Ready to Go Book Display: Boarding Schools

Welcome to our series, "Ready to Go! Book Display." Once a month we'll highlight the latest or greatest for every age group that you can promote within your library or order for your collection. Pack your bags, we're going to boarding school.

Recommendations for Adults:

The Lying Game by Ruth Ware (Jul 2017)

Four girls are best friends and inseparable at Salten, a second-rate boarding school near the cliffs of the England Channel. They are notorious for playing the Lying Game, telling lies to both fellow boarders and faculty. Their little game has consequences when they soon learn their shared past was not as safely buried as they had once hoped.

The Headmaster's Wife by Thomas Christopher Greene (Feb 2014)

Found wandering naked and mentally traumatized in Central Park, the headmaster of an elite boarding school imparts a story that is shaped by complicated memories, the evolution of a loving relationship, and a tragedy he cannot comprehend.

Smoke by Dan Vyleta (May 2016)

A tale set in an alternate 19th-century England where the lower classes emit smoke from their bodies that is believed to reflect wicked natures, three students at an elite boarding school for future leaders make discoveries that could cost them their lives.

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld (Jan 2005)

During the late 1980s, fourteen-year-old Lee Flora leaves behind her close-knit, middle-class Indiana family to enroll in an elite co-ed boarding school in Massachusetts, becoming a shrewd observer of, and eventually a participant in, their rituals and customs.

Testimony by Anita Shreve (Oct 2008)

At a New England boarding school, a sex scandal is about to break. Even more shocking than the sexual acts themselves is the fact that they were caught on videotape.

Recommendations for Teens:

A School for Unusual Girls by Kathleen Baldwin (May 2015)

Scientific-minded Georgiana Fitzwilliam is sent to a school for unusual high society girls for the ostensible purpose of being reformed into a respectable lady, but is instead secretly enlisted into the war effort alongside Lord Sebastian Wyatt.

Winger by Andrew Smith (May 2013)

Two years younger than his classmates at a prestigious boarding school, fourteen-year-old Ryan Dean West grapples with living in the dorm for troublemakers, falling for his female best friend who thinks of him as just a kid, and playing wing on the Varsity rugby team with some of his frightening new dorm-mates.

The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson (Sep 2011)

Rory, of Boueuxlieu, Louisiana, is spending a year at a London boarding school when she witnesses a murder by a Jack the Ripper copycat and becomes involved with the very unusual investigation.

Paper Covers Rock by Jenny Hubbard (Jun 2011)

In 1982 Buncombe County, North Carolina, sixteen-year-old Alex Stromm writes of the aftermath of the accidental drowning of a friend, as his English teacher reaches out to him while he and a fellow boarding school student try to cover things up.

Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg (May 2013)

Tired of being known as "the gay kid," Rafe Goldberg decides to assume a new persona when he comes east and enters an elite Massachusetts prep school - but trying to deny his identity has both complications and unexpected consequences.

The Nightmare Affair by Mindee Arnett (Mar 2013)

Being the only Nightmare at Arkwell Academy, a boarding school for "magickind," sixteen-year-old Destiny Everhart feeds on the dreams of others, working with a handsome human student to find a killer.

I Am Her Revenge by Meredith Moore (Apr 2015)

Enrolled at an English boarding school, Vivian targets an innocent senior as part of a revenge plot her manipulative mother devised, but as the plan is set in motion, Vivian starts to uncover secrets so dark and deadly they threaten to unravel the deceptive being that Mother worked so hard to create.

Recommendations for Children:

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling (Illustrated - Oct 2015)

Rescued from the outrageous neglect of his aunt and uncle, a young boy with a great destiny proves his worth while attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

The Storybook of Legends by Shannon Hale (Oct 2013)

At Ever After High, a boarding school for the sons and daughters of famous fairy-tale characters, students Apple White and Raven Queen face the moment when they must choose whether to follow their destinies, or change them.

Murder is Bad Manners by Robin Stevens (Apr 2015)

At an English boarding school in the 1930s, crime-solving friends Hazel Wong and Daisy Wells struggle to find an exciting mystery to investigate until Hazel discovers the dead body of Miss Bell, the science teacher.

The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place by Julie Berry (Sep 2014)

Seven very proper Victorian young ladies conspire to hide a murder from the authorities at their boarding school. 

The Initiation by Ridley Pearson (Sep 2016)

A reimagining of the epic rivalry between a young James Moriarty and his roommate and future nemesis, Sherlock Holmes, is set in modern times and focuses on the boys' early ventures into detective work at the formidable Baskerville Academy.