School
of the
Holy Child
2015 Upper School
Academic Summer Reading List
This list includes both required and recommended reading
Index
English Department (Required…………………………………………………… 2
History Department (Recommended)………………………………………………. 3
Language Department (Required and Recommended) ………………………………. 4
Math Department (Required and Recommended)……………………………………. 5
Science Department (Recommended) …………………………………..…………. 6
Religious Studies Department (Recommended) ……………………………………. 6
E.E. Ford Architecture, Engineering & Design Initiatives
for the Common Good (Required) ……………………………………… 7
English Department
The required reading for each grade level has been chosen either to form the basis
of a course or to supplement it. You must read the required reading!
There will be a graded writing assignment during the first two weeks of school
based on your summer reading.
English 9
Required:
JD Salinger
Catcher in the Rye
Plus choose one of the following:
Mark Haddon
Markus Zusak
Curious Incident of the Dog at Night-time
The Book Thief
English 10
Required:
Heidi W. Durrow
The Girl Who Fell From the Sky
Plus choose one of the following:
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Chaim Potok
Tom Stoppard
Garth Stein
Purple Hibiscus
My Name is Asher Lev
Arcadia
The Art of Racing in the Rain
English 11 & AP English Language
Required:
Sherman Alexie
Plus choose one of the following:
Truman Capote
Sue Monk Kidd
Toni Morrison
Jonathon Safran Foer
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time
Indian
In Cold Blood
The Invention of Wings
Sula
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
English 12
Required:
Lionel Shriver
We Need to Talk About Kevin
Plus choose one of the following:
Toni Morrison
Margaret Atwood
Maxine Hong Kingston
Ha Jin
Bluest Eye
Handmaid’s Tale
Woman Warrior
Waiting
AP English Literature & Composition
Required:
Chris Cleave
Little Bee
Plus choose one of the following:
Ha Jin
Jhumpha Lahiri
Carson McCullers
Zadie Smith
Waiting
The Lowland
Member of the Wedding
White Teeth
History Department
Global History & Geography
Suggested Reading:
Jared Diamond
Chinua Achebe
Thomas Friedman
Guns, Germs & Steel
Things Fall Apart
The World Is Flat
European History/European History A
Suggested Reading:
Erich Maria Remarque
Jostein Gaarder
Art Spiegelman
Charles C. Mann
All Quiet on the Western Front
Sophie’s World
Maus
1493
US History and AP US History
Reading one of the following books is suggested:
Frederick Douglass
Eric Foner
Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward
Joseph Ellis
Isabell Wilkerson
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Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
The Fiery Trial
All the President’s Men
Founding Brothers
The Warmth of Others Suns
Language Department
Required and Recommended Reading.
Note: Please adhere to the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) to ensure
you read the correct edition of the book.
French
French 3
Recommended:
Florence Reynaud
Matthieu I’oublié
French 4
Required:
René Goscinny
Le Petit Nicolas (1 Chapter: “King”)
Shared documents/photocopies
Guy de Maupassant
En Voyage
(available online) http://athena.unige.ch/athena/selva/maupassant/textes/voyage.html
French 5
Required:
Charles Perrault
Les Contes de Perrault
ISBN: 9781909115972
AP French
Required:
Irene Nemirovsky
Le Bal
ISBN: 9782806226242
Jean Giono
L’homme que plantait des arbres
ISBN: 9782806226242
Latin
Latin II
Required
Britannia pp. 17-24
Life in Roman Britain pp. 44-48
The Celts pp. 64-68
The Palace at Fishbourne pp. 83-88
Alexandria pp.105-110
Cambridge Latin II
ISBN: 9780521004305
Latin III
Recommended:
Cicero, translated by Shackleton Bailey
Cicero: Selected Letters (Penguin, 1986)
Augustine, translated by Philip Burton
The Confessions (Knopf, 2001)
Latin IV
Required:
Virgil: Aeneid 1-6, translated by Bernard Knox and Robert Fagles (Penguin Classics, 2010)
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Mandarin
Mandarin III and Mandarin IV
The following book is required; it is 1 of the 8 readers (wo xi huan series) students purchased for the last
school year. Students should already have it.
Zhou Jing
How Tall Is the City Wall
AP Mandarin
Required:
Yun Xiao
Tales and Traditions: Readings in Chinese Literature Series
(Volume 1)
Spanish
Spanish 2
Recommended:
Lisa Ray Turner & Blaine Ray
El viaje de su vida
Spanish 3
Recommended:
Lisa Ray Turner & Blaine Ray
El viaje perdido
Spanish 4
Required:
Anonymous
Lazarillo de Tormes (Adaptation)
ISBN: 9788497130639
Spanish 5
Required:
Emilia Pardo Bazán
Los Pazos de Ulloa (Adaptation)
ISBN: 9788497130929
Advanced Spanish Conversation
Required:
Juan José Millás
Letra muerta (Adaptation)
ISBN: 9788497130837
AP Spanish
Required:
Federico García Lorca
La Casa de Berndarda Alba
ISBN: 9781585101436
Math Department
Recommended Reading.
Algebra 1:
Summer Skills Workbooks
Tri-C Publications, Inc
Basic Math Review for the Middle Grades
(Lessons #1-10)
5
Science Department
Recommended Reading.
Isaac Asimov
David Attenborough
Rachel Carson
Gerald Durrell
Martin Gardner
Stephen Jay Gould
Steven Hawking
Bernard Jaffe
Alan Lightman
Kenneth Miller
Sharon Moalem
Richard Preston
Rebecca Skloot
Raymond M. Smullyan
Dava Sobel
Dava Sobel
Lewis Thomas
Alvin Toffler
Jearl Walker
James D. Watson
Steven Weinberg
Victor F. Weisskopf
Gary Zukav
Asimov on Chemistry
The Living Planet: A Portrait of the Earth
Silent Spring
The Amateur Naturalist
The Ambidextrous Universe/Science: Good, Bad, and Bogus
The Panda’s Thumb/Bully for Brontosaurus
A Brief History of Time
Crucibles: The Story of Chemistry
Einstein’s Dreams
Finding Darwin’s God
Survival of the Sickest
The Hot Zone
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
The Lady or the Tiger and Other Logic Puzzles
Longitude
Galileo’s Daughter
The Fragile Species/The Lives of a Cell
The Third Wave
The Flying Circus of Physics
The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the discovery of DNA
The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe
Knowledge and Wonder: The Natural World
The Dancing Wu Li Masters
Religious Studies Department
Recommended Reading for Students and Parents.
Note: Courses require students to read segments of some of these works.
Dorothy Day
Shasaku Endo
Victor Frankl
Jostein Gaarder
Scott Hahn & Benjamin Wiker
Ron Hall & Denver Moore
Tracy Kidder
Jonathan Kozol
Jonathan Kozol
Nicholas D. Kristof, Sheryl WuDunn
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
James Martin
James Martin
James Martin
Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton
Donald Miller
The Long Loneliness
Silence
Man’s Search for Meaning
Sophie’s World
Answering the New Atheism: Dismantling Dawkin’s Case Against God
Same Kind of Different as Me
Strength in What Remains
The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America
Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation
Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide
The Screwtape Letters
Till We Have Faces
Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor and Laughter Are at the Heart
of the Spiritual Life
Jesus: A Pilgrimage
My Life with the Saints
New Seeds of Contemplation
No Man Is an Island
Blue Like Jazz
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Toni Morrison
Flannery O’Connor
Ronald J. Sider
Mother Teresa, Brian Kolodiejchuk
St. Teresa of Avila
Song of Solomon
A Good Man is Hard to Find
Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger
Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the
Saint of Calcutta
The Way of Perfection
Recommended Films List
The Religious Studies Department also recognizes film as an important tool
in educating and exploring ideas. In the art of film, we are able to grasp concepts more fully and better
understand the emotions and history that accompany a given topic. This list contains a variety of films that
might enhance one’s understanding of certain aspects of our curriculum.
Note: Some of these films are used in courses, in part or as a whole.
Dead Man Walking (1995)
Doubt (2008)
Gandhi (1982)
Girl Rising (2013)
Half the Sky (2012)
The Human Experience (2008)
Life Is Beautiful (1997)
The Mission (1986)
A Place at the Table (2012)
Promises (2001)
Romero (1989)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
E.E. Ford Architecture, Engineering &
Design Initiatives for the Common Good
Required Reading.
Grade 11:
MIT Technology Review
Eugene Ferguson
Witold Rybczynski
Henry Petroski
“10 Breakthrough Technologies 2015”
Engineering and the Mind’s Eye (pp. 1-40)
How Architecture Works (pp. 1-16)
To Engineer Is Human (pp. 1-40)
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