September in the United States has long been associated with return to school – for children, often dreaded. Adults look back on their school days with nostalgia, and sometimes regret. In these stories collected here, you’ll find a combination of stories related to school days. The young adult titles involve teenagers navigating school along with the struggles of romance, mystery, and day to day life. In the adult titles, characters will find themselves revisiting their old schools or people they knew from those days either to solve a mystery, or to reconnect and have a second chance with old sweethearts. No matter your own experience with school, these gripping stories will be sure to bring back some memories of your own.
Digital book (DB), braille (BR), large print (LT), and audio described videos (DVD) copies of these titles are available from the Perkins Library or the Worcester Talking Book Library. Please contact the library to order any of these books.
Prepared by Sarah Durkin
Reader Advisor
Perkins Library
by Nicholas Sparks
DB 73766, BR 18752, LT 12697, Available as BARD Download
Oriental, North Carolina. As high school seniors from different sides of the tracks, Dawson and Amanda had a doomed romance. Twenty-five years later they return home when Tuck, an old man important to both of them, dies—and leaves behind a letter describing his own life’s magical love. Bestseller. 2011.
by Denise Hunter
DB 104897, LT 29912, Available as BARD Download
Sophie spent years supporting her siblings before finally reaching for her dream of opening a bookshop in the coastal North Carolina town of Piper’s Cove. An approaching hurricane forces her to share a house with Aiden, the high school sweetheart she never forgot. 2021.
by Mariah Stewart
DB 90134, DB available as BARD Download
Artist Lisbeth Parker returns to Cannonball Island when her work is displayed at a local gallery. While home, she takes on a project to preserve local history. She finds herself opposed by Alec Jansen, an environmentalist who had a crush on her during their school years. Some descriptions of sex. 2016.
by Rachel Hawkins
DB 95166, Available as BARD Download
Millie, an American teen, goes to an exclusive Scottish boarding school and becomes the roommate, best friend, and girlfriend of a princess. For senior high and older readers. 2019.
by Nick Hornby
DB 100899, LT 28847, Available as BARD Download
Lucy is a nearly-divorced, forty-one-year-old schoolteacher with two school-aged sons. When she meets Joseph, she isn’t exactly looking for love—she’s more in the market for a babysitter. Joseph is twenty-two, living at home with his mother, and working several jobs. The pair connect, despite their different backgrounds. 2020.
by Julia Whelan
DB 97870, LT 23868, Available as BARD Download
American Ella Durran is thrilled when a scholarship allows her to study abroad at Oxford University. She has a messy run-in with a jerk only to discover he is her literature professor. The two strike up a friendship with the possibility of more, leaving Ella with a difficult decision. 2018.
by Sally Rooney
DB 94878, BR 22649, LT 26331, Available as BARD Download
At school, popular football star Connell and lonely, quiet Marianne pretend not to know each other, although Connell’s mother works for Marianne’s family. A year later, both are studying at Trinity College in Dublin. They’ve both changed, but are still drawn to each other. Strong language and some descriptions of sex. 2019.
by Jojo Moyes
DB 79917, LT 18068, Available as BARD Download
Single mother Jess Thomas is struggling to raise her ten-year-old math-genius daughter, Tanzie, and teenaged stepson, Nicky. To give Tanzie a chance at a prestigious school, they fly to England and take a road trip to Scotland with technology wizard Ed Nicholls. Nothing goes as planned. Strong language and descriptions of sex. Bestseller. 2014.
by Alison Gervais
DB 97850, BR 22944, Available as BARD Download
After moving to Colorado, seventeen-year-old Maya, who is deaf, is forced to attend a hearing school. As she navigates her new life, Maya proves that her lack of hearing will not stop her from pursuing her dreams. For senior high and older readers. 2019.
by Katherine Center
DB 99569, LT 28596, Available as BARD Download
Samantha Casey loves being an elementary school librarian in Galveston, Texas until her school gets a new principal: Duncan Carpenter, Samantha’s former crush. Unfortunately, Duncan is not the fun-loving goof she once knew and is soon turning the school into a veritable prison with his safety concerns. 2020.
by Lisa Gardner
DB 102104, LT 29366, Available as BARD Download
Middle-aged recovering alcoholic Frankie Elkin searches for missing people the world has stopped looking for. A new case brings her to Mattapan, a Boston neighborhood where Haitian teenager Angelique Badeau vanished from her high school months earlier. Strong language, some violence, and some descriptions of sex. Bestseller. 2021.
by John Sandford
DB 89136, BR 22080, LT 22955, Available as BARD Download
Virgil knows the town of Trippton, Minnesota, a little too well. A few years back, he investigated the corrupt—and homicidal—local school board. Now a dead woman’s been found frozen in a block of ice, and it might be connected to an upcoming twenty-year high school reunion. 2017.
by Harlan Coben
DB 89453, BR 22094, LT 22847, Available as BARD Download
Fifteen years ago, high school senior Nap Dumas’s twin brother, Leo, and Leo’s girlfriend were mysteriously killed by a train, and Nap’s girlfriend, Maura, vanished. Now a detective, Nap learns that Maura’s fingerprints were just found at another fellow graduate’s murder scene. Violence, some strong language, and some descriptions of sex. 2017.
by Graham Moore
DB 98668, LT 28688, Available as BARD Download
When a fifteen-year-old heiress vanishes on her way home from school, her twenty-five-year-old black teacher is arrested. Young juror Maya Seale persuades the others not to convict. Ten years later, when a docuseries reassembles the jury, one of them is found dead in Maya’s hotel room. 2020.
by Elly Griffiths
DB 98600, Available as BARD Download
High school English teacher Clare Cassidy specializes in the Gothic writer R. M. Holland. When one of Clare’s colleagues and closest friends is found dead, with a line from Holland’s most famous story, “The Stranger,” left by her body, Clare is horrified to see her life collide with the storylines of her favorite literature. 2019.
by Peter Blauner
DB 92294, Available as BARD Download
When a Long Island schoolgirl is gruesomely murdered, troubled teenager JT goes from suspect to star witness, putting away a high school football star. Forty years later, when JT is chief of police, there’s a trail of a dozen dead women along the Sunrise Highway. A relentless NYPD detective investigates. 2018.
by Kim Johnson
DB 100194, LT 30582, Available as BARD Download
While writing letters to Innocence X, a justice-seeking project, asking them to help her father, an innocent black man on death row, Tracy takes on another case when her brother is accused of killing a white girl. Violence, strong language, and some descriptions of sex. For senior high and older readers. 2020.
by Jessica Fletcher
DB 100726, LT 28064, Available as BARD Download
Flashback to young teacher Jessica having her first murder investigation when the principal dies. Present-day Jessica returns to the high school for a colleague’s retirement, only to have him die in a way that links him to the first case. 2019.
by Susan Choi
DB 94561, BR 22996, LT 26613, Available as BARD Download
In the 1980s, David and Sarah are both students at a competitive performing arts high school. Their passionate relationship is noticed by the school’s charismatic acting teacher, Mr. Kingsley. Years later, Sarah publishes a novel about that time in her life, calling into question what really happened. 2019.
by Miranda James
DB 92428, LT 23461, Available as BARD Download
After his library-school nemesis drops dead, Charlie—who had a heated argument with him the day before—becomes the main suspect. Charlie, with Diesel’s feline help, must check out every clue to find the real killer or the next book he reads will come from a prison library. 2017.