Suggested Summer Reading for Incoming 12th Graders - College Preparatory
“I have been established, anointed and sealed by God. Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put His Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.” – 2 Corinthians 1:21-22
Parents and Students,
Because administration has directed that no official project or writing assignment be attached to summer reading, I am not changing it from last year. Honestly, if your student is reading anything and enjoying it, that’s great! The connection between reading and academic success -- both now and on standardized tests, writing, and post secondary learning -- is overwhelming! I recommend (and this is advice I have to take myself!) branching out from one’s favorite genre for variety and to discover additional types of writing to enjoy. At the end of the book list, I will recommend a few that I have read in the past few months.
Contemporary Fiction • Julie by Catherine Marshall • Lord of the Flies - William Golding • I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou Bleachers by John Grisham Historical Fiction • A Painted House by John Grisham • Novels from the Savannah Quartet by Eugenia Price Timeless Favorites • 1776 by David McCulloch • House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel • Dear and Glorious Physician by Taylor Hawthorne Caldwell • A Farewell to Arms or The Old Man and the • Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott Sea by Ernest Hemingway • Treasure Island, Kidnapped, or Dr. Jekyll and • Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson • Les Miserables by Victor Hugo • Novels from The Georgia Trilogy by Eugenia • Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy Price • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte • A Lantern in Her Hand by Bess Streeter • Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Aldrich • Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison • The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck Non-Fiction • Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck • Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller • Death of a Salesman - Arthur Miller (drama) • Know What You Believe by Paul Little • Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis Science Fiction/Fantasy • Divine Nobodies by Jim Palmer • 1984 by George Orwell • Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer • Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury • Flags of our Fathers by James Bradley • Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov • Same Kind of Different As Me by Ron Hall • Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury and Denver Moore • The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
literary merit but not difficult (this is the author Just a couple of books I’ve read recently that I think of The Kite Runner, which I have not read). students would enjoy: ● Educated by Tara Westover (an autobiography) ● Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel - I Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, actually read this two years ago, and my copy Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she has been passed around among students from set foot in a classroom. Her family was so seniors down to freshmen. It’s a combination of isolated from mainstream society that there was dystopia, poetic language, and the ironic way that no one to ensure the children received an people’s lives intertwine. It involves a global education, and no one to intervene when one of pandemic (much worse than our current situation Tara’s older brothers became violent. When - yet, some might want to steer clear for this another brother got himself into college, Tara reason) that changes the course of the characters’ decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for future. Though the world is changed irrevocably, knowledge transformed her, taking her over it’s ultimately about hope and the fact that oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to “survival is insufficient.” Though it’s powerful Cambridge University. Only then would she in its words, the novel is easy to read. wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still Minor language/situations - I’d rate it a PG a way home.
● The Glass Hotel- by Emily St. John Mandel (the ● Some great historical fiction I’ve read that same author as Station Eleven). I’m halfway doesn’t fall into the cliches and copycats of through this right now, and while I don’t like it recent years: as well as her previous novel, the characters are ○ All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony believable, and the interweaving of characters’ Doeer. Mrs. Miles recommended this to lives is deftly written. me, and now it’s probably in my top 25
novels of all time! ● Those interested in legal thrillers will like John ○ The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Grisham. I don’t love all his novels (and he’s Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie written many through the decades!), but my Barrows is delightful (I think it’s a favorite is The Testament, which follows a Netflix movie now, too). lawyer searching for a missing missionary in ○ The Help - by Kathryn Stockett Brazil, with a clever plot and a twist ending. ○ The Alice Network- about women spies Grisham’s books are not religious, but this one in WW2 definitely has subtle Christian themes. Also great ○ The Lost Girls of Paris are The Firm (his second novel that “put him on the map”) and A Time to Kill (his first novel). ● I have not read it (but will be, soon!), but The The Guardians and Camino Island are two of his Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (A Hunger most recent novels that were enjoyable. Games Novel) by Suzanne Collins, the prequel to
The Hunger Games, was released yesterday! It is ● A Thousand Splendid Suns - by Khaled Hosseini the morning of the reaping that will kick off the is a beautiful but sometimes harsh story set tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, against the volatile events of Afghanistan’s last eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing thirty years, so historical fiction. Again, much for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to outcharm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute.The odds are against him. He’s been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined — every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute . . . and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.
Thank you,
Karla Lewellyn [email protected]