The library is OPEN!
Starting Monday, August 23, we are open
7:30 AM - 4:00 PM, Monday-Friday.
We are open before school, at lunch, and after school.
Come visit our spacious library & learning center.
We are located in Denali hall, above the admin offices.
We have cafe-style seating, lounge chairs, and tables -
perfect for meeting up with friends!
Looking for a good read?
We have over 5,000 fiction and nonfiction books!
New books are added each month - scroll down to see our latest additions. Access our library catalog 24/7 by visiting destinydiscover.com and search for Mission Hills High School.
Not sure what to read next? Ask library staff for a recommendation!
Soar with Sora!
Check out Sora, the student eBook platform by Overdrive!
Thanks to SMUSD's partnership with the San Diego County Library and the Serra Cooperative Library System, all students have access to millions of books, audiobooks, graphic novels, magazines, and more through Sora!
Forgot your Chromebook or charger at home?
Loaners MUST be returned to the library by 4:00 PM the same day as check-out.
Please remember to bring your device to school every day!
All Systems Red
Book #1 The Murderbot Diaries
"As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."
On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid―a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is. But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.
Call number: FIC WEL
Genre: Science Fiction
Reading level: 9-12
Length: 176 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievements: Fiction, Mystery, Science Fiction & Fantasy
Rebel: A Legend Novel
Respect the Legend. Idolize the Prodigy. Celebrate the Champion. But never underestimate the Rebel.
With unmatched suspense and her signature cinematic storytelling, #1 New York Times–bestselling author Marie Lu plunges readers back into the unforgettable world of Legend for a truly grand finale.
Call number: FIC LU
Genre: YA Fantasy
Reading level: 7-9
Lexile text measure: HL760L
Length: 400 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL - audiobook only)
Sora achievements: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fiction
Black Heroes of the Wild West
GRAPHIC NOVEL
This graphic novel celebrates the extraordinary true tales of three black heroes who took control of their destinies and stood up for their communities in the Old West.
Born into slavery in Tennessee, Mary Fields became famous as “Stagecoach Mary,” a cigar-chomping, card-playing coach driver who never missed a delivery. Bass Reeves, the first black Deputy US Marshal west of the Mississippi, was one of the wiliest lawmen in the territories, bringing thousands of outlaws to justice with his smarts. Bob Lemmons lived to be 99 years old and was so good with horses that the wild mustangs on the plains of Texas took him for one of their own.
GRAPHIC NOVEL
Call number: 741.5 SMI
Genre: Graphic Novel, History
Reading level: 3-5
Length: 60 pages
Availability: MHHS
A Queer History of the United States
Queer history didn’t start with Stonewall. This book explores how LGBTQ people have always been a part of our national identity, contributing to the country and culture for over 400 years.
It is crucial for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer youth to know their history. But this history is not easy to find since it’s rarely taught in schools or commemorated in other ways. A Queer History of the United States for Young People corrects this and demonstrates that LGBTQ people have long been vital to shaping our understanding of what America is today.
Call number:
Genre: YA Nonfiction, US History
Reading level: 6-7
Length: 336 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievements: Nonfiction, History
Super Graphic: A Visual Guide to the Comic Book Universe
The comic book universe is adventurous, mystifying, and filled with heroes, villains, and cosplaying Comic-Con attendees. This book by one of Wired magazine's art directors traverses the graphic world through a collection of pie charts, bar graphs, timelines, scatter plots, and more.
From a colorful breakdown of the DC Comics reader demographic to a witty Venn diagram of superhero comic tropes and a Chris Ware sadness scale, this book charts the most arbitrary and monumental characters, moments, and equipment of the wide world of comics.
Call number:
Genre: Nonfiction, Art History
Reading level: 9-12
Length: 196 pages
Availability: MHHS
Igniting Darkness
Two assassins will risk absolutely everything—even their own divinity—to save the people and the country they love in this lush historical fantasy from New York Times bestselling author Robin LaFevers.
Set in the world of the beloved His Fair Assassin series, this smart, sensational follow-up to Courting Darkness is perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo and Holly Black.
Call number: FIC LaF
Genre: YA Fantasy
Reading level: 9-12
Length: 560 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievements: Fiction
Sisters
GRAPHIC NOVEL
Raina Telgemeier's #1 New York Times bestselling, Eisner Award-winning companion to Smile!
Raina can't wait to be a big sister. But once Amara is born, things aren't quite how she expected them to be. Amara is cute, but she's also a cranky, grouchy baby, and mostly prefers to play by herself. Their relationship doesn't improve much over the years, but when a baby brother enters the picture and later, something doesn't seem right between their parents, they realize they must figure out how to get along. They are sisters, after all.
Call number: 741.5 TEL
Genre: Graphic Novel, Fiction
Reading level: 3-7
Lexile text measure: GN290L
Length: 208 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fiction
Hyperbole and a Half
GRAPHIC NOVEL
This is a book I wrote. Because I wrote it, I had to figure out what to put on the back cover to explain what it is. I tried to write a long, third-person summary that would imply how great the book is and also sound vaguely authoritative—like maybe someone who isn’t me wrote it—but I soon discovered that I’m not sneaky enough to pull it off convincingly.
So I decided to just make a list of things that are in the book:
Pictures
Words
Stories about things that happened to me
Stories about things that happened to other people because of me
Eight billion dollars*
Stories about dogs
The secret to eternal happiness*
*These are lies. Perhaps I have underestimated my sneakiness!
Call number: 741.5 BRO
Genre: Graphic Novel, Autobiography, Humor
Reading level: 9-12
Lexile text measure: 1040L
Length: 369 pages
Availability: MHHS, Biography & Autobiography, Nonfiction
Ghosts
GRAPHIC NOVEL
From Raina Telgemeier, the #1 New York Times bestselling, multiple Eisner Award-winning author of Smile, Drama, and Sisters!
Catrina and her family are moving to the coast of Northern California because her little sister, Maya, is sick. Cat isn't happy about leaving her friends for Bahía de la Luna, but Maya has cystic fibrosis and will benefit from the cool, salty air that blows in from the sea. As the girls explore their new home, a neighbor lets them in on a secret: There are ghosts in Bahía de la Luna.
Call number: 741.5 TEL
Genre: Graphic Novel, Fiction
Reading level: 3-7
Lexile text measure: 750L
Length: 256 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fiction
A Disability History of the United States
The first book to cover the entirety of disability history, from pre-1492 to the present.
A Disability History of the United States pulls from primary-source documents and social histories to retell US history through the eyes, words, and impressions of the people who lived it. As historian and disability scholar Nielsen argues, to understand disability history isn’t to narrowly focus on a series of individual triumphs but rather to examine mass movements and pivotal daily events through the lens of varied experiences.
Call number:
Genre: Nonfiction, US History
Reading level: 9-12
Length: 240 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievements: History, Nonfiction
The Librarian of Auschwitz
Based on the experience of real-life Auschwitz prisoner Dita Kraus, the award-winning The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe is the incredible story of a girl who risked her life to keep the magic of books alive during the Holocaust.
As a young girl, Dita is imprisoned by the Nazis at Auschwitz. Taken from her home in Prague in 1939, Dita does her best to adjust to the constant terror of her new reality. But even amidst the horror, human strength and ingenuity persevere. When Jewish leader Fredy Hirsch entrusts Dita with eight precious volumes the prisoners have managed to sneak into the camp, She embraces the responsibility―and so becomes the librarian of Auschwitz.
Call number: FIC ITU
Genre: Historical Fiction
Reading level: 9-12
Lexile text measure: 940L
Length: 448 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fiction
A Game of Thrones
Winter is coming. Such is the stern motto of House Stark, the northernmost of the fiefdoms that owe allegiance to King Robert Baratheon in far-off King’s Landing.
There Eddard Stark of Winterfell rules in Robert’s name. There his family dwells in peace and comfort: his proud wife, Catelyn; his sons Robb, Brandon, and Rickon; his daughters Sansa and Arya; and his bastard son, Jon Snow. Far to the north, behind the towering Wall, lie savage Wildings and worse—unnatural things relegated to myth during the centuries-long summer, but proving all too real and all too deadly in the turning of the season.
Call number: FIC MAR
Genre: Fiction, Fantasy
Reading level: 11-12
Lexile text measure: 830L
Length: 704 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievements: Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy
The Summer of Everything
Adulting is hard. Just ask Wes Hudson. An avid comic book geek, Wes excels at two things: slacking off and pining after his best friend, Nico.
Advice from his friends, 90s alt-rock songs, and online dating articles aren't helping much with his secret crush. And his dream job at Once Upon a Page, the local indie bookstore, is threatened when a coffee shop franchise wants to buy the property. To top it off, his family won't stop pestering him about picking a college major. When all three problems converge, Wes must face the one thing he's been avoiding—adulthood.
Call number: FIC WIN
Genre: YA Fiction
Reading level: 7-9
Length: 306 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievements: Fiction
Love, Lucy
In this stunning novel, April Lindner perfectly captures the highs and lows of a summer love that might just be meant to last beyond the season.
While backpacking through Florence, Italy, during the summer before she heads off to college, Lucy Sommersworth finds herself falling in love with the culture, the architecture, the food...and Jesse Palladino, a handsome street musician. After a whirlwind romance, Lucy returns home, determined to move on from her "vacation flirtation." But just because summer is over doesn't mean Lucy and Jesse have to be, does it?
Call number: FIC LIN
Genre: YA Fiction
Reading level: 10+
Length: 305 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievements: Fiction
The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland
According to sixteen-year-old Zander Osborne, nowhere is an actual place—and she’s just fine there. But her parents insist that she get out of her head—and her home state—and attend Camp Padua, a summer camp for at-risk teens.
But amid group “share-apy” sessions and forbidden late-night outings, unlikely friendships form, and as the Michigan summer heats up, the four teens begin to reveal their tragic secrets. Zander finds herself inextricably drawn to Grover’s earnest charms, and she begins to wonder if she could be happy. But first she must come completely unraveled to have any hope of putting herself back together again.
Call number: FIC CRA
Genre: YA Fiction
Reading level: 7-12
Length: 274 pages
Availability: MHHS
Solstice: A Tropical Horror Comedy
A music fest goes wrong in Lorence Alison's comic YA thriller Solstice as selfie-mad concert-goers wake up to realize their tropical island fantasy is a deadly nightmare.
Adri has a front-row seat as everything devolves into chaos―and she's in a prime position to put together the clues to who―or what―is killing off the helpless attendees. But even if she finds the killer, how can she hope to stop them?Check your privilege at the door―before it gets you killed. This is one vacation you can’t escape.
Call number: FIC ALI
Genre: YA Fiction
Reading level: 10-12
Length: 288 pages
Availability: MHHS
I'll Be the One
The world of K-Pop has never met a star like this. Debut author Lyla Lee delivers a deliciously fun, thoughtful rom-com celebrating confidence and body positivity—perfect for fans of Jenny Han and Julie Murphy.
Skye Shin has heard it all. Fat girls shouldn’t dance. Wear bright colors. Shouldn’t call attention to themselves. But Skye dreams of joining the glittering world of K-Pop, and to do that, she’s about to break all the rules that society, the media, and even her own mother, have set for girls like her. She’ll challenge thousands of other performers in an internationally televised competition looking for the next K-pop star, and she’ll do it better than anyone else.
Call number: FIC LEE
Genre: YA Fiction
Reading level: 8-9
Length: 336 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievements: Fiction
The Rest of the Story
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Sarah Dessen comes a big-hearted, sweeping novel about a girl who reconnects with a part of her family she hasn’t seen since she was a little girl—and falls in love, all over the course of a magical summer.
Emma Saylor doesn’t remember a lot about her mother, who died when Emma was twelve. But she does remember the stories her mom told her about the big lake that went on forever, with cold, clear water and mossy trees at the edges. Now it’s just Emma and her dad, and life is good, if a little predictable…until Emma is unexpectedly sent to spend the summer with her mother’s family that she hasn’t seen since she was a little girl.
Call number: FIC DES
Genre: YA Fiction
Reading level: 8-9
Length: 448 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
the Last True Poets of the Sea
Fans of Far from the Tree, We Are Okay and Emergency Contact will love this epic, utterly unforgettable contemporary novel about a lost shipwreck, a missing piece of family history, and weathering the storms of life.
The Larkin family isn't just lucky—they persevere. At least that's what Violet and her younger brother, Sam, were always told. When the Lyric sank off the coast of Maine, their great-great-great-grandmother didn't drown like the rest of the passengers. No, Fidelia swam to shore, fell in love, and founded Lyric, Maine, the town Violet and Sam returned to every summer. But wrecks seem to run in the family: Tall, funny, musical Violet can't stop partying with the wrong people. And, one beautiful summer day, brilliant, sensitive Sam attempts to take his own life.
Call number: FIC DRA
Genre: YA Fiction
Reading level: 9+
Length: 400 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievements: Fiction
Textrovert
Was it just a cell phone swap … or fate?
It’s bad enough when high-school senior Keeley mistakenly swaps cell phones with a stranger. It’s even worse when the stranger turns out to be an obnoxious, self-centered boy named Talon … who’s just left for football camp with her phone. Reluctantly, the two agree to forward messages for a week. As Keeley gets to know Talon through their texts, she finds out he’s more than just an egocentric jock. In fact, the two fall for each other, hard. But Talon has been keeping a secret. One that makes their relationship all but impossible. Will Keeley ever be able to trust him?
Call number: FIC SUM
Genre: YA Fiction
Reading level: 9+
Length: 244 pages
Availability: MHHS
To All the Boys I've Loved Before
Lara Jean’s love life gets complicated in this New York Times bestselling “lovely, lighthearted romance” (School Library Journal) from the bestselling author of The Summer I Turned Pretty series.
What if all the crushes you ever had found out how you felt about them…all at once? Sixteen-year-old Lara Jean Song keeps her love letters in a hatbox her mother gave her. They aren’t love letters that anyone else wrote for her; these are ones she’s written. One for every boy she’s ever loved—five in all. When she writes, she pours out her heart and soul and says 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.
Call number: FIC HAN
Genre: YA Fiction
Reading level: 7-9
Lexile text measure: 640L
Length: 384 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fiction
The Lightness
One year ago, the person Olivia adores most in the world, her father, left home for a meditation retreat in the mountains and never returned.
Yearning to make sense of his shocking departure and to escape her overbearing mother—a woman as grounded as her father is mercurial—Olivia runs away from home and retraces his path to a place known as the Levitation Center.
Call number: FIC TEM
Genre: YA Fiction
Reading level: 10-12
Length: 288 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fiction
Again, Again
If you could live your life again, what would you do differently?
After a near-fatal family catastrophe and an unexpected romantic upheaval, Adelaide Buchwald finds herself catapulted into a summer of wild possibility, during which she will fall in and out of love a thousand times--while finally confronting the secrets she keeps, her ideas about love, and the weird grandiosity of the human mind. A raw, funny story that will surprise you over and over, Again Again gives us an indelible heroine grappling with the terrible and wonderful problem of loving other people.
Call number: 741.5 LOC
Genre: Graphic novel, YA Fiction
Reading level: 7-9
Lexile text measure: HL680L
Length: 304 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fiction
Radio Silence
From critically acclaimed author Alice Oseman comes a smartly crafted contemporary YA novel, perfect for readers who love Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl. This is an utterly captivating and authentic teen novel from the author of Solitaire, which VOYA said “could put her among the great young adult fiction authors.”
Frances Janvier spends most of her time studying. Everyone knows Aled Last as that quiet boy who gets straight As. You probably think that they are going to fall in love or something. Since he is a boy and she is a girl. They don’t. They make a podcast.
Call number: FIC OSE
Genre: YA Fiction
Reading level: 8-12
Length: 496 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fiction
We Were Liars
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist, and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart.
A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.
Read it.
And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.
Call number: FIC LOC
Genre: YA Fiction
Reading level: 7-9
Lexile text measure: 600L
Length: 320 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fiction
DWK: Dog Days
It’s summer vacation, the weather’s great, and all the kids are having fun outside. So where’s Greg Heffley? Inside his house, playing video games with the shades drawn.
Greg, a self-confessed “indoor person,” is living out his ultimate summer fantasy: no responsibilities and no rules. But Greg’s mom has a different vision for an ideal summer . . . one packed with outdoor activities and “family togetherness.”
Whose vision will win out? Or will a new addition to the Heffley family change everything?
Call number: FIC KIN
Genre: Graphic novel, Fiction
Reading level: 3-7
Lexile text measure: 1010L
Length: 224 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fiction
Prodigal Summer
Prodigal Summer weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives inhabiting the forested mountains and struggling small farms of southern Appalachia. At the heart of these intertwined narratives is a den of coyotes that have recently migrated into the region.
With the richness that characterizes Barbara Kingsolver's finest work, Prodigal Summer embraces pure thematic originality and demonstrates a balance of narrative and ideas that only an accomplished novelist could render so beautifully.
Call number: FIC KIN
Genre: Fiction
Reading level: 10-12+
Lexile text measure: 870L
Length: 464 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fiction
Where the World Ends
A Michael L. Printz Honor Book and Carnegie Medal Winner! New from Geraldine McCaughrean comes an extraordinary story of eight boys stranded on a rock in the middle of the sea, left to fight for their survival.
Every summer Quill and his friends are put ashore on a remote sea stac to hunt birds. But this summer, no one arrives to take them home. Surely nothing but the end of the world can explain why they’ve been abandoned―cold, starving and clinging to life, in the grip of a murderous ocean. How will they survive such a forsaken place of stone and sea?
This is an extraordinary story of fortitude, endurance, tragedy and survival, set against an unforgettable backdrop of savage beauty.
Call number: FIC McC
Genre: YA Fiction
Reading level: 7-9
Length: 336 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fiction
One Crazy Summer
In this Newbery Honor novel, New York Times bestselling author Rita Williams-Garcia tells the story of three sisters who travel to Oakland, California, in 1968 to meet the mother who abandoned them. A strong option for summer reading—take this book along on a family road trip or enjoy it at home.
In One Crazy Summer, eleven-year-old Delphine is like a mother to her two younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern. She's had to be, ever since their mother, Cecile, left them seven years ago for a radical new life in California. But when the sisters arrive from Brooklyn to spend the summer with their mother, Cecile is nothing like they imagined.
Call number: FIC WIL
Genre: YA Fiction
Reading level: 3-7
Lexile text measure: 750L
Length: 240 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fiction
Dark and Deepest Red
With Anna-Marie McLemore's signature lush prose, Dark and Deepest Red pairs the forbidding magic of a fairy tale with a modern story of passion and betrayal.
Summer, 1518. A strange sickness sweeps through Strasbourg: women dance in the streets, some until they fall down dead. As rumors of witchcraft spread, suspicion turns toward Lavinia and her family, and Lavinia may have to do the unimaginable to save herself and everyone she loves.
Call number: FIC McL
Genre: YA Fantasy
Reading level: 7-9
Length: 314 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievements: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fiction
Contact the MHHS Library
Hours: 7:30 AM - 4:00 PM, Monday-Friday
Email: mhhs.library@smusd.org
Website: missionhillshigh.smusd.org/resources/library
Location: 1 Mission Hills Court, San Marcos, CA, USA
Phone: 760-290-2730