US Summer Reading
Summer Reading--Upper School
Required for all Upper School English classes. Please read the title(s) for the course you will be taking in the Fall.
ENGL 9 and ENGL 9H:
The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver (ISBN: 0-061-09731-4)
Clear-eyed and spirited, Taylor Greer grew up poor in rural Kentucky with the goals of avoiding pregnancy and getting away. But when she heads west with high hopes and a barely functional car, she meets the human condition head-on. By the time Taylor arrives in Tucson, Arizona, she has acquired a completely unexpected child, a three-year-old American Indian girl named Turtle, and must somehow come to terms with both motherhood and the necessity for putting down roots. Hers is a story about love and friendship, abandonment and belonging, and the discovery of surprising resources in apparently empty places.
ENGL 10 and ENGL 10H:
I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak (ISBN: 0-375-83667-5)
Meet Ed Kennedy--underage cabdriver, pathetic cardplayer, and useless at romance. He lives in a shack with his coffee-addicted dog, the Doorman, and he's hopelessly in love with his best friend, Audrey. His life is one of peaceful routine and incompetence, until he inadvertently stops a bank robbery. That's when the first Ace arrives. That's when Ed becomes the messenger. . . .
ENGL 11 and ENGL 11H:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (ISBN: 0-486-28061-6)
Hilariously picaresque, epic in scope, alive with the poetry and vigor of the American people, Mark Twain's story about a young boy and his journey down the Mississippi was the first great novel to speak in a truly American voice. Influencing subsequent generations of writers--from Sherwood Anderson to Twain's fellow Missourian, T.S. Eliot, from Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner to J.D. Salinger--Huckleberry Finn, like the river which flows through its pages, is one of the great sources which nourished and still nourishes the literature of America.
AP ENG 11 LANG & COMP (2 titles required):
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass (ISBN: 0-486-28499-9)
Written more than a century ago by Frederick Douglass, a former slave who went on to become a famous orator, U.S. minister, and a leader of his people, this masterpiece is one of the most eloquent indictments of slavery ever recorded. Douglass's shocking narrative takes the reader into the world of the South's antebellum plantations and reveals the daily terrors he suffered as a slave, shedding invaluable light on one of the most unjust periods in the history of America.
AND
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (ISBN: 0-486-28061-6)
Hilariously picaresque, epic in scope, alive with the poetry and vigor of the American people, Mark Twain's story about a young boy and his journey down the Mississippi was the first great novel to speak in a truly American voice. Influencing subsequent generations of writers--from Sherwood Anderson to Twain's fellow Missourian, T.S. Eliot, from Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner to J.D. Salinger--Huckleberry Finn, like the river which flows through its pages, is one of the great sources which nourished and still nourishes the literature of America.
ENGL 12 PERSUASION (Mr. Nealy): Please note that this class will no longer be offered next year. The course replacing this one is ENGL 12 SHAKESPEARE with Mr. Hickerson. The summer reading assignment is Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare (ISBN: 0451526767).
Twelfth Night is the story of Orsino, a nobleman in the kingdom of Illyria. Following a shipwreck, Orsino employs Viola, who has disguised herself as a man named Cesario. Soon Viola falls in love with Orsino; however Orsino is in love with Lady Olivia who has fallen for Viola...believing her to be a man! Twelfth Night is a classic Shakespearean comedy of mistaken identities.
ENGL 12 MISFITS AND OUTLAWS (Mrs. Leary):
How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster (ISBN: 006000942X)
What does it mean when a fictional hero takes a journey? Shares a meal? Gets drenched in a sudden rain shower? Often, there is much more going on in a novel or poem than is readily visible on the surface--a symbol, maybe, that remains elusive, or an unexpected twist on a character--and there's that sneaking suspicion that the deeper meaning of a literary text keeps escaping you. In this practical and amusing guide to literature, Thomas C. Foster shows how easy and gratifying it is to unlock those hidden truths, and to discover a world where a road leads to a quest; a shared meal may signify a communion; and rain, whether cleansing or destructive, is never just rain.
ENGL 12 CREATIVE WRITING (Dr. Mandyck):
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott (ISBN: 0-385-48001-6)
"Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table, close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'" Anne Lamott, the author of many books of fiction and non-fiction, offers an inspiring book about writing as a way of finding truth.
ENGL 12 WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA? (Mr. Brown):
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (ISBN: 0316017922)
In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, what made the Beatles the greatest rock band and more.
AP ENGL 12 (Mr. Stachura)--2 titles required:
Life of Pi by Yann Martel (ISBN: 0-15-602732-1)
The son of a zookeeper, Pi Patel has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes. The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days while lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional--but is it more true?
AND
Morality Play by Barry Unsworth (ISBN: 0-393-31560-6)
The time is the fourteenth century. The place is a small town in rural England, and the setting a snow-laden winter. A small troupe of actors accompanied by Nicholas Barber, a young renegade priest, prepares to play the drama of their lives. Breaking the longstanding tradition of only performing religious plays, the group's leader, Martin, wants them to enact the murder that is foremost in the townspeople's minds. A young boy has been found dead, and a mute-and-deaf girl has been arrested and stands to be hanged for the murder. As members of the troupe delve deeper into the circumstances of the murder, they find themselves entering a political and class feud that may undo them.