2007 Summer Reading List
Sophomore Reading
List
Monster
Walter Dean Myers
"Monster"
is what the prosecutor called 16-year-old Steve Harmon for his supposed role in
the fatal shooting of a convenience-store owner. But was Steve really the
lookout who gave the "all clear" to the murderer, or was he just in
the wrong place at the wrong time? In this innovative novel by Walter Dean
Myers, the reader becomes both juror and witness during the trial of Steve's
life. To calm his nerves as he sits in the courtroom, aspiring filmmaker Steve
chronicles the proceedings in movie script format. Interspersed throughout his
screenplay are journal writings that provide insight into Steve's life before
the murder and his feelings about being held in prison during the trial.
"They take away your shoelaces and your belt so you can't kill yourself no
matter how bad it is. I guess making you live is part of the punishment."
Sophomore PAP Reading List
Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Bronte
Considered by literary critics as a romance, a gothic novel
with supernatural elements, a coming of age story, or a rags to riches fairy
tale, Jane Eyre was one of the first successful novels written by a
female author. Our protagonist must
face many challenges as a mistreated orphan, a frightened new governess, and
finally a mature woman deciding between suitors. And then there are all of those creepy sounds coming from the
attic...
The Red Badge of Courage
by Stephen Crane
This novel made the 24 year old Crane one of the most internationally
recognized and celebrated American authors of all time. He wrote about the Civil War from the point
of view of a young soldier at battle with his enemy, with his duty, and with
himself. Chock-full of imagery and
symbolism, it is a complex, realistic view of the war that changed America
forever.
1984
by George Orwell
Perhaps the most famous dystopian novel in all of literature, Orwell's futuristic fantasy about the role of government in the lives of its individual members is viewed by some today as more fact than fiction. How is "Big Brother" watching you? If you understand that allusion, you have Orwell and this novel to thank.
Junior Reading
List
The
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
By
Mark Haddon
Mark
Haddon's bitterly funny debut novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in
the Night-Time, is a murder mystery of sorts--one told by an autistic
version of Adrian Mole. Fifteen-year-old Christopher John Francis Boone is
mathematically gifted and socially hopeless, raised in a working-class home
by parents who can barely cope with their child's quirks. He takes everything
that he sees (or is told) at face value, and is unable to sort out the strange
behavior of his elders and peers.
Late
one night, Christopher comes across his neighbor's poodle, Wellington, impaled
on a garden fork. Wellington's owner finds him cradling her dead dog in his
arms, and has him arrested. After spending a night in jail, Christopher
resolves--against the objection of his father and neighbors--to discover just who
has murdered Wellington. He is encouraged … to write a book about his
investigations, and the result--quirkily illustrated, with each chapter given
its own prime number--is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.”
Information provided by
amazon.com
The Road
By
Cormac McCarthy
A father
and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged
landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when
the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast,
although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have
nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that
stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food-and each
other.
The
Road is the
profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no
hope remains, but in which the father and his son, ‘each the other's world
entire,’ are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an
unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of:
ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two
people alive in the face of total devastation.” Information provided by
barnesandnoble.com
Junior AP Reading List
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain
The adventures of a boy and a runaway slave as they travel
down the Mississippi River on a raft. Revered by all of the town's children and
dreaded by all of its mothers, Huckleberry Finn is indisputably the most
appealing child-hero in American literature.
Unlike the tall-tale, idyllic world of Tom Sawyer, The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is firmly grounded in early reality. From
the abusive drunkard who serves as Huckleberry's father, to Huck's first
tentative grappling with issues of personal liberty and the unknown, Huckleberry
Finn endeavors to delve quite a bit deeper into the complexities-both
joyful and tragic of life.
The Glass Menagerie
by
Tennessee Williams
Few plays
have explored the byways of the human heart as poignantly and poetically as
Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie. In this touching play, we meet
the embattled Wingfield family: Amanda - faded southern belle, abandoned wife,
dominating mother, who hopes to match her daughter with an eligible
"gentleman caller," Laura - lame and painfully shy, she evades her
mother's schemes and reality by retreating to a world of make-believe; Tom -
sole support of the family, he eventually leaves home to become a writer but is
forever haunted by the memory of Laura.
Isaac's Storm
By Erik Larson
At the
dawn of the twentieth century, a great confidence suffused America. Isaac Cline
was one of the era's new men, a scientist who believed he knew all there was to
know about the motion of clouds and the behavior of storms. The idea that a
hurricane could damage the city of Galveston, Texas, where he was based, was to
him preposterous, "an absurd delusion." Galveston would endure a
hurricane that to this day remains the nation's deadliest natural disaster. In
Galveston alone at least 6,000 people - possibly as many as 10,000 - would lose
their lives, a number far greater than the combined death toll of the Johnstown
Flood and the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. Meticulously researched and
vividly written, ISAAC'S STORM is based on Cline's own letters, telegrams, and
reports, the testimony of scores of survivors, and our latest understanding of
the hows and whys of great storms. It is the story of what can happen when
human arrogance meets nature's last uncontrollable force. As such, ISAAC'S
STORM carries a warning for our time.
Senior Reading List
By John
Hersey
On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima was destroyed by the first atomic bomb ever dropped on a city. This book tells what happened on that day, told through the memoirs of survivors.
The Perks of Being A
Wallflower
By Stephen Chbosky
This
haunting novel about the dilemma of passivity vs. passion marks the stunning
debut of a provocative new voice in contemporary fiction: The Perks of Being
a Wallflower. This is the story of what it's like to grow up in high
school. More intimate than a diary, Charlie's letters are singular and unique,
hilarious and devastating. We may not know where he lives. We may not know to
whom he is writing. All we know is the world he shares. Caught between trying
to live his life and trying to run from it puts him on a strange course through
uncharted territory. The world of first dates and mixed tapes, family dramas
and new friends. The world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show,
when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel
infinite.
Through
Charlie, Stephen Chbosky has created a deeply affecting coming-of-age story, a
powerful novel that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller
coaster days known as growing up.
by Kurt Vonnegut
The
Sirens of Titan is
an outrageous romp through space, time, and morality. The richest, most
depraved man on Earth, Malachi Constant, is offered a chance to take a space
journey to distant worlds with a beautiful woman at his side. Of course,
there's a catch to the invitation...and a prophetic vision about the purpose of
human life that only Vonnegut has the courage to tell.
The Wedding
By
Nicholas Sparks
FROM
THE PUBLISHER
From #1
New York Times bestselling author Nicholas Sparks comes the long-awaited
follow-up to his classic tale of enduring love, The Notebook. After 30 years,
Wilson Lewis, son-in-law to Noah and Allie (of The Notebook fame), is forced to
admit that the romance has gone out of his marriage. Despite the shining
example of his in-laws' 50-year love affair, Wilson himself is a man unable to
express how he truly feels. With the distractions of his daughter's upcoming
wedding he is forced to realize how close he is to losing his own wife Jane. But
if Wilson is sure of anything, it's this: His love for his wife has only
intensified over the years, and he wants nothing more than to make their
marriage work. Now, with the memories of his in-laws' inspiring life together
as his guide, Wilson pledges to find a way to make his wife fall in love with
him. . . again.
Tender Is the Night
by F.
Scott Fitzgerald
First published in 1934, Fitzgerald's classic story
of psychological disintegration was denounced by many as an unflattering
portrayal of Sara and Gerald Murphy (in the guise of characters Dick and Nicole
Driver), who had been generous hosts to many expatriates. Only after
Fitzgerald's death was Tender Is the Night recognized as a powerful and
moving depiction of the human frailties that affect privileged and ordinary
people alike.
Bless the Beasts and
Children
by Glendon Fred Swarthout,
"Send Us a Boy -- We'll Send You a
Cowboy!" is the slogan of the Box Canyon Boys Camp. But for the nail
biters, thumb suckers, and teeth grinders -- the cast-away offspring of parents
who are busy travelling, being divorced, remarrying, and garnering fortunes --
it's just another place to face rejection. Until Cotton.
Cotton pulls them together. In a
hot-wired pickup, he leads "the Bedwetters" on a fantastic mission to
save a heard of buffalo -- and in the process, to save themselves. But as the
raw red Arizona sun rises, they will discover the cost of their one grand
moment of glory…
Winesburg, Ohio
by Sherwood Anderson
Inspired by Anderson's Midwestern boyhood and his
adulthood in early 20th-century Chicago, this volume gave birth to the American
story cycle, for which Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and later writers were
forever indebted. Defying the prudish sensibilities of his time, Anderson
embraced frankness and truth. Here we meet all those whose portraits brought
the American short story into the modern age.
Bless Me, Ultima
Antonio Marez is six years old when Ultima enters
his life. She is a curandera, one who heals with herbs and magic. 'We cannot
let her live her last days in loneliness,' says Antonio's mother. 'It is not
the way of our people,' agrees his father. And so Ultima comes to live with
Antonio's family in New Mexico. Soon Tony will journey to the threshold of
manhood. Always, Ultima watches over him. She graces him with the courage to
face childhood bigotry, diabolical possession, the moral collapse of his
brother, and too many violent deaths. Under her wise guidance, Tony will probe
the family ties that bind him, and he will find in himself the magical secrets
of the pagan past—a mythic legacy equally as palpable as the Catholicism of
Latin America in which he has been schooled. At each turn in his life there is
Ultima who will nurture the birth of his soul. Enhanced by four full-color
paintings by noted New Mexican artist Bernadette Vigil, this book will be
treasured by all admirers of Rudolfo Anaya, whether they are longtime followers
of his work or are discovering him for the first time.
Senior AP Reading
List
Heart of Darkness
By
Joseph Conrad
Joseph
Conrad's Heart of Darkness was first published in 1899 in serial form in London's
Blackwood's Magazine. Loosely based on Conrad’s firsthand experience of rescuing
a company agent from a remote station in the heart of the Congo, the novel
is considered a literary bridge between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
With its modern literary approach to questions such as the ambiguous nature
of good and evil, the novel foreshadows many of the themes and techniques
that define modern literature.
This Prestwick
House Literary Touchstone Edition includes a glossary and reader’s notes to
help the modern reader contend with Conrad’s complex approach to the human
condition.” Information provided by
amazon.com
The Metamorphosis
By Franz Kafka
A
young man wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a giant
beetle-like insect. He becomes an object of disgrace to his family and an
alienated man.
Brave
New World
By Aldous Huxley
Community, Identity, Stability"
is the motto of Aldous Huxley's utopian World State. Here everyone consumes
daily grams of soma, to fight depression, babies are born in laboratories,
and the most popular form of entertainment is a "Feelie," a movie
that stimulates the senses of sight, hearing, and touch. Though there is no
violence and everyone is provided for, Bernard Marx feels something is missing
and senses his relationship with a young women has the potential to be much
more than the confines of their existence allow. Huxley foreshadowed many
of the practices and gadgets we take for granted today--let's hope the sterility
and absence of individuality he predicted aren't yet to come.”
Information provided by amazon.com.