Summer Reading: Read What You Love
1. Read. That’s it; just go read. Read a mystery, a biography, a social critique, a graphic novel,
a romance, a historical epic, a science fiction classic… read whatever interests you! Really,
anything you want! Read something at least kind of close to your grade level, though. No Dr.
Seuss, please.
2. Respond to the book (which we assume you enjoyed, since you picked it out) in a way that
demonstrates what you thought of it. Some suggestions for response formats are:









Character scrapbook: include items that represent the character and the story
Graphic novelization: for part or all of the story
Film: interpret and direct all or part of the book.
Book review: give your own opinion of what did and didn’t work in the book
Critical analysis: look at symbolism, imagery, or social context
Commercial for the book: how would you sell this on TV?
“Where are they now?” conclusion: look ahead ten years, or even twenty.
Letter to the author: ask questions, give advice, or talk about what the book meant to
you.
“Lost” chapter of the novel: fill in something the author skipped over
3. Be prepared to turn in or to present your assignment Friday of the week you get back.
Not sure what to read? Here are some books we loved:
(YA indicates a novel especially written for Young Adults)
Staff Favorites
Mr. Howard: Native Son, by Richard Wright; Kingdom Come, by Mark Waid; Astro
City Vol. 2: Confessions, by Kurt Busiek; The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison; A Doll’s
House, by Henrik Ibsen; Kindred, by Octavia Butler; The Big Sea, by Langston Hughes;
Miles, by Miles Davis; On Writing, by Stephen King
Mrs. Reiner: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, The Brief
Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao or Drown by Junot Diaz, The History of Love by Nicole
Krauss, The Namesake, Interpreter of Maladies, or anything by Jhumpa Lahiri.
Ms. Adams: Any Kurt Vonnegut novel, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, The
Things They Carried By Tim O’Brien, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Mrs. Jennings: Coming of Age in Mississipp,i by Anne Moody; The Immortal Life of
Henrietta Lack,s by Rebecca Skloot; The Twilight Series, by Stephenie Meyer
Mrs. Lidh: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, The Fault in Our Stars by John Green,
Wonder by R. J. Palacio, and The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
Mrs. Wischmann: A Child Called It, by Dave Pelzer; The Lovely Bones, by Alice
Sebold, Lightning, by Dean Koontz; Shakespeare Bats Clean Up , by Ron Koertge (YA);
Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson (YA), Robotech Series, by Kevin Siembieda (YA),
anything by Edgar Allen Poe
Mrs. DeLonga: The Five People You Meet In Heaven Mitch Albom, The Absoutely
Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson (YA), The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Mr. Therrien: Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer;
Watchmen, by Allan Moore; Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut; The Dispossessed,
by Ursula le Guin; The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy
Mr. Vissering: Any of Dean Koontz’s novels
Mr. Cole: When Pride Still Mattered, by David Maraniss; Into the Wild, by Jon
Krakauer; The Client, by John Grisham; Number the Stars, by Lois Lowry (YA)
Mr. Fogel-Bublick: North of Boston, by Robert Frost; Carnival Evening, by Linda
Pastan; Praise, by Robert Hass
Mrs. Nickel The Fault in Our Stars by John Green l: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by
David Wroblewski
Mrs. Desai: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie;
Super Sad True Love Story, by Gary Shteyngart;
Slumdog Millionaire, by Vikas Swarup; Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett; Cutting for Stone,
by Abraham Verghese; A Prayer for Owen Meany, Hotel New Hampshire, and The
World According to Garp, and anything else by John Irving.
Mr. Joshua: The Souls of Black Folk, by W.E.B. Du Bois; Quiet Strength, by Tony
Dungy and Nathan Whitaker; They Call Me Coach, by John Wooden; Native Son, by
Richard Wright; Dreams from my Father, by Barack Obama
Mrs. Taylor: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Persig
Mr. Glaros The Scarlet Letter, byNathaniel Hawthorne; The Time Machine, by H.G.
Wells; Profiles in Courage, by John F. Kennedy; The Audacity of Hope, by Barack
Obama; Gifted Hands, by Dr. Ben Carson; Bossy Pants, by Tina Fey; Under the Tuscan
Sun, by Frances Mayes; The Language of Composition, by Shea, Scanlon and Aufses;
Mrs. Kranish: All Over But the Shoutin’, by Rick Bragg; Into Thin Air, by Jon
Krakauer; West with the Night, by Beryl Markham; The Road from Coorain, by Jill Ker
Conway; A Hope in the Unseen, by Ron Suskind; The Right Stuff, by Tom Wolfe; An
American Childhood, by Annie Dillard; Shadow Divers, by Robert Kurson
Mr. Yarbrough: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (YA); 1984 by George Orwell;
Watership Down by Richard Adams (YA); Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse;
The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell; Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen
J. Dubner
Ms. S. Williams: Black Boy by Richard Wright; A Tale of Two Cities by Charles
Dickens; One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; Sula by Toni
Morrison; anything by James Patterson and Mary Higgins Clark.