Students are expected to read one of the following over the summer and complete an assessment given during the first week of school (hopefully the first day).  Rising juniors also need to complete some written pieces over the summer.  In order to increase the number or books that students read during their high school career, students need to choose a book they have not read before.  Honors and AP English students must see their teachers for different summer reading assignments.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Stargirl- by Jerry Spinelli

Skellig- by David Almond

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian- by Sherman Alexie

The Secret Life of Bees- by Sue Monk Kidd

Students who will be entering the 10^th grade: Science focus

Sailing with Noah by Jeffrey Bonner

The Hot Zone by Richard Preston

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

A Whale for the Killing by Farley Mowat

Endurance: Shackletonís Incredible Voyage: by Alfred Lansing

All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot

Gravity by Tess Gerritson

D.A. by Connie Willis

The Fist of God by Frederick Forsythe

The Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy

Lady with a Spear by Eugenie Clark

Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam, and the Science of Ocean Motion Loree Griffin Burns

The Climb by Gordon Korman  (There are 3 in this series.)

My Side of the Mountain: Jean Craighead George

The Tracker by Tom Brown

Students who will be entering the 11^th grade: History focus

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn- Mark Twain Moderate Reading Level

The Great Gatsby-F. Scott Fitzgeraldís Higher Reading Level

My Antonia- Willa Cather Moderate Reading Level

Bread Givers Anzia Yeziersk Easier Reading Level

Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer Moderate Reading Level

Feed- by M.T. Anderson

The Art of Racing in the Rain- by Garth Stein

The Lovely Bones- by Alice Sebold

No Country for Old Men--by Cormac McCarthy

The Road- by Cormac MCarthy

Descriptions of titles

Rising Freshman Summer Choices

Stargirl- by Jerry Spinelli:  This popular book is about a very odd girl who shows up at Leoís high school one day.  It is about fitting in and not fitting in and the right to do either one.  This book is told from a high

school boyís perspective.

Skellig- by David Almond: This award winning book is about a boyís family problems which include a scary creature which he finds living in his garage.  The main character, Michael, is  not quite sure if this creature is a giant bird, a deformed human, or an angel.  

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian- by Sherman Alexie: This funny and sad book has many sides to it.  At time it seems a little like a comic with goofy drawings, and at other times it can make you laugh or cry.  It centers on the life of a Native American high school basketball player who decided to try to make himself a better life by going to high school off the reservation.  Some mature situations.

The Secret Life of Bees- by Sue Monk Kidd: This is an excellent book set in the rural south in the 1960ís.  It is about a motherless girl and her quest to find people who knew and loved her mother.  There is a mystery that surrounds how her mother was killed.  The book deals with racism, mental illness, and beekeeping!  

Speak-  by Laurie Halse Anderson: This interesting book centers around what happens to a girl who refuses to speak during her freshman year of high school.  Set up sort of like a report card with many mini-chapters, the book gradually reveals why she will not speak and what happened at a fateful party during the summer before high school started.  Contains mature situations.  

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Sailing with Noah: Stories from the World of Zoos by Jeffrey Bonner

Review from Amazon.com: ìI absolutely loved this book. I thought it would be just another collection of anecdotes but even if it includes indeed some of those it is a serious (yet not at all boring) and deeply-felt account of the role of zoos in conservation. If you're still in doubt as to whether it makes a difference or not to try and save all those species that are endangered or may soon be, this book will convince you as it has me. As Baba Dioum wisely put it "In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand and we will understand only what we are taught." And this book has definitely taught me a great deal.î

The Hot Zone by Richard Preston

Review from Amazon.com: This book does bring up an all-important point; we are only an airplane ride away from the outbreak of a pandemic. It is very possible that a highly contagious disease may break out and cover the earth in a matter of days leaving a large portion of the population dead, making the premise behind Stephen King's novel "The Stand" not so far fetched after all. These filoviruses are very interesting, and Preston reveals them in such a way that you want to know more about them.

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

Review from Amazon.com: A bank of clouds was assembling on the not-so-distant horizon, but journalist-mountaineer Jon Krakauer, standing on the summit of Mt. Everest, saw nothing that "suggested that a murderous storm was bearing down." He was wrong. The storm, which claimed five lives and left countless more--including Krakauer's--in guilt-ridden disarray, would also provide the impetus for Into Thin Air, Krakauer's epic account of the May 1996 disaster. With more than 250 black-and-white photographs taken by various expedition members and an enlightening new postscript by the author, the Illustrated Edition shows readers what this tragic climb looked like and potentially provides closure for Krakauer and his detractors.

A Whale for the Killing by Farley Mowat

Review from Amazon.com: A Whale for the Killing" chronicles the unlikely and you might also say, unseemly doings in a small Newfoundland outport in the 1960s. In what soon proved to be a run of bad luck, one of the largest of the sea mammals, a Fin whale, found itself trapped in a huge body of water near the town of Burgeo. It had managed to just slide over a rocky underwater escarpment and get into the bay, but try as it might it could not get out again.

All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot

Review from Amazon.com: In All Creatures Great and Small, we meet the young Herriot as he takes up his calling and discovers that the realities of veterinary practice in rural Yorkshire are very different from the sterile setting of veterinary school. From caring for his patients in the depths of winter on the remotest homesteads to dealing with uncooperative owners and critically ill animals, Herriot discovers the wondrous variety and never-ending challenges of veterinary practice as his humor, compassion, and love of the animal world shine forth.

Gravity by Tess Gerritson

Review from Amazon.com: Dr. Emma Watson and five other hand-picked astronauts are about to take part in the trip of a lifetime--studying living creatures in space. But an alien life form, found in the deepest crevices of the ocean floor, is accidentally brought aboard the shuttle Atlantis. This mutated alien life form makes the creatures in Aliens look like backyard pets.  Soon the crew are suffering severe stomach pains, violent convulsions, and eyes so bloodshot that a gallon of Murine wouldn't help. Gerritsen brilliantly describes the difficulties of treating sick people inside a space module, and how the lack of gravity affects the process of taking blood and inserting a nasal tube. Dr. Watson does her best, but her colleagues die off one by one and the people at NASA don't want to risk bringing the platform back to earth. Only Emma's husband, a doctor/astronaut himself, refuses to give up on her. As we read along, eyes popping out of our heads, all that's missing is one of those bland NASA voices saying, "Houston, we have a problem--we're being attacked by tiny little creatures that are part human, part frog, and part mouse.

D.A. by Connie Willis

From Amazon.com: Some high school kids would do anything to be an IASA space cadet, but not Theodora Baumgarten in Willis's cheerfully tongue-in-cheek SF novella. "There's no air, you're squashed into a ship the size of a juice can, and it takes years to get anywhere interesting. If you... aren't killed first by a meteor or a solar flare or a systems malfunction." But somehow, without submitting an application, Theodora is accepted to the Academy. Soon, she's green with space sickness aboard the Academy space station (named, appropriately enough, the Robert A. Heinlein), learning the ropes with a class of robust, gung-ho cadets. Getting out will require solving the mystery of how she got into the Academy in the first place, but it might have something to do with the annotation "D.A." in her station records.

The Fist of God by Frederick Forsythe

From Amazon.com: The Fist of God" is an international/military thriller based on the first Gulf War in 1991 (and the prelude in the last half of 1990), when the USA and a large number of coalition countries forced Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait. The basic story involves the British discovering that Saddam Hussein has some kind of secret weapon, code-named "The Fist of God". So then the British (and Americans) have to determine exactly what kind of weapon it is, and where it's located.

The Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy

From Amazon.com:  In The Sum of All Fears, the center of conflict is the perpetual hot spot the Mideast, where a nuclear weapon falls into the hands of terrorists just as peace seems possible. Clancy realistically paints an almost unthinkable scenario--the bomb is planted on American soil in the midst of an escalation in tension with the Soviet Union; the terrorists hope to rekindle cold war animosity and prevent reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians.

Lady with a Spear by Eugenie Clark

From Amazon.com:  Lady with a Spear is a book filled with facts and adventure, told by the shark lady herself, Eugeine Clark. It's all about her life from early on to 1953. She travels from island to island in the South Pacific and Red Sea, collecting fish and watching sharks for research. Her wild, experiences will amaze you and open your heart and mind to another world as her experiences are explained to you. The book can be a bit technical at some times though but keep on reading! You'll fall in love with the sea and its creatures! Her second book, The LADY AND THE SHARKS is just as good, maybe even better! Eugenie is one amazing person and I suggest deeply that you read this book and feel what she herself felt. She's just a great woman with a great personality and a dedication to save the creatures of the sea!

Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam, and the Science of Ocean Motion by Loree Griffin Burns

From Amazon.com: This book is about the science of ocean currents, it's actually about why we need to protect our marine environment. Burns tells the tale of Dr. Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer who started to track trash (flotsam) that washed up on the shore near his Seattle home. Through floating sneakers and bath toys that accidentally fell off container ships and a computer program named OSCURS, Ebbesmeyer tracked the currents of the ocean. These experiments led to a discussion of how debris is polluting our oceans and causing harm to marine life. Burns introduces the work of several scientists who are working to clean up ghost nets and other dangerous debris.

The Climb by Gordon Korman  (There are 3 in this series.)

My Side of the Mountain: Jean Craighead George

The Tracker by Tom Brown

Students taking Honors American History must read The Great Gatsby and one other ìmoderate reading levelî book from the list. A reflection piece must be completed for both books.

Mark Twain's classic novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, tells the story of a teenaged misfit who finds himself floating on a raft down the Mississippi River with an escaping slave, Jim. In the course of their perilous journey, Huck and Jim meet adventure, danger, and a cast of characters who are sometimes menacing and often hilarious.

F. Scott Fitzgeraldís third book stands as the supreme achievement of his career. This exemplary novel of the Jazz Age had been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when The New York Times noted ìgin was the national drink and sex the national obsession,î is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s. The Great Gatsby is one of the great classics of twentieth century literature.

This masterwork of American immigrant literature is set in the 1920s on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and tells the story of Sara Smolinsky, the youngest daughter of an Orthodox rabbi, who rebels against her father's rigid conception of Jewish womanhood. Sarah's struggle towards independence and self-fulfillment resonates with a passion all can share. Beautifully redesigned page for page with the previous editions, Bread Givers is an essential historical work with enduring relevance.

My Antonia is a classic tale of pioneer life in the American Midwest. The novel details daily life in the newly settled plains of Nebraska through the eyes of Jim Burden, who recounts memories of a childhood shared with a girl named Antonia Shimerda, the daughter of a family who have emigrated from Bohemia. Full of stirring descriptions of the prairie's beautiful yet terrifying landscape, and the rich ethnic mix of immigrants and native-born Americans who chose to restart their lives there, My Antonia mythologized a period of American history that was lost before its value could be understood.

After graduating from Emory University in Atlanta in 1992, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandoned his possessions, gave his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhiked to Alaska, where he went to live in the wilderness. Four months later, he turned up dead. His diary, letters and two notes found at a remote campsite tell of his desperate effort to survive, apparently stranded by an injury and slowly starving. In a moving narrative, author Jon Krakauer probes the mystery of McCandless's death, which he attributes to logistical blunders and to accidental poisoning from eating toxic seed pods. Moderate Reading Level

Over the summer all students will be expected to read one of the following books and be ready for an assessment on the first day of school.  You must read the whole book and not a summary of the book or just watch the movie.  You must choose a book you have not read before.  You may buy your own copy or borrow one from the school or a library.

Non-AP students can choose from among the following:

Feed by M.T. Anderson- about a future world where everyone with money has an internet connection directly implanted in their brain and you can surf the net by thinking.

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stien- this book is told from the point of view of a dog who is owned by a race car driver.  It is about the driverís life and in-laws.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold- told from the point of view of a young girl who has been murdered, it traces the circumstances of her death and the struggles her family has when trying to deal with their pain.

No Country for Old Men- by Cormac McCarthy-  (choose this only if you have not read it already).  This book is about a man who stumbles upon a drug deal gone bad and the killer who chases him.  It jumps about a lot and is kind of confusing, but most guys like it.

The Road- by Cormac McCarthy- This is a book about a future where lots of things have gone wrong.  In the book a man and his young son are traveling along ìThe Roadî South and trying to avoid the bad people who are out to get anyone they can.