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
Golding, William
The classic novel by William Golding With a new Introduction by Stephen King "To me Lord of the Flies has always represented what novels are for, what makes them indispensable." -Stephen King Golding's classic, startling, and perennially bestselling...
The day of the Triffids
Wyndham, John
In 1951 John Wyndham published his novel The Day of the Triffids to moderate acclaim. Fifty-two years later, this horrifying story is a science fiction classic, touted by The Times (London) as having "all the reality of a vividly realized nightmare."Bill Masen, bandages over his wounded eyes, misses...
Dreadnought
Daniels, April (Young adult author)
An action-packed series-starter perfect for fans of The Heroine Complex and Not Your Sidekick. "I didn't know how much I needed this brave, thrilling book until it rocked my world. Dreadnought is the superhero adventure we all need right now."--Charlie Jane...
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...
Othello
Shakespeare, William
Edited, Introduced and Annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex. The Wordsworth Classics' Shakespeare Series, with Henry V and The Merchant of Venice as its inaugral volumes, presents a newly-edited sequence of William...
A thousand splendid suns
Hosseini, Khaled
Propelled by the same superb instinct for storytelling that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, the #1 New York Times bestseller A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once an incredible chronicle of thirty years of Afghan history and a deeply moving story of family,...
The war of the worlds
Wells, H. G.
The night after a shooting star is seen streaking through the sky from Mars, a cylinder is discovered on Horsell Common in London. At first, naive locals approach the cylinder armed just with a white flag - only to be quickly killed by an all-destroying heat-ray, as terrifying tentacled invaders...
Looking for Alaska : a novel
Green, John
The award-winning, genre-defining debut from John Green, the #1 bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed and The Fault in Our StarsWinner of the Michael L. Printz Award * A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist * A New York Times...
From here to eternity : traveling the world to find the good death
Doughty, Caitlin
A New York Times and Los Angeles Times Bestseller The best-selling author of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes expands our sense of what it means to treat the dead with "dignity." Fascinated by our pervasive fear of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty set...
The knife of never letting go
Ness, Patrick
A dystopian thriller follows a boy and girl on the run from a town where all thoughts can be heard — and the passage to manhood embodies a horrible secret. Todd Hewitt is the only boy in a town of men. Ever since the settlers were infected with the Noise germ, Todd can hear...
Thief of time
Pratchett, Terry
Time isn't a toy to be played with. It's bigger than all of us. It exists outside the artificial and arbitrary divisions into which humankind has presumptuously shoehorned it. It needs to elastic. To understand truly, you have to see time as the most important resource we have. You mess...
Storm-wake
Christopher, Lucy
Moss has lived with her pa on a remote island for as long as she remembers. The Old World has disappeared beneath the waves - only Pa's magic, harnessing the wondrous stormflowers on the island, can save the sunken continents. But a storm is brewing, promising cataclysmic changes. Soon, two strange...
Purple Hibiscus : a novel
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi
"One of the most vital and original novelists of her generation." --Larissa MacFarquhar, The New Yorker From the bestselling author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists Fifteen-year-old Kambili and her...
The kite runner
Hosseini, Khaled
The #1 New York Times bestselling novel beloved by millions of readers the world over. "A vivid and engaging story that reminds us how long his people [of Afghanistan] have been struggling to triumph over the forces of violence--forces that continue to threaten them even today...
The 57 bus
Slater, Dashka
The riveting New York Times bestseller and Stonewall Book Award winner that will make you rethink all you know about race, class, gender, crime, and punishment. Artfully, compassionately, and expertly told, Dashka Slater's The 57 Bus is a must-read nonfiction book for...
Frankenstein, or, The modern Prometheus
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
  No-one in the grip of Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN, with its mythic-minded hero and its highly sympathetic monster who reads Goethe and longs to be at peace with himself, can fail to notice how much more excellent the original is than all the adaptations, imitations and outright...
American gods : a novel : author's preferred text
Gaiman, Neil
"Mystery, satire, sex, horror, poetic prose....If you have enjoyed John Crowley's Little, Big or Stephen King's The Stand or the urbane horror fiction of Jonathan Carroll...then American Gods arrives just in time." --Washington Post "Dark fun, and nourishing to the soul."
Catch-22
Heller, Joseph.
Catch-22 is like no other novel. It is one of the funniest books ever written, a keystone work in American literature, and even added a new term to the dictionary. At the heart of Catch-22 resides the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero endlessly inventive in his schemes to save...
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 song of Achilles
Miller, Madeline
A New York Times Bestseller "At once a scholar's homage to The Iliad and startlingly original work of art....A book I could not put down." --Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House A thrilling, profoundly moving, and utterly unique retelling of the...
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.
50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION--WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY DAVID MITCHELL AND A NEW AFTERWORD BY CHARLIE JANE ANDERS Ursula K. Le Guin's groundbreaking work of science fiction--winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards. A lone human ambassador is sent to the icebound planet of...
Not that bad : dispatches from rape culture
Gay, Roxane
Vogue, "10 of the Most Anticipated Books of Spring 2018" * Harper's Bazaar, "10 New Books to Add to Your Reading List in 2018" * Elle, "21 Books We're Most Excited to Read in 2018" * Boston Globe, "25 books we can't wait to read in 2018" * Huffington Post, "60 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2018"...

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