Seven of the Best Books of 2016
By Ruta Sepetys
Genre: History
Page Count: 393Salt to the Sea is a book set in the winter of 1945. It is about four teenagers who all are boarding the Wilhelm Gustloff to escape a Soviet advance by going to the coast. Freedom and safety are promised but when tragedy strikes, that promise is broken.
2. The Lie Tree
By Frances Hardinge
Genre: Fantasy
Page Count: 384
Faith Sunderly is an extremely curious young lady who can’t resist a mystery. When her father is found dead, she naturally suspects his death to be a murder. Investigating his death, she searches through her father’s belongings and finds a strange tree. The tree tells one truth, but what secrets will the tree uncover for Faith?
3. Laurinda
By Alice Pung
Genre: Fiction
Page Count: 352
Lucy is the eldest child of two immigrants and one of the lucky children chosen to go to Laurinda, a very prestigious school. Can she balance her new life of Laurinda and her old life in her poverty-stricken neighborhood?
4. Outrun the Moon
By Stacey Lee
Genre: Historical Fiction
Page Count: 400
This is a story set in 1906 about a girl named Mercy Wong. Mercy lives in an extremely poor neighborhood in Chinatown and wants to enter St. Claire’s, an all-white girls’ school. Mercy gets into the school through cunningness and bribery, but will her life ever be the same when an earthquake strikes San Francisco?
5. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – Parts One and Two (Harry Potter #8)
By John Tiffany, Jack Thorne, and J.K. Rowling
Genre: Fantasy
Page Count: 343
This is part of the Harry Potter series but it is written in the form of a play. The story follows Harry Potter through his life as a husband, father, and employee of the Ministry of Magic. Harry struggles with his past while his son Albus struggles with his legacy. Can Albus live with his legacy and can Harry handle his past?
6. The Crown’s Game
By Evelyn Skye
Genre: Fantasy
Page Count: 399
Vika and Nikolai and are the only enchanters living in Russia. So, when the tsar needs an enchanter by his side to fight the threatening Kazakhs and the Ottoman Empire, the Crown’s Games are initiated. Which enchanter will win and who will lose?
7. The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo #1)
By Rick Riordan
Genre: Fantasy
Page Count: 376
The god Apollo is cast down to New York City from Olympus by his father Zeus. The only place he thinks to go to is Camp Half-Blood. But how will this 4,000 year old deity survive without his powers?