NCEA Independent Reading (YA)

If you’re studying English at high school, there may be times when your teacher optimistically expects you to magically find a whole bunch of books (or other media) to write personal or critical responses to. You may even have to read them independently. And then demonstrate you had thoughts about them. We know, it seems inhumane.

Thankfully, the library is here to help! Our librarians have passionately argued their cases* and come up with this list of books — some classic and some new — that would be a fantastic starting point for any NCEA student looking for great texts to include in their Independent Reading assignments. They are arranged in approximate order of complexity, with texts more suited to Level 1 English at the top of the list, and texts more suited to Level 2 at the bottom.

*The impassioned debate would have continued for many more hours, were it not for the summary defenestration of one librarian for daring to suggest that The Hunger Games was ‘too mainstream’ to include on this list.

Updated April 29, 2024
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Wellington City Libraries
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The giver
Lowry, Lois.
The Giver, the 1994 Newbery Medal winner, has become one of the most influential novels of our time. The haunting story centers on twelve-year-old Jonas, who lives in a seemingly ideal, if colorless, world of conformity and contentment. Not until he is given his life assignment as the...
The hunger games
Collins, Suzanne.
The first novel in the worldwide bestselling series by Suzanne Collins!Winning means fame and fortune. Losing means certain death. The Hunger Games have begun. . . . In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying...
Lord of the flies : a novel
Golding, William
First published in 1954, Lord of the Flies is now recognised as a classic, one of the most celebrated and widely read of modern novels. This edition, which includes an introduction and notes by Ian Gregor and Mark Kinkead-Weekes, meets the demand for its use in schools and its prescription by...
The day of the triffids
Wyndham, John
The night the sky broke out in mysterious green flashes, all but a few people on Earth were blinded. The world went mad. Ordinary folk became animals, turning on one another in terror and desperation. Bill Masen was one of a handful who struggled to preserve a shred of civilization amidst the chaos....
Jurassic Park
Crichton, Michael
An astonishing technique for recovering and cloning dinosaur DNA has been discovered. Creatures once extinct now roam Jurassic Park, soon-to-be opened as a theme park. Until something goes wrong...and science proves a dangerous toy.... "Wonderful...Powerful." THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD
Othello
Shakespeare, William
The Annotated Shakespeare Series allows readers to fully understand and enjoy the rich plays of the world's greatest dramatist   "A drama . . . get[s] Yale's red-carpet treatment."--Library Journal   One of the most...
The war of the worlds
Wells, H. G.
Accompanied by Edward's Gorey's masterful, timelessly haunting illustrations, H. G. Wells's classic story of alien invasion. When massive, intelligent aliens from Mars touch down in Victorian England and threaten to destroy the civilized world, humanity's vaunted knowledge...
Looking for Alaska : a novel
Green, John
The award-winning, genre-defining debut from John Green, the #1 international bestselling author of Turtles All the Way Down and The Fault in Our Stars Winner of the Michael L. Printz Award * A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist...
The knife of never letting go
Ness, Patrick
Todd Hewitt is the only boy in a town of men. Ever since the settlers were infected with the Noise germ, Todd can hear everything the men think, and they hear everything he thinks. Todd is just a month away from becoming a man, but in the midst of the cacophony, he knows that the town is hiding...
The kite runner
Hosseini, Khaled.
The #1 New York Times bestselling debut novel that introduced Khaled Hosseini to millions of readers all over the world. Amir and Hassan are childhood friends in the alleys and orchards of Kabul in the sunny days before the invasion of the Soviet army and Afghanistan's...
Frankenstein : or, The modern Prometheus
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
Although on one level this book is a story in the Gothic horror tradition, it is also a philosophic novel influenced by the ideas of Godwin and Shelley and the rationalist Enlightenment.
Catch-22
Heller, Joseph.
The catcher in the rye
Salinger, J. D.
The "brilliant, funny, meaningful novel" (The New Yorker) that established J. D. Salinger as a leading voice in American literature--and that has instilled in millions of readers around the world a lifelong love of books. "If you...
Once were warriors
Duff, Alan
Once Were Warriors is Alan Duff's harrowing vision of his country's indigenous people two hundred years after the English conquest. In prose that is both raw and compelling, it tells the story of Beth Heke, a Maori woman struggling to keep her family from falling apart, despite the squalor and...
The handmaid's tale
Atwood, Margaret
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * An instant classic and eerily prescient cultural phenomenon, from "the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction" (The New York Times). Now an award-winning Hulu series starring Elizabeth Moss. Look for The Testaments, the...
The left hand of darkness
Le Guin, Ursula K.

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