay with her aunt, but the town she heads for has neither addresses nor roads... Also, an all-you-can eat ice cream bus that is more sinister than sweet! Legendary horror author Junji Ito presents ten bloodcurdling short stories. |
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