Herricks High School Summer Reading 2017
for all Students Grades 9-12
“One benefit of summer was that each day we had more light to read by.”
Jeannette Walls
What better way to spend a day at the beach than with a good book? Besides
being extremely pleasurable, summer reading has tremendous benefits: It maintains and
strengthens skills; it provides mental stimulation; it improves your memory, focus and
concentration; and it can reduce stress. The Herricks High School English Department
encourages you to make reading a part of your summer vacation! Please select a book from the
suggested reading list, and complete the summer-reading task assigned to you. The assignment
will be collected by your English teacher when you return to school. Happy reading!
READING AND WRITING TASK FOR THE SUMMER:
Read the book descriptions from the list provided to you. Read one book from the list and follow
the response guidelines to write a response about the book. If you are taking an AP class,
you will be given an additional assignment to complete.
You do not need to wait until September to write your response. Write it in a Google Doc so that
you don’t lose it, and print it for your teacher in September. You may need to revise your response,
so make sure you save it!
RESPONSE GUIDELINES:
● Create an original response that demonstrates your understanding of your chosen book.
● Write a response that is a minimum of two paragraphs in length.
● Respond in one or more of the following ways: critique the book, share your thoughts,
make observations, ask questions, create connections, and provide insightful analysis of
the text.
● Include a minimum of two quotations from the book.
● Choose quotations that support--not summarize-- your ideas.
● Cite correctly, using the MLA rules of citing you have been taught.
● Make sure your quotations are brief, well integrated, and explained.
● When school starts, you will need to copy and paste your response into a new document
and submit it to turnitin.com. Your teacher will give you that submission information
when you return to school.
BOOK LIST: (synopses adapted from barnesandnoble.com)
All We have Left
by Wendy Mills
Sixteen-year-old Jesse is used to living with the echoes
of the past. Her older brother died in the September 11th
attacks, and her dad since has filled their home with
anger and grief. When Jesse gets caught up with the
wrong crowd, one momentary hate-fueled decision
turns her life upside down. The only way to make
amends is to face the past…
All-American Boys
by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely
Sixteen-year-old Rashad is looking for a bag of chips at
the corner bodega, but he finds a fist-happy cop, Paul
Galluzzo, who mistakes Rashad for a shoplifter, and an
altercation ensues. There were witnesses: Quinn
Collins—a varsity basketball player and Rashad’s
classmate who has been raised by Paul since his own
father died in Afghanistan—and a video camera. Soon
the beating is all over the news and Paul is getting
threatened with accusations of prejudice and racial
brutality. Quinn refuses to believe that the man who has
basically been his savior could possibly be guilty. The
basketball team—half of whom are Rashad’s best
friends—start to take sides. As does the school. And the
town. Simmering tensions threaten to explode as
Rashad and Quinn are forced to face decisions and
consequences they had never considered before.
Learning to Swear in America
by Katie Kennedy
An asteroid is hurtling toward Earth. A big, bad one.
Maybe not kill-all-the-dinosaurs bad, but at least killeveryone-in-California-and-wipe-out-Japan-with-atsunami bad. Yuri, a physicist prodigy from Russia, has
been recruited to aid NASA as they calculate a plan to
avoid disaster.
The good news is Yuri knows how to stop the asteroid-his research in antimatter will probably win him a
Nobel prize if there's ever another Nobel prize awarded.
But the trouble is, even though NASA asked for his help,
no one there will listen to him. He's seventeen, and
they've been studying physics longer than he's been
alive.
Then he meets (pretty, wild, unpredictable) Dovie, who
lives like a normal teenager, oblivious to the impending
doom. Being with her, on the adventures she plans
when he's not at NASA, Yuri catches a glimpse of what it
means to save the world and live a life worth saving.
March
by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin
Congressman John Lewis (GA-5) is an American icon, one of
the key figures of the civil rights movement. His commitment
to justice and nonviolence has taken him from an Alabama
sharecropper's farm to the halls of Congress, from a
segregated schoolroom to the 1963 March on Washington,
and from receiving beatings from state troopers to receiving
the Medal of Freedom from the first African-American
president.
Now, to share his remarkable story with new generations,
Lewis presents March, a graphic novel trilogy.
If you chose to read March, make sure that you read and
respond to all three volumes of this graphic novel.
The Mystery of Hollow Places
by Rebecca Podos
All Imogene Scott knows of her mother is the bedtime story
her father told her as a child. It’s the story of how her
parents met: he, a forensic pathologist; she, a mysterious
woman who came to identify a body. A woman who left
Imogene and her father when she was a baby, a woman who
was always possessed of a powerful loneliness, a woman who
many referred to as “troubled waters.”
Now Imogene is seventeen, and her father, a famous author
of medical mysteries, has struck out in the middle of the
night and hasn’t come back. Neither Imogene’s stepmother
nor the police know where he could’ve gone, but Imogene is
convinced he’s looking for her mother. And she decides it’s
up to her to put to use the skills she’s gleaned from a lifetime
of reading her father’s books to track down a woman she’s
only known in stories in order to find him and, perhaps, the
answer to the question she’s carried with her for her entire
life.
The Orphan Keeper
by Camron Wright
Seven-year-old Chellamuthu’s life—and his destiny—is
forever changed when he is kidnapped from his village
in Southern India and sold to the Lincoln Home for
Homeless Children, and is soon adopted by a loving
family in America.
Suddenly surrounded by a foreign land and a foreign
language, he can’t tell people that he already has a
family and becomes consumed by a single, impossible
question: How do I get home? But after more than a
decade, home becomes a much more complicated idea.
It isn’t until he rediscovers his roots that he begins to
discover the truth he has all but forgotten. He is
determined to return to India and begin the quest to
find his birth family. But is it too late? Is it possible that
his birth mother is still looking for him? And which
family does he belong to now?
Salt to the Sea
by Ruta Sepetys
World War II is drawing to a close in East Prussia and
thousands of refugees are on a desperate trek toward
freedom, many with something to hide. Among them
are Joana, Emilia, and Florian, whose paths converge
en route to the ship that promises salvation, the
Wilhelm Gustloff. Forced by circumstance to unite, the
three find their strength, courage, and trust in each
other tested with each step closer to safety.
Just when it seems freedom is within their grasp,
tragedy strikes. Not country, nor culture, nor status
matter as all ten thousand people—adults and children
alike—aboard must fight for the same thing: survival.
Scythe
by Neal Shusterman
A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no
misery: humanity has conquered all those things, and
has even conquered death. Now Scythes are the only
ones who can end life—and they are commanded to do
so, in order to keep the size of the population under
control.
Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice to a
scythe—a role that neither wants. These teens must
master the “art” of taking life, knowing that the
consequence of failure could mean losing their own.
Small Great Things
by Jodi Picoult
Ruth Jefferson is a labor and delivery nurse at a
Connecticut hospital with more than twenty years’
experience. During her shift, Ruth begins a routine check
up on a newborn, only to be told a few minutes later that
she’s been reassigned to another patient. The parents are
white supremacists and don’t want Ruth, who is African
American, to touch their child. The hospital complies with
their request, but the next day, the baby goes into cardiac
distress while Ruth is alone in the nursery. Ruth hesitates
before performing CPR and, as a result, is charged with a
serious crime. Kennedy McQuarrie, a white public
defender, takes her case but gives unexpected advice:
Kennedy insists that mentioning race in the courtroom is
not a winning strategy. As the trial moves forward, Ruth
and Kennedy must gain each other’s trust, and come to see
that what they’ve been taught their whole lives about
others—and themselves—might be wrong.
The Reader
by Traci Chee
Sefia knows what it means to survive. After her father is
brutally murdered, she flees into the wilderness with her
aunt Nin, who teaches her to hunt, track, and steal. But
when Nin is kidnapped, leaving Sefia completely alone,
none of her survival skills can help her discover where
Nin’s been taken, or if she’s even alive. The only clue to
both her aunt’s disappearance and her father’s murder is
the odd rectangular object her father left behind, an
object she comes to realize is a book—a marvelous item
unheard of in her otherwise illiterate society. With the
help of this book, and the aid of a mysterious stranger
with dark secrets of his own, Sefia sets out to rescue her
aunt and find out what really happened the day her father
was killed—and punish the people responsible.
FINAL NOTES:
● You can obtain a copy of the books from local libraries, bookstores, e-book sellers,
or online booksellers. Questions and concerns about books or assignments should
be directed to Mr. Imondi in Room 319 by June 25th.
● If it is possible, you should come to class on the first day of school with a copy of
your book.
● You will be required to submit your work to turnitin.com. Your teacher will give
you the turnitin information once you return to school.
The Orphan Keeper
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaDJffGckCM
Salt to the Sea
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rswhDmkPseA
Scythe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQcycxxkBZA
The Reader
All-American Boys
March
Small Great Things
Amazon links for those that don’t have trailers -The Mystery of Hollow Places:
https://tinyurl.com/ljftryf
Learning to Swear in America
https://tinyurl.com/lqjeat8
All We Have Left
https://tinyurl.com/lhagmgp
Possible replacement images?