High School Summer Reading

High School Summer Reading
Posted on 06/20/2018

The following documents are available for summer reading for 9-12!

Ninth Grade Honors Classes: Honors English I and Honors World History

Tenth Grade Honors Classes: Honors English II and Honors Biology

NINTH GRADE ASSIGNMENTS:

Honors English I: Summer Reading Assignment (refer to summer reading list distributed)

*Students enrolled in English I (ninth grade) Honors choose one fiction and one nonfiction novel:

FICTION NONFICTION

Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie (Lubar – 560) True Notebooks: A Writer’s Year at Juvenile Hall (Salzman – 840)

That Was Then, This Is Now (Hinton – 780) The Last Lecture (Pausch – N / A)

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (Boyne – 1080) Hidden Girl: The True Story of A Modern-Day Child Slave (Hall – 970)

The Call of the Wild (London – 1120) Death be not Proud (Gunther – 1060)

Honors World History: Students enrolled in Honors World History need to read both of the following novels and complete all of the tasks listed below:

Read:

Hiroshima by John Hershey (ISBN # 0679721037)

Night by Elie Wiesel (ISBN # 0374500010)

For EACH book, make sure to have the following completed before the first day of school:

Google Slides Presentation- Create a Google Slides presentation for each(2 total) book that is a minimum of 10 slides in length that includes the following information:

1. Character list - include name, physical traits, character traits, impact to the overall story.

2. Vocabulary - As you read, write down the words (and definitions) of the words that you do not know. Fifteen word minimum for each book.

3. Summary of events.

4. Notes on the major themes of each book.

* Due the first day of school - Wednesday, August 8, 2018

*There will be an exam over these two books the first week of school.

* All assignments combined will make up 20% of your 1st quarter grade.

-------------------------Synopsis----------------------

Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie (David Lubar – fiction – 560)

Freaks and bullies, classes and crushes, this is high school. Starting high school is never easy. Could there be a worse time for Scott’s mother to announce she’s pregnant? Scott will be recording all the details for his sibling’s - and your - enjoyment.

That Was Then, This Is Now (S.E. Hinton – fiction – 780)

Companion to The Outsiders, That Was Then, This is Now is

S. E. Hinton's moving portrait of the bond between best friends Bryon and Mark and the tensions that develop between them as they begin to grow up and grow apart.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (John Boyne – fiction - 1080)

Bored and lonely after his family moves from Berlin to a place called "Out-With" in 1942, Bruno, the son of a Nazi officer, befriends a boy in striped pajamas who lives behind a wire fence.

The Call of the Wild (Jack London – fiction – 1120)

Buck, a dog that has been forced into the harsh life of a sled dog, befriends a man seeking his fortune in the Klondike gold fields, and must ultimately decide whether to stay with his master or obey his instinct to join the wolves.

True Notebooks: A Writer’s Year at Juvenile Hall (Mark Salzman – nonfiction – 840)

In voices of unforgettable emotional presence, the boys of L.A.’s Central Juvenile Hall, a lockup for violent teenage offenders, attend a writing class and write about what led them to crime and about the lives that stretch ahead of them behind bars.

The Last Lecture (Randy Pausch – nonfiction – N / A)

Computer science professor Randy Pausch, who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, discusses how to overcome obstacles in one’s life and achieve one’s dreams.

Hidden Girl: The True Story of a Modern-Day Child Slave

(Shyima Hall – nonfiction – 970)

This biography traces the life of Shyima Hall, a domestic slave smuggled from Egypt to Orange County by the family her parents sold her to at age eight. The coauthor is Lisa Wysocky.

Death be not Proud (John Gunther – nonfiction – 1060)

This true story relates a father’s recollection of his son’s courageous and spirited battle against the brain tumor that would take his life at the age of seventeen.

*Tenth grade titles:

Thirteen Reasons Why (Jay Asher – fiction – 550)

When high school student Clay Jenkins receives a box in the mail containing thirteen cassette tapes recorded by his classmate Hannah, who committed suicide, he spends a heartbreaking night listening to her recount the events leading up to her death.

The Book Thief (Markus Zusak – fiction – 730)

Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel, a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding.

The Maze Runner (James Dashner – fiction – 770)

Sixteen-year-old Thomas wakes up with no memory in the middle of a maze and realizes he must work with the community in which he finds himself if he is to escape.

Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card – fiction – 780)

Set in Earth's future, the novel presents an imperiled mankind after two conflicts with the "buggers", an insectoid alien species. In preparation for an anticipated third invasion, children, including the novel's protagonist, Ender Wiggin, are trained from a very young age through increasingly difficult games including some in zero gravity, where Ender's tactical genius is revealed.

Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro – fiction – 970)

The novel is set in a dystopian world in which human clones are created so that they can donate their organs as young adults. The novel follows the life story of Kathy, a clone who is raised at a boarding school for future “donors.”

Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom – nonfiction – 830)

This book is a chronicle of the time the author spent with his mentor, his former college professor, in the last months of the older man’s life. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final “class”: lessons in how to live.

Farewell to Manzanar (Jeanne and James Houston – nonfiction – 1040)

This is the true story of one Japanese American family and their attempt to survive the indignities of forced detention.

Into the Wild (Jon Krakauer – nonfiction – 1270)

The author retraces the steps of a young man from a well-to-do family who gave up everything he owned and walked alone into the Alaskan wilderness.

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin (Erik Larson – nonfiction – N / A)

William E. Dodd, the American ambassador to Germany in 1933, witnessed firsthand the atrocities of Hitler’s regime while he watched his daughter fall in love with a Nazi officer.

*Eleventh grade titles:

The Help (Kathryn Stockett – fiction – 730)

Limited and persecuted by racial divides in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, three women, including an African American maid, her sassy and chronically unemployed friend, and a recently graduated white woman, team up for a clandestine project.

The Things They Carried (Tim O’Brien – fiction – 880)

This novel depicts the character Tim O’Brien who survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and a writer at the age of forty-three.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain – fiction – 990)

Huck Finn, the son of the town drunk, and Jim, an escaped slave, make a break for freedom down the vast Mississippi River on a raft.

The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath – fiction – 1140)

This semi-autobiographical novel presents an ambitious and brilliant young woman’s search for values and her eventual breakdown.

Hole in my life (Jack Gantos – nonfiction – 840)

The author relates how, as a young adult, he became a drug user and smuggler, was arrested, did time in prison, and eventually got out and went to college, all the while hoping to become a writer.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave (Frederick Douglass – nonfiction – 1080)

This is an autobiographical account of the runaway slave Frederick Douglass that chronicles his experiences with his owners and overseers, and discusses how slavery affected everyone.

All Over but the Shoutin’ (Rick Bragg – nonfiction – 1160)

The author recalls his poverty-stricken youth in Alabama in the 1960s and 1970s, focusing on the efforts of his mother to protect her sons from the violence of their father, and telling of the sacrifices she made so that her children could have a better life.

Nickel and Dime(d): On (Not) Getting by in America (Barbara Ehrenreich – nonfiction – 1340)

Barbara Ehrenreich relates her experiences as she joins the ranks of the working poor as a waitress, hotel housekeeper, cleaning woman, nursing home aide, and Wal-Mart clerk to see for herself how America's "unskilled" workers are able to survive.

*Twelfth grade titles:

The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger – fiction – 790)

A cynical teenager explains the events following his expulsion from prep school and subsequent nervous breakdown.

The Beginning of Everything (Nicola Yoon – fiction – 930)

Varsity tennis captain Ezra Faulkner was supposed to be homecoming king, but that was before—before his girlfriend cheated on him, before a car accident shattered his leg, and before he fell in love with unpredictable new girl Cassidy Thorpe.

1984 (George Orwell – fiction – 1090)

Eternal warfare is the price of bleak prosperity in this satire of totalitarian cruelty.

Catch-22 (Joseph Heller – fiction – 1140)

The novel looks into the experiences of Yossarian and the other airmen in the camp, who attempt to maintain their sanity while fulfilling their service requirements so that they may return home.

The Pregnancy Project: A Memoir (Gaby Rodriguez – nonfiction – 970)

Gaby Rodriguez, whose mother and older sister both became pregnant as teenagers, explains what she learned from faking a pregnancy as a high-school senior in order to find out how people would treat her. The coauthor is Jenna Glatzer.

The Glass Castle (Jeannette Walls – nonfiction – 1010)

The author recalls growing up in a dysfunctional family with an alcoholic father and a distant mother and describes how she and her siblings finally found the resources and will to leave.

In Cold Blood (Truman Capote – nonfiction – 1040)

The book recreates the slaying of the Clutter family of Kansas, and the capture, trial and execution of their murderers.

The Devil in the White City (Erik Larson – nonfiction – 1170)

This book tells the parallel stories of Daniel Burnham, the main architect of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, and serial killer Henry H. Holmes, who used the opportunities afforded by the fair to lure victims to their deaths.

 

All content © 2024 Hamilton County Schools. All rights reserved. | Privacy Notice | Website by School Messenger