Upper School Summer Reading
Purpose of Summer Reading
Summer is the perfect time to spend some pleasurable hours with a good book, and so all students, grades 9-12, are asked to read one book from the list at their grade level. A list of books recommended for further summer reading is also provided in each grade level list. Students may receive extra credit for reading one or more of these additional books. Please purchase the correct edition by following the ISBN numbers listed.
Reading Level and Ability
This list of books has been compiled with an eye toward variety of subject matter, accessibility to all reading levels, and issues such as gender differences. The books are available at local bookstores and by clicking on the picture of the book on the Pace website. At the time this list was prepared, all of the titles were in print and available in paperback.
Reading Guides and Evaluation
All students must purchase the required book for their grade level, read it over the summer, and bring the book to school on the first day in August. The English teachers have provided reading guides in the form of inquiries. They’re designed to help you begin to think about some of the complex ideas in the summer reading books. We recommend that you write responses for two reasons: first, processing thoughts on paper that you pick up while reading helps you to get involved and to stay involved in the book; and second, thinking of ideas and writing them down helps them stick in your mind. These notes will not be graded, but writing responses will help you contribute to the class discussions and also help when you take the summer reading test.
Students will be asked to sign the honor pledge that they have read the book, and then the assignment will be assessed in different ways, depending on grade level. For most students, the summer reading assessment will count as the first quiz grade of fall semester. For more details about the summer reading books, the notes on the reading guides, and the extra credit opportunity, visit the Pace Academy website and follow the links to summer reading for the appropriate grade level.
Marsha Durlin
English Department Chairperson
marsha.durlin@paceacademy.org
- 9th Grade CP & 9th Grade Honors
- 10th Grade CP & 10th Grade Honors
- 11th Grade Honors
- 11th Grade CP American Literature
- 11th Grade AP Literature and Composition
- 12th Grade CP & Honors World Literature
- 12th Grade AP Language & Composition
9th Grade CP & 9th Grade Honors
9th Grade Summer Reading Book: The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon (For both 9th Grade CP and 9th Grade Honors English)
Welcome to the Upper School English Department at Pace! Your first assignment is to read and mark (underline, highlight, and/or annotate) Nicola Yoon’s novel, The Sun is Also a Star (ISBN 978-0-553-49668-0) before the first day of class in August.
Like all great novels, this one begins to answers the question of what it means to be human.
Yoon employs two narrators - Natasha, a Jamaican-American teenage girl who trusts the measurements of math and the safety of science, and Daniel, a Korean-American teenage boy who wrestles with obeying his first-generation immigrant parents’ strict demands and his inner voice to be a poet. Yoon punctuates these chapters with illuminating asides on other characters and concepts that help shed light on the developing relationship between Natasha and Daniel.
Here are some questions that will help you identify the central issues of the novel. Although you will not submit these answers for a grade, answering them will help you prepare for our discussions and the test within the first two weeks of the school year. If you have any questions, please contact Mrs. Durlin at marsha.durlin@paceacademy.org.
Summer Reading Assignment
Parallel Reading
Extra Credit
Cold Mountain
by Charles Frazier. A classic odyssey set during the American Civil War, as a wounded Confederate soldier tries to return to his sweetheart in the high country of western North Carolina. ISBN#: 0802142842
Into Thin Air
by Jon Krakauer. The author of Into the Wild tells another riveting tale, this time about a mountain-climbing disaster on Mt. Everest in 1996. ISBN#: 0385492081
The Fellowship of the Ring
by J.R.R. Tolkien. The 3-volume epic of Middle Earth is Tolkien’s version of an unlikely hero who overcomes impossible odds to find and destroy the Ring of Power. You may read 1, 2, or all 3 volumes. ISBN#: 0345339703
The Illiad
by Homer, translated by Robert Fitzgerald. Homer’s prequel to The Odyssey, the story of the Trojan War, is the first and last word on men and warfare. ISBN#: 0199536791
The Whale Rider
by Witi Ihimaera. The story of a young Maori girl, Kahu, and her relationship with her great-grandfather. When signs and portents indicate that Kahu has inherited special powers from the legendary "whale rider," she struggles to overcome her grandfather's prejudice against girls as tribal leaders. ISBN#: 0152050167
Watership Down
by Richard Adams. This charming tale of an intrepid band of wild rabbits on a quest for a new home has surprising complexity and many allusions to the classic hero’s journey. ISBN#: 0380002930
10th Grade CP & 10th Grade Honors
I pledge that I have neither given nor received help on this assignment.
(10th Grade CP & 10th Grade Honors)
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
ISBN: #978-0-590-35342-7
Published originally as Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in England in 1997, and then as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in America a year later, this is the book that established the phenomenon that ignited imaginations and has fascinated generations of readers. The book topped the New York Times bestseller list for nearly two years and, to date, Harry Potter titles have sold almost 500 million copies.
Yet, despite its popularity and Rowling’s employment of archetype, Latin etymology, mythology, and allegory, the books are rarely deemed “serious” literature. Your summer reading assignment is an attempt to change that perception. For, in addition to reading Sorcerer’s Stone, you are also being asked to read two chapters from Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor -- “Is that a Symbol?” and “It’s All Political” -- and apply these lessons to Rowling’s work. You can expect to read more of Foster’s book as you make your way into the first semester of your Literary Heroes class and your teacher may also assign related writing projects or presentations.
How to Read Literature like a Professor
ISBN: #978-0-06-230167-3
Below you will find some chapter-by-chapter comprehension questions to help guide your reading of the novel. Please note that answering these questions is not mandatory. However, reading the novel with these questions in mind will help to deepen your understanding of the narrative. In addition, should you choose to answer these questions, you will create a study guide for your summer reading test. Also, once you finish reading the novel, you can engage in some creative analysis by considering Section 2 of this guide: Thinking Deeper about Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
At the bottom of the document, you will also find two exercises regarding How to Read Literature Like a Professor. These questions are designed to help you begin to apply the techniques outlined in Foster’s book to Harry Potter. As with reading questions for Harry Potter, completing the exercises for How to Read like a Professor is not mandatory, but working with them will allow you to better understand the assigned chapters in Foster’s book and how these chapters can be used in analyzing Rowling’s work. Your teacher may also require you to complete these exercises in the first week or two of school, so doing them over the summer could be to your advantage.
Summer Reading Assignment
Parallel Reading
Extra Credit
Great Expectations
Charles Dickens—It is set among the marshes of Kent and in London in the early to mid-1800s. From the outset, the reader is "treated" by the terrifying encounter between Pip, the protagonist, and the escaped convict, Abel Magwitch. Great Expectations is a graphic book, full of extreme imagery, poverty, prison ships, "the hulks," barriers and chains, and fights to the death. It therefore combines intrigue and unexpected twists of autobiographical detail in different tones. Regardless of its narrative technique, the novel reflects the events of the time, Dickens' concerns, and the relationship between society and man.
Jane Eyre
Charlotte Bronte-Charlotte Bronte's most beloved novel describes the passionate love between the courageous orphan Jane Eyre and the brilliant, brooding, and domineering Rochester. The loneliness and cruelty of Jane's childhood strengthen her natural independence and spirit, which prove invaluable when she takes a position as a governess at Thornfield Hall. But after she falls in love with her sardonic employer, her discovery of his terrible secret forces her to make a heart-wrenching choice. Ever since its publication in 1847, Jane Eyre has enthralled every kind of reader, from the most critical and cultivated to the youngest and most unabashedly romantic. It lives as one of the great triumphs of storytelling and as a moving and unforgettable portrayal of a woman's quest for self-respect.
The Heart of the Matter
Graham Greene—Scobie, a police officer in a West African English colony during WW II, is morally above suspicion. Then, passed over for promotion, he is forced to borrow money from a Syrian trader/merchant to send his faded wife Louise on holiday in South Africa. In her absence, a German submarine torpedoes a ship, and when the survivors come ashore, Scobie falls in love with a sad young widow. Inexorably, his conscience and his love of God lead him to disaster.
The Romance of Tristan and Iseult
Retold by Joseph Bedier. Translated by Hilaire Belloc (Vintage). A tragic tale of doomed romance between one of King Mark's greatest knights and his lady love. This story neatly parallels the Arthur-Guinevere-Lancelot love triangle. ISBN: 0-679-75016-9
Turn of the Screw
Henry James—The greatest ghost story ever written, in its slow build-up of tension, this short novel will make you forget Spielberg and redefine angst and horror. A governess in a remote English estate learns that the two children in her care are possessed—or are they? The outcome proves catastrophic.
Volpone
Ben Jonson-Jonson was a contemporary of Shakespeare and wrote satiric plays. Volpone is a Venetian gentleman who pretends to be on his deathbed, after a long illness, in order to dupe Voltore, Corbaccio, and Corvino, three men who aspire to inherit his fortune. In their turns, each man arrives to Volpone’s house bearing a luxurious gift, intent upon having his name inscribed to the will of Volpone, as his heir. Mosca, Volpone’s parasite servant, encourages each man, Voltore, Corbaccio, and Corvino, to believe that he has been named heir to Volpone’s fortune; in the course of which, Mosca persuades Corbaccio to disinherit his own son in favour of Volpone. It goes from there, with many complications.
Wuthering Heights
Emily Bronte-This is an English Romantic novel that tells the story of a savage, tormented foundling, Heathcliff, who falls madly in love with Catherine Earnshaw, the daughter of his benefactor, and of the violence and misery that result from their thwarted longing for each other.
11th Grade Honors
For your summer reading assignment in 11th grade honors, please read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (ISBN-13: 978-0393966404, Norton Critical Edition)
Commonly named among the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written throughout in vernacular English, characterized by local color regionalism. It is told in the first person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, a friend of Tom Sawyer and narrator of two other Twain novels (Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective). It is a direct sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
Summer Reading Assignment
Parallel Reading
Extra Credit
Lonesome Dove
by Larry McMurtry. Simon & Schuester Classic Edition. ISBN# 978-0684871226. Pulitzer Prize winning novel about retired Texas rangers in the late nineteenth-century who drive cattle to Montana for one last hurrah.
Native Son
Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory
by David W. Blight. Belknap Press of Harvard University. ISBN# 978-0674008199. For the history buff, Blight’s impeccably researched work argues that almost all the dominant views of the Civil War and its aftermath, including Reconstruction and "reunion," prevalent in this country until the coming of the civil rights movement, were the direct result of an extensive Southern propaganda war, the remnants of which are still flourishing in various racist subculture.
The Grapes of Wrath
11th Grade CP American Literature
For your summer reading assignment in American Literature CP, please read the Mariner Edition of Life of Pi, ISBN 978-01560-27328. The guide below is meant to be a supplement to your reading and should not be viewed as a substitute for your own close analysis of the novel. Completing the reading guide is not mandatory, but it will give you a useful preparation tool when you are contributing to class discussions and then studying for the summer reading test. If you have questions about the assignment, contact Mr. Player.
Summer Reading Assignment
Parallel Reading
Extra Credit
Lonesome Dove
by Larry McMurtry. Simon & Schuester Classic Edition. ISBN# 978-0684871226. Pulitzer Prize winning novel about retired Texas rangers in the late nineteenth-century who drive cattle to Montana for one last hurrah.
Native Son
Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory
by David W. Blight. Belknap Press of Harvard University. ISBN# 978-0674008199. For the history buff, Blight’s impeccably researched work argues that almost all the dominant views of the Civil War and its aftermath, including Reconstruction and "reunion," prevalent in this country until the coming of the civil rights movement, were the direct result of an extensive Southern propaganda war, the remnants of which are still flourishing in various racist subculture.
The Grapes of Wrath
11th Grade AP Literature and Composition
For your first assignment in AP Lit, please read the Mariner Edition of Life of Pi, ISBN 978-01560-27328. The guide below is meant to be a supplement to your reading and should not be viewed as a substitute for your own close analysis of the novel. Completing the reading guide is not mandatory, but it will give you a useful preparation tool when you are contributing to class discussions and then studying for the summer reading test. If you have questions about the assignment, contact Mr. Player.
Summer Reading Assignment
For your second assignment in AP Lit, please read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (ISBN-13: 978-0393966404, Norton Critical Edition)
Commonly named among the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written throughout in vernacular English, characterized by local color regionalism. It is told in the first person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, a friend of Tom Sawyer and narrator of two other Twain novels (Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective). It is a direct sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
Summer Reading Assignment
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Parallel Reading
Extra Credit
Lonesome Dove
by Larry McMurtry. Simon & Schuester Classic Edition. ISBN# 978-0684871226. Pulitzer Prize winning novel about retired Texas rangers in the late nineteenth-century who drive cattle to Montana for one last hurrah.
Native Son
Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory
by David W. Blight. Belknap Press of Harvard University. ISBN# 978-0674008199. For the history buff, Blight’s impeccably researched work argues that almost all the dominant views of the Civil War and its aftermath, including Reconstruction and "reunion," prevalent in this country until the coming of the civil rights movement, were the direct result of an extensive Southern propaganda war, the remnants of which are still flourishing in various racist subculture.
The Grapes of Wrath
12th Grade CP & Honors World Literature
The Martian
ISBN: #978-0-553-41802-6
Please read The Martian by Andy Weir (first) and then watch and read the film, directed by Ridley Scott. Annotate your book, marking interesting, humorous, or important details. When watching and reading the film, take notes on the film. What do you notice? What differences exist? What omissions are made? What similarities do you notice? You may need to watch the film more than once. You will turn in your film notes.
Summer Reading Assignment
Parallel Reading
Extra Credit
A Passage to Indiaby E.M.Forster. Penguin Classics. ISBN#: 014144116X. A young British woman, Adela Quested, intends to find the “real India” on her journey there at the peak of the British colonial period.
A Thousand Splendid Suns
by Khaled Hosseini. Riverhead. ISBN#: 159448385X. As a sequel to the largely masculine issues of The Kite Runner, Hosseini now turns his attention to the lives of Afghan women under the rule of the Taliban.
Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood
by Fatima Mernissi. Basic Books. ISBN#: 0201489376. “’I was born in a harem in 1940 in Fez, Morocco. . .’ So begins the author in this rich narrative of a childhood behind the iron gates of a domestic harem.” (Amazon)
Palace Walk
by Naguib Mahfouz. Anchor Books. ISBN#: 0-385-26466-6. First in a trilogy by this Nobel Prize winner, a family saga set in early 20th century Cairo.
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
by Marjane Satrapi. Pantheon. ISBN#: 037571457X. “In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, the author tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah’s regime and the triumph of the Islamic Revolution.” (book jacket)
Song of Solomon
by Toni Morrison. Vintage. ISBN#: 0-452-26011-6. The story of Milkman Dead, a disaffected young black man in 1960’s Detroit who finds happiness and redemption where it is least expected.
The Makioka Sisters
by Junichiro Tanizaki. Vintage. ISBN#: 0679761640. Set in the most traditional of Japanese cities, Osaka, in the years leading up to World War II, the story of three daughters of a fading aristocratic family. “If epic literature is based in the dramatic and forward-moving narrative of a male hero’s journey, The Makioka Sisters is a female epic of inaction. . . .the sisters are like heroes setting out for the new world. They’re like Odysseus, except without the ship and without the sea.” (Emily White on Amazon)
True History of the Kelly Gang
by Peter Carey. Vintage International. ISBN#: 0-375-72467-2. The real-life Robin Hood of Australia, Ned Kelly, speaks for himself in Carey’s imaginative recreation of the classic outlaw tale.
12th Grade AP Language & Composition
Please purchase a copy of White Teeth early in the summer and read the novel over the course of several weeks. The ISBN is 0-375-70386-1. Please finish reading the book by the first day of classes in August. The written notes are optional, but do make sure that you read actively, marking the book as you go along for plot, character, and themes. The AP Language teachers will begin the course with this novel. It is not just summer reading but also the foundation of the course for the year. After several days of discussion, your teacher will give you a test over the book. This test grade will count as the first grade of fall semester. If you have any questions, contact Mrs. Durlin at marsha.durlin@paceacademy.org.
Summer Reading Assignment
Parallel Reading
Extra Credit
1491
by Charles Mann, ISBN-10: 1400032059
A fresh new view of what the Americas were like before the arrival of European explorers: “a far more urban, more populated, and technologically advanced region than generally assumed; and the Indians. . .had radcially engineered the landscape across the continents, to the point that even ‘timeless’ natural features like the Amazon rainforest can be seen as products of human intervention.” (Amazon.com Review)
A Moveable Feast
by Ernest Hemingway, ISBN-10: 068482499X
“Paris in the '20s! Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley, lived happily on $5 a day and still had money for drinks at the Closerie des Lilas, skiing in the Alps, and fishing trips to Spain. On every corner and at every café table, there were the most extraordinary people living wonderful lives and telling fantastic stories.
Basin and Range
by John McPhee ISBN-10: 9780374516901
The first of John McPhee’s works in his series on geology and geologists, Basin and Range is a book of journeys through ancient terrains, always in juxtaposition with travels in the modern world—a history of vanished landscapes, enhanced by the histories of people who bring them to light. The title refers to the physiographic province of the United States that reaches from eastern Utah to eastern California, a silent world of austere beauty, of hundreds of discrete high mountain ranges that are green with junipers and often white with snow. The terrain becomes the setting for a lyrical evocation of the science of geology, with important digressions into the plate-tectonics revolution and the history of the geologic time scale.
Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West
by Wallace Stegner ISBN # 9780140159943
Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial, or a Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns lately found in Norfolk
by Sir Thomas Browne, ISBN-10: 0882950177
Published in 1658, this book’s nominal subject was the discovery of a Roman urn burial site in Norfolk. The discovery of these remains prompts Browne to meditate on man's struggles with mortality. It is a piece of exquisite baroque prose that George Saintsbury called "the longest piece, perhaps, of absolutely sublime rhetoric to be found in the prose literature of the world.”
Stop-Time
by Frank Conroy, ISBN #0140044469
The Autobiography of Malcom X
by Malcom X ISBN-10: 0141185430
From hustling, drug addiction and armed violence in America's black ghettos, Malcolm X turned, in a dramatic prison conversion, to the puritanical fervour of the Black Muslims. As their spokesman, he became identified in the white press as a terrifying teacher of race hatred; but to his direct audience, the oppressed American blacks, he brought hope and self-respect. This autobiography (written with Alex Haley) reveals his quick-witted integrity, usually obscured by batteries of frenzied headlines, and the fierce idealism which led him to reject both liberal hypocrisies and black racialism.
The Boys of Summer
by Roger Kahn, ISBN-10: 9780060883966
The Lives of a Cell
by Lewis Thomas ISBN-10: 0140047433