OK, that's a big request, because it really depends on the type of information you're looking for. I'm going to go ahead and recommend several books covering different portions of the conflict and you can choose which ones best suit your needs.

As if an Enemy's Country: The British Occupation of Boston and the Origins of Revolution by Richard Archer. An excellent account of the tensions and buildup to the Boston Massacre (as well as the trial).

American Insurgents, American Patriots by T.H. Breen. An account of the expanding role that committees of safety played in America and the movement of Americans from loyal citizens to revolutionaries.

From Resistance to Revolution by Pauline Maier. Excellent discussion about some of the political theories justifying revolt and how Whig leaders used those theories and changed them in America.

Rebels Rising: Cities and the American Revolution by Benjamin Carp. An examination of the role that the urban centers of North America played in the lead up to the war.

Minutemen and Their World by Robert Gross. A history of Concord. Useful for understanding an 18th century small town.

The Minute Men: The First Fight: Myths and Realities of the American Revolution by John R. Galvin. History of the minuteman. Also a tactical overview of Lexington & Concord

Paul Revere's Ride by David Hackett Fischer. One of the best accounts of Lexington & Concord, though I think he makes a serious historical error in it when he accuses Margaret Gage of being Dr. Joseph Warren's spy.

Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick. Informative and well-written account of the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon S. Wood. Great insight into the mind and attitudes of the 18th century. Helps to explain what changed in America.

With Zeal and With Bayonets Only: The British Army on Campaign in North America, 1775-1783 by Matthew Spring. An examination of the British Army during the Revolutionary War. Extremely useful for debunking many of the myths that have sprung up about the British Army and understanding their tactical and strategic thinking.

Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World by Maya Jasanoff. An examination of the Loyalists in America and their fate.

Tories: Fighting for the King in America's First Civil War by Thomas B. Allen. Focused more on the Revolutionary War itself, rather than the aftermath

Ordinary Courage: The Revolutionary War Adventures of Joseph Plumb Martin Martin was an ordinary soldier in the American Revolution. He enlisted in July 1776 at the age of 15 for six months, and then in April of 1777 he enlisted for the duration of the war. He wrote a memoir in 1830 based on notes or a journal and it's the most complete account of the war from an ordinary soldier that we have. He writes with clarity and a style that's entertaining and full of memorable lines. This version is edited by James Kirby Martin and includes footnotes and references to help understand the context.

1775: A Good Year For Revolution By Kevin Phillips. A fantastic look at the events of 1775 and how they helped to propel America to war. Also an excellent source for it's drill down on specific parts of the divisions in America.

The First American Revolution by Ray Raphael examines the events outside of the standard story that we're told. He focuses on the revolution carried out in 1774 and 1775 by ordinary people in Massachusetts.

American Scripture by Pauline Maier focuses on the Declaration of Independence and the history and lead up to it (as well as how it became revered in American iconography).

Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer. An examination of the Battle of Trenton. He also goes over the New York/Long Island campaign.

Brandywine: A Military History of the Battle that Lost Philadelphia but Saved America, September 11, 1777 by Michael Harris. The best and most complete examination of the Battle of Brandywine

British Soldiers, American War: Voices of the American Revolution by Don Hagist looks at the ordinary soldier during the war. Don Hagist also runs a blog where he profiles British soldiers.

The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789 by Robert Middlekauf. A complete history of the Revolution. Obviously it will be somewhat incomplete (no one history can cover a topic so complex), but it's a really good overview.

The Day It Rained Militia: Huck's Defeat and the Revolution in the South Carolina Backcountry, May-July 1780 by Michael Scoggins. This is an examination of the Battle of Williamson's Plantation (also known as Huck's Defeat). It's useful because Scoggins also looks at the role of the militia in the Southern campaign (both Loyalist militia and Whig militia).

Redcoats and Rebels by Christopher Hibbert is a political history of the American Revolution from the British perspective.

The Men Who Lost America by Andrew Jackson O'Shaugnessy examines why America won by examining the British leaders and commanders (and along the way attempts to dispel some myths).

Whew! Didn't realize I'd made this list so long. If you manage to get through that entire list I think you'll have a good idea of where you want to take your reading.

This will be way above elementary level, of course, but a couple that I would suggest are:

• Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution: this is the classic text that looks at the origins of the Revolution on an intellectual level. It's been quite a while since I read it, and many critiques of it have sprung up, but I think that it's still considered fundamental for a starting point of the argument.

• Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution: This is a book that was written explicitly to counter ideas that the Revolution was essentially a non-event; a "conservative" revolution that merely replaced one kind of elites with another. Woods argues that the Revolution was in fact radical in its reshaping of social and political bonds among Americans.

• Joyce Appleby, Inheriting the Revolution: An examination of the world of the early Republic, as the first generation after the Revolution struggled to generate meaning out of the events that had happened and manage a new and growing nation.

And one that focuses on a person your students would probably know something about:

• David Hackett Fisher, Paul Revere's Ride: A very accessible look at Revere and the revolutionary committees of correspondence in Boston that would help shed some light on the mythologizing of him and his ride.

edit: these are from my historiography of the early Republic class in grad school, around 2000-01, but they're also books that I've kept around and found useful. Hopefully a revolutionary historian won't come in here and demolish this!