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Recommended Reads 2024-2025

Books

To support students and parents, we regularly share reading recommendations.  Please click on the links below to access our recommended reads for 2024/25.

Autumn Term 2024

Halloween reads - October

Reads to remember - November

Stocking Fillers - December

Spring Term 2025

January 2025

Spring Term 2025

Recommended reads for February.

Take a look at our lovestruck books for Valentines.          Love

Key Stage 3
Northern Soul

Northern Soul by Phil Earle

From award-winning author Phil Earle comes the hilariously agonising account of one teenage boy’s disastrous attempts to win the heart of the cool new girl at school.

Marv’s fourteen and his life is simple.

There’s football. And his best mate, Jimmy. Perfect. Nothing else matters until a new girl at school called Carly crashes into his life.

For Marv, it’s love at first sight, his emotions flipped upside down, as he knows a girl like Carly will never notice him. He needs help – lots of it – but when it miraculously arrives in the shape of a musical idol from the past, the path to Carly’s heart proves anything but easy …

 First love is unforgettable, and poor Marv is about to learn this the hard way – him, and his northern soul …

Key Stage 3 and 4
To all the boys I've ever loved

To all the boys I've loved before by Jenny Han

The book that started it all!

All three books in the To All The Boys I've Loved Before series have been made into feature length films for NETFLIX.

Lara Jean keeps her love letters in a hatbox her mother gave her. One for every boy she's ever loved. When she writes, she can pour out her heart and soul and say all the things she would never say in real life, because her letters are for her eyes only. Until the day her secret letters are mailed, and suddenly Lara Jean's love life goes from imaginary to out of control!

Key Stage 4 
That's left in the world

All that's left in the world

When the superflu wipes out most of the population, Jamie finds himself completely alone in a cabin in the woods - until an injured stranger crosses his path. Life is dangerous now and, armed with a gun, Jamie goes to pull the trigger.

But there's something about Andrew ... something that stops Jamie in his tracks. Jamie takes him in, and as Andrew heals and they eventually step out into the strange new world, their relationship starts to feel like more than just friendship ... But trouble isn't far behind. As the boys make a perilous journey south, they'll come face to face with a world torn apart and society in ruins. And who, or what, will they find waiting for them at the end of it all?" Tense, exciting, sometimes heartbreaking and always romantic, All That's Left in the World explores what it means to hold onto hope and humanity when the worst-case scenario becomes reality.

Key Stage 4 and 5
Not for the faint hearted

Not for the faint of heart by Lex Croucher

You aren’t merry,’ said Clem to her captor. ‘And you aren’t all men. So there’s been some marketing confusion somewhere along the line.’

Mariel, a newly blooded captain of the Merry Men, is desperate to live up to the legacy of her grandfather, the legendary Robin Hood.

Clem, a backwoods assistant healer known for her new-fangled cures, just wants to help people. When Mariel's ramshackle band kidnap Clem as retribution for her guardian helping the Sheriff of Nottingham, all seems to be going (sort of) to plan … until Jack Hartley, Mariel’s father and Commander of the Merry Men, is captured in a deadly ambush.

Determined to prove herself, Mariel sets out to get him back – with her annoyingly cheerful kidnappee in tow. But the wood is at war. Many believe the Merry Men are no longer on the right side of history.

Watching Clem tend the party’s wounds, Mariel begins to doubt the cause to which she has devoted her life.

As the two of them grow closer, one thing is clear. They must prepare to fight for their lives – and for the lives of everybody in the greenwood.

You've reached Sam

You've reached Sam by Dustin Thao

Seventeen-year-old Julie has her future all planned out: move out of her small town with her boyfriend Sam, attend college in the city, spend a summer in Japan.

But then Sam dies. And everything changes. Desperate to hear his voice one more time, Julie calls Sam’s phone just to listen to his voicemail. And Sam picks up the phone . . . What would you do if you had a second chance at goodbye?

The TikTok sensation and instant New York Times Bestseller!

Compass and Blade

Compass and Blade by Rachel Greenlaw

Mira is a wrecker, one of the seven chosen to swim out and plunder the wrecked ships beyond the Isle of Rosevear.

The waves sing to her soul, the call of the sea beckoning her into deeper waters.

But Rosevear needs her, and she could never abandon her home.

Until one evening when lightning splits the sky and the Watch descend, taking Mira’s father away. Mira must set off on a journey to win back her father’s freedom.

She will encounter two strangers along the way – enigmatic Seth and smouldering Elijah – and learning who to trust will not be easy.

When she discovers a dark family secret, buried deep in the ocean, Mira finds that securing her future – and that of her island – will come at a high price.

Five feet apart

Five Feet Apart

Can you love someone you can never touch? Stella Grant likes to be in control - even though her totally out of control lungs have sent her in and out of the hospital most of her life.

At this point, what Stella needs to control most is keeping herself away from anyone or anything that might pass along an infection and jeopardize the possibility of a lung transplant. Six feet apart. No exceptions.

The only thing Will Newman wants to be in control of is getting out of this hospital. He couldn’t care less about his treatments, or a fancy new clinical drug trial. Soon, he’ll turn eighteen and then he’ll be able to unplug all these machines and actually go see the world, not just its hospitals. Will’s exactly what Stella needs to stay away from.

If he so much as breathes on Stella she could lose her spot on the transplant list.

Either one of them could die. The only way to stay alive is to stay apart. But suddenly six feet doesn’t feel like safety. It feels like punishment. What if they could steal back just a little bit of the space their broken lungs have stolen from them?

New books available in the LRC

Onyx Storm Butter Football crazy All that it ever meant Not like other girls Earps Shadow of the wolf

Harrogate Grammar School is part of Red Kite Learning Trust, a charitable company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales with company number 7523507, registered office address: Red Kite Office, Pannal Ash Road, Harrogate, HG2 9PH

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