May 2017 Dear Students and Parents, at Belmont Hill We Value
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May 2017 Dear Students and Parents, At Belmont Hill we value highly the reading our students do outside of class. Each form has required commonly read selections that are listed below. In addition to the required books for each form, boys need to choose a faculty- sponsored book. A list was provided to all boys via email, and they should have signed up for a title before leaving school. They should read this title carefully and write a one-page reader's response. This can be analysis of the important themes, of the characters, and of the plot and/or your personal reaction to the book. We also have one book, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah, which will be read by all boys in Forms III-VI. Forms III-VI: Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood, Trevor Noah I: Curveball: The Year I Lost My Grip, Jordan Sonnenblink; Wonder, R.J. Palacio II: New Boy, Julian Houston III: The Real All Americans, Sally Jenkins IV: The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini V: Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance VI: Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS, Joby Warrick Just to complicate matters, some of our AP courses require summer reading. Required titles follow: AP European History (History 4): Fall of Giants, Ken Follet AP Environmental Science: The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert AP French Language: Le Petit Prince, Antoine de Saint Exupéry AP Spanish Language: Devolver al remitente by Julia Álvarez We hope these selections will help foster a love of reading in all of our students. Families are required to purchase these titles independently. Sincerely, Michael Grant Dean of Studies [email protected] Faculty Sponsored Summer Reading Books 2017 Dr. Tift Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (Form V, Form VI only) “Maybe there would be a bad outcome for some of the others, but no one was going to shoot a soprano.” Inspired by a true story that took place in the Japanese embassy in Peru, Bel Canto brings to life an extraordinary hostage-holding crime event, in which a rebel group invades an upscale South American gala and detains almost 200 guests for a lengthy amount of time. Patchett goes far beyond recreating the details of a crime to imagine the thoughts and feelings of both the hostages and those who imprison them, taking on those illicit roles for a multitude of reasons and motivations. The mansion becomes its own society with relationships built on deep love as well as deep hatred, language barriers and bridges, and unexpected cross-cultural discoveries on all sides. Music is a powerful theme of the novel as well: One of the most prominent guests is an opera star Roxanne Coss—who sings “as if she was saving the life of every person in the room”—and another character turns out to be musically ingenious, as well. Mr. McAlpin Cannery Row by John Steinbeck (1945) Cannery Row is a funny and affectionate tale with some of the most vividly realized characters I have ever encountered. It is set in Monterey, California during the economic unraveling of the Depression on the cusp of the end of a way of life as the fish canning industries are closing. This tumbled down and ramshackle community supports a colorful cast of unemployed vagabonds who have rejected the constraints of work and career to live simply and irreverently and free of the burdens of responsibility. There are “laugh out loud” passages in this book when Mack and the boys go on a misguided frog hunt for Doc, a marine biologist who collects specimens for a supply house and serves as the glue for this unlikely community of misfits. The book is short (181 pages), the writing is magical, the characters are unforgettable, and the stories reveal a cross section of humanities strengths and foibles. Here is the opening paragraph of the book! “Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitant are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gamblers and sons of bitches," by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, "Saints and angels and martyrs and holymen" and he would have meant the same thing.” Mr. Hegarty Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance (2016) (Rising Juniors may not choose this book as it is already required for your form) A book that was on many "Best of 2016" lists for non-fiction, Hillbilly Elegy has been called by many reviewers, "essential reading," "a riveting book," and the "most important book about America" in 2016. Mr. Vance writes about growing up in the Appalachian regions of Kentucky and Ohio. He reflects on the disappearance of the American Dream for many of the white working class in the Midwest, due in some cases to outside forces such as globalization, but also, because of poor choices by many members of his extended family. If you are interested in finding out one of the reasons why Hillary Clinton lost many of the counties in the Midwest (previously won by President Obama), to Donald Trump, Hillbilly Elegy will help you understand why now President Trump appealed to many of the voters in the Midwest in the 2016 election. In the words of The Economist, “J.D. Vance’s memoir, Hillbilly Elegy offers a starkly honest look at what that shattering of faith feels like for a family who lived through it. You will not read a more important book about America this year.” Doc Fast Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, (1952) For rising Fifth and Sixth Formers. I have always been an advocate of this narrative, saying over and over that, in my view, it should be a must read for every boy in the school before he graduates. It is a long narrative (581 pages) but well worth the investment. I would especially recommend this novel, as a point of reference, to anyone electing Literature of Social Reflection or Pathways to Social Justice. Invisible Man is often deemed the greatest American novel in the second half of the twentieth century. R. W. B. Lewis describes it as follows: “When this novel was first published in 1952, it wrenched thousands of readers into a sudden recognition of what it was like to be black in a country where black people were invisible. Today Invisible Man remains just as powerful––not because its truths are wholly new, but because it delivers them with a visceral immediacy that is at once painful, frightening and exhilarating. “Invisible Man is the story of several passages in a young man’s life––from the deep South to the streets of Harlem, from living on his knees to standing defiantly on his feet, from a tearful denial to a passionate embrace of his American [identity]. It is a Dantesque journey through the subterranean strata of black society in the era between the wars, related in a voice that prays and incites, sings the blues and plays the dozens.” Mr. Martin Power Down by Ben Coes This is the first in a series about Dewey Andreas A major North American hydroelectric dam is blown up and the largest off-shore oil field in this hemisphere is destroyed in a brutal, coordinated terrorist attack. But there was one factor that the terrorists didn't take into account when they struck the Capitana platform off the coast of Colombia--slaughtering much of the crew and blowing up the platform--and that was the Capitana crew chief Dewey Andreas. Dewey, former Army Ranger and Delta, survives the attack, rescuing as many of his men as possible. But the battle has just begun. Mr. Butler When the Game Stands Tall In 2003, high-school football coach Bob Ladouceur and his De La Salle Spartans completed an incredible 151 consecutive victories and 12-straight state championships. While the team's seniors receive offers from colleges all over the country, the advancing juniors look forward to making their mark. However, beloved "Coach Lad" has a brush with calamity, while the Spartans face their most-challenging, most-unpredictable season yet. Mr. Mooney The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, trans. Richard Howard (1943; 2000) "Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is exhausting for children to have to provide explanations over and over again." Among the most widely translated and well-known books of literature enjoyed by adults and children alike, The Little Prince was published less than a year before its author, man of letters and pioneering aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, disappeared midflight over the Mediterranean. Its protagonist--also a pilot--makes a crash landing in the Sahara Desert, where he encounters "an extraordinary little fellow" who recounts the story of his life while teaching lessons at once unfamiliar and universal. Containing encounters with anthropomorphic, interplanetary, and human figures alike, The Little Prince revels in reimagining the impossible and mystifying the mundane. As the Prince observes of Earth, "What a peculiar planet! It's all dry and sharp and hard. And people here have no imagination. They repeat whatever you say to them. Where I live I had a flower: She always spoke first..." Mr. Musler Dispatches - vignettes about certain battles during the Vietnam War by Michael Herr Written on the front lines in Vietnam, Dispatches became an immediate classic of war reportage when it was published in 1977.