Lahser High School English Department
Required Summer Reading
All students will be required to read over the summer and will be responsible for this reading in September. Refer to the course you will be taking in the 2008-2009 school year and the accompanying required reading. For additional reading selections, click on the links below.
9th Grade English Classes | Humanities | British Literature | AP English
Writing through Literature I: Read 1
Zlata’s Diary by Zlata Filipovic
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon
Honors English 9: Read 2
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Choose 1 other book from the 9th grade online media center reading list
Foundations in Writing: Read 1
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
1984 by George Orwell
Writing through Literature II: Read 1
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Humanities: Read 3
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Read 2 books (1 English, 1 Social Studies) from the Humanities online media center reading list
Writing through American Literature III: Read 1
The Best of Frank DeFord: I’m Just Getting Started by Frank DeFord
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
British Literature: Read 2
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Read 1 other book from the British Literature online media center reading list
Writing through Film Genre: Watch 1
Citizen Kane
Casablanca
Gone with the Wind
Writing through Modern Literature: Read 1
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Housseini
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen
Advanced Placement English: Read 3
Read 3 texts from the AP online media center reading list
Creative Writing: Read 1
Writers on Writing: Collected Essays from the New York Times
Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury
Journalism: Read 1
Hiroshima by John Hersey
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
9th Grade Additional Reading Selections
After the First Death ~Cormier, Robert. The highjacking of a bus full of children initiates a series of horrifying events in this story of terrorism, military intelligence, and their impact on a young man and woman.
Black Like Me ~ Griffin , John. A white man transforms himself with the aid of medication and dye in order to experience firsthand the life of a black man living in the Deep South in the late 1950s.
The Bone Wars ~Lasky. Kathryn. Teenage scout Thad Longsworth, blood brother Black Elk, finds his destiny as the Great Plains Indians prepare to go to war against the white man.
Boy's Life ~McCammon, Robert. When Cory Mackenson and his father witness a brutal murder in their small town a summer of revelations begins that will change his life forever.
The Client ~Grisham, John. A young boy is inadvertently present at the bizarre suicide of a New Orleans defense attorney on the eve of the biggest trial of his career. and finds himself pressed for information by the police and hunted by mobsters.
Clover ~Sanders, Dori. After her father dies within hours of being married to a white woman, a ten-year-old black girl learns with her new mother to overcome grief and to adjust to a new place in their rural black South Carolina community.
Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man ~Flagg, Fannie. Daisy Fay's imagination and love for adventure help her find joy in her troubled daily life and enable her to keep an eye on a future that will take her beyond her hometown blues.
Davita’s Harp ~Potok, Chaim. As life during World War II takes its toll, Davita turns to the Jewish faith that her mother had long ago abandoned, finding both a solace for her inner pain and a test of her budding spirit of independence.
The Drowning of Stephan Jones ~Green, Bette. Carla faces a battle of torn loyalties when her boyfriend starts persecuting the homosexual owners of an antiques shop.
Durable Goods ~Berg. Elizabeth. It's summer in the 1950s on a Texas army base. Impatient for her life to change, Katie discovers some of the difficulties of growing up and longs for the experience of falling in love.
Ender's Game ~Card. Orson Scott. To combat an alien threat, the government is breeding military geniuses. The brightest is Ender Wiggin, who finds himself in the deadliest battle of all time.
Finding My Voice ~Lee. Marie. As she tries to enjoy her senior year, Korean American Ellen Sung must deal with the prejudices of classmates and pressures from her parents to get A's.
Finishing Becca ~Rinaldi, Ann. After her mother sends her to work as a maid for Peggy Shipper, the spoiled daughter of a Philadelphia Quaker, Becca finds herself caught between her stepfather's wishes and her own dreams.
The Glory Field ~Myers, Walter Dean. When Muhammad Bilal is shackled and thrown into the hold of a slave ship in 1754, beginning the story of nine generations of a proud and enduring American family.
The Grass Dancer ~Power, Susan. Charlene Thunder is in love with Harley Wind Soldier. But when Harley's soul mate dies in a crash, Charlene suspects her grandmother, the witch Anna Thunder, of causing it.
The House Tibet ~ Savage , Georgia. After she is attacked by her father, fourteen year old Vicky and her autistic younger brother flee to a seashore town on the Gold Coast of Australia where other runaways befriend them.
Little Women ~Alcott, Louisa May. A New England family experiences the joys and sorrows of life during and after the Civil War, as the four daughters become young women.
Mila 18 ~ Uris , Leon. A teenager experiences first love while attempting to survive in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II.
The Music of Summer ~Guy, Rosa. The attractive, sophisticated young African-Americans gathered at Cape Cod have their own set of economic and color prejudices; but, Sarah, the darkest-skinned, begins to see more clearly the duties and hope of her ancestry.
Rebecca ~DuMaurier, Daphne. A young, newly-married woman arrives at Manderlay, her wealthy new husband's estate, to find herself living under the specter of his dead wife and a sinister housekeeper.
Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind ~Staples, Suzanne Fisher. Shabanu has been brought up with more freedom than most Muslim girls, so when her family insists on an arranged marriage, should she listen or follow her heart?
Shadow Man ~Grant, Cynthia D. Charming but reckless eighteen-year-old Gabe McCloud smashes his truck and dies, sending waves of shock and grief through his small town and leaving Jennie Harding, his pregnant girlfriend, to deal with thoughts of suicide.
The Singing Mermaid ~Levitin, Sonia. Tragedy brings 16 year old Carlie to live with her Orthodox Jewish relatives. Insight to the Arab-Israeli conflict emerges in this intriguing novel.
Sirena ~ Napoli, Donna Jo. Mermaid Sirena, realizing that her call leads men to their deaths, chooses to abandon her sisters, embarking on a journey that leads to love, heartache, and triumph.
The Slave Dancer ~Fox, Paula. Thirteen year old Jessie Bollier, kidnapped from New Orleans by a slave ship, is forced to play his fife so the slaves can dance to keep their muscles strong.
Souls Raised from the Dead ~Betts, Doris. When thirteen year old Mary Grace becomes ill, her father must face the fact that, despite his love for his daughter, he may be unable to save her.
Spellbound ~Pike, Christopher. Karen Holly was found in the mountain stream, her skull crushed. Her boyfriend, insists a grizzly killed her, but doubts arise as to the true cause of death.
The Tiger in the Well ~ Pullman , Philip. Someone is trying to destroy the life Sally Lockhart shares with her daughter Harriet - someone who claims to be her husband!
Up a Road Slowly ~Hunt, Irene. After her mother's death, Julie Trelling goes to live with Aunt Cordelia, a spinster schoolteacher, where she experiences a range of emotions and changes as she grows from seven to eighteen.
Winterdance ~Paulsen, Gary. For seventeen days, Paulsen and his team of dogs endure blinding wind, snowstorms, moose attacks, and more in their attempt to complete the Iditarod.
You Never Knew Her As I Did ~Hunter, Mollie. Will Douglas serves his Queen, Mary Queen of Scots, through her captivity in Scotland , aiding her escape and attempts to regain power.
Zlata's Diary ~Filipovic, Zlata. Zlata, a Sarajevo teenager, began keeping her diary in 1991, chronicling her active young life. Just as we begin to enjoy Zlata's fine mind and cheerful disposition, the chaos and terror of war shatter her world.
Please read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain and 2 other books--one "English" and one "Social Studies"--from the selections below. An asterisk (*) denotes a "Social Studies" book.
*Age of Betrayal ~ Beatty, Jack. Beatty provides a fresh look at the "revolution from above" of the industrialization that forged modern America. A depression brought on by railroad speculation throws millions out of work, the hungry riot for bread in Buffalo, the homeless sleep on Chicago's streets, "tramps" are arrested, strikers are shot, and the nation's presidents avert their eyes.
All the King's Men ~ Warren, Robert Penn. Willie Stark, a well-intentioned, idealistic, back-country lawyer is unable to resist greed for power and lust for politics during his rise and fall as an American demagogue.
*Andrew Carnegie ~ Nasaw, David. America's first modern titan, this biography of Cargnegie brings to life a period of unprecendented transition -- a time of self-made millionaires, scabs, strikes, and a new kind of philanthropy -- through the fascinating rags-to-riches story of one of our most iconic business legends.
*Autobiography of Malcolm X ~ Haley, Alex. He rose from hoodlum, theif, dope peddler, pimp...to become the most dynamic leader of the Black Revolution. He said he would be murdered before this book appeared.
The Bean Trees ~Kingsolver, Barbara. Taylor, a poor Kentuckian, makes her way west with an abandoned baby girl and stops in Tucsan. There she finds friends and discovers resources in apparently empty places.
*Brave New World ~ Huxley, Aldous. Bernard Marx becomes a citizen in an utopian World-State where babies are born in laboratories, there is no violence, all citizens take drugs for depression, and contentment overrides the free will of the populace.
The Catcher in the Rye ~ Salinger, J.D. Unable to conform despite pressure from his family, teachers, and friends, Holden Caufield embarks on a journey of self-discovery.
*A Century of Dishonor ~ Jackson, Helen Hunt. A classic account of the U.S. government's flawed Indian policy and the unfair and cruel treatment afforded North American Indians by expansionist Americans.
*Crazy Horse~ Bray, Kingsley M. This account corrects older, idealized legends to expose the real Crazy Horse: not the brash Sioux warrior we have come to expect but a modest, reflective man whose courage was anchored in Lakota piety.
Ethan Frome ~ Wharton, Edith. Ethan Frome, a New England farmer who is married to a hypochondriac, is in love with his wife's lively cousin, Mattie.
*Edison ~ Josephson, Matthew. The biography of Thomas Edison, portraying the man and the myth behind the genius.
Fahrenheit 451 ~ Bradbury, Ray. After learning that books are a vital part of a culture he never knew, a book-burning official in a future fascist state clandestinely pursues reading until he is betrayed.
*The Feminine Mystique ~ Friedan, Betty. A reissue of the 1963 text which sparked the feminist movement through its analysis of the changing role and status of women.
For Whom the Bell Tolls ~ Hemingway, Ernest. The story of an American, Robert Jordan, who fought during the Civil War in Spain with the anti-facist guerrillas in the mountains of Spain.
Go Tell It on the Mountain ~ Baldwin, James A. Describes a day in the life of several members of a Harlem fundamentalist church. The saga of three generations of people is related through flashbacks.
*The Great Bridge ~ McCullough, David. Celebrating the centennial of the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, here is the classic account of one of the greatest engineering feats of all time.
*The Guns of August ~ Tuchman, Barbara. Intensive study of the background of the first World War, and of the battles of Liege, Tannenberg, Mons and others fought during the first thirty days.
*The House of Morgan ~ Chernow, Ron. The most ambitious history ever written about an American banking dynasty, The House of Morgan traces the astonishing path of the J.P. Morgan empire with the sweep of an epic novel.
*Inhuman Bondage ~ Davis, David. This compelling narrative links together the profits of slavery, the pain of the enslaved, and the legacy of racism in a portrait of the dark side of the American dream.
Invisible Man ~ Ellison, Ralph. In the course of his wanderings from a Southern college to New York's Harlem, an African-American man becomes involved in a series of adventures.
*The Jungle ~ Sinclair, Upton. A fictional description of the conditions of the Chicago stockyards through the eyes of a young immigrant struggling in America at the beginning of the twentieth century.
*Lighting the Way ~ Schiff, Karenna Gore. The stories collected highlight the lives of nine extraordinary women, each of whom was ridiculed and ostracized for arguing for the changes in national policy that are taken for granted today.
My Antonia ~ Cather, Willa. A successful lawyer remembers his boyhood in Nebraska and his friendship with an immigrant Bohemian girl.
*Nothing Like It in the World ~ Ambrose, Stephen. Profiles the men who built the transcontinental railroad, the investors who risked their businesses to fund it, the politicians who understood its importance, the Irish and Chinese immigrants who worked on it, and the other laborers who did the dangerous work of laying the track.
*On the Road ~ Kerouac, Jack. Presents a thinly fictionalized autobiography of Jack Kerouac's cross-country adventure across North America on a quest for self-knowledge as experienced by his alter-ego, Sal Paradise and Sal's friend Dean Moriarty (Kerouac's real life friend Neal Cassidy).
*Over Here ~ Humes, Edward. This is the story of how the G.I. Bill made homeowners, college graduates, professionals, rocket scientists, and a booming middle class out of a Depression-era generation that never expected such opportunity.
*The Path Between the Seas ~ McCullough, David. A fact-filled account of the unprecendented creation of the Panama Canal, the costliest single effort ever mounted anywhere on earth. It is also the story of the people who were caught up in it -- some to win fame and fortune, others to have their reputations and even their lives destroyed.
The Red Badge of Courage ~ Crane Stephen. During his service in the Civil War a young Union soldier matures to manhood and finds peace of mind as he comes to grips with his conflicting emotions about war.
Sea Wolf ~ London, Jack. Humphrey Van Weyden is pressed into service aboard the "Ghost" a schooner led by Captain Wolf Larson, whose abuse results in violence, mutiny, and shipwreck.
*Silent Spring ~ Carson, Rachel. The work that started the modern American environmental movement, this is a strong and opinionated attack on man's destruction of nature, explaining the tragic cycle of the insecticide DDT and reflecting upon the human cost of our 20th-century obsession with chemicals.
*The Souls of Black Folk ~ Du Bois, W. E. B. This landmark in the literature of black protest eloquently affirms that it is beneath the dignity of a human being to beg for those rights that belong inherently to all mankind.
The Sound and the Fury ~ Faulkner, William. The members of a genteel Southern family are portrayed as petty failures, drunkards, suicides, pathological perverts, and idiots.
*Theodore Rex ~ Morris, Edmund. This biography begins with Roosevelt's emergency oath of office and tells the story of the following seven and a half years during which TR entertains, infuriates, amuses, strong-arms, and secudes the body politic into a state of almost total subservience to his will.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn ~ Smith, Betty. Young Francie Nolan, having inherited both her father's romantic and her mother's practical nature, struggles to survive and thrive growing up in the slums of Brooklyn in the early twentieth century.
*Truman ~ McCullough, David. Full scale biography of Harry S. Truman, his life and times, drawn from newly discovered archival matieral and interviews with Truman family, friends, and political figures.
*The Worst Hard Time ~ Egan, Timothy. The dust storms that terrorized America's High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since, and the stories of the people that held on have never been fully told until now.
**You may also choose to read any Presidential biography or autobiography.
British Literature Reading Selections
Please read The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and 1 other book from the following list.
Dracula ~ Stoker, Bram. After discovering the double identity of the wealthy Transylvanian nobleman, Count Dracula, a small group of people vow to rid the world of the evil vampire.
Emma ~ Austen, Jane. Emma is everything a girl would like to be - wealthy, beautiful and intelligent. But she is also spoiled and selfish, and when she decides to do a bit of matchmaking, it ends in her downfall.
Far From the Madding Crowd ~ Hardy, Thomas. Gabriel Oak, in love with the beautiful heiress Bathsheba Everdene, waits patiently while she works her way through the hearts of local men.
Jane Eyre ~ Bronte, Charlotte. Jane, a plain and penniless orphan in ninteenth-century England, accepts employment as a governess at Thornfield Hall and soon finds herself in love with her melancholy employer, Mr. Edward Rochester, a man with a terrible secret.
1984 ~ Orwell, George. Winston Smith, a worker at the Ministry of Truth in the political entity of Oceania, puts his life on the line when he joins a covert brotherhood in rebelling against the Party that controls all human thought and action.
Robinson Crusoe ~ DeFoe, Daniel. An Englishman's great resourcefulness enables him to survive for almost thiry years on the desert island where he is shipwrecked.
A Tale of Two Cities ~ Dickens, Charles. Relates the adventures of a young Englishman who gives his life during the French Revolution to save the husband of the woman he loves.
Tess of the D’Urbervilles ~ Hardy, Thomas. A novel about a young woman who attempts to restore her family's fortunes, is seduced by a heartless aristocrat, and is punished by society's double standards when she gets a chance at real love.
Please read 3 of texts from the following list.
Burger’s Daughter ~ Gordimer, Nadine. The story of a young woman's evolving identity in the political environment of South Africa in 1980.
Catch 22 ~ Helle, Joseph. A bombardier, based in Italy during World War II, repeatedly tries to avoid flying bombing missions while his colonel tries to get him killed by demanding that he fly more and more missions.
Cat’s Eye~ Atwood, Margaret. When controversial painter Elaine Risley returns to Toronto for a showing of her art, she must come to terms with her identity and her past.
Cold Mountain ~ Frazier, Charles. The story of a soldier's perilous journey back to his beloved at the end of the Civil War.
The House of the Spirits ~ Allende, Isabel. The story of the Trueba family, following them from the turn of the century to the violent days of the overflow of the Salvador Allende government in 1973.
Invisible Man ~ Ellison, Ralph. In the course of his wanderings from a Southern college to New York's Harlem, an African-American man becomes involved in a series of adventures.
Love Medicine ~ Erdrich, Louise. The saga of two extended families on a North Dakota Chippewa reservation, exploring the impact of intense poverty, insensitive government policies, alcoholism, and the Catholic Church on a culture that nonetheless surivives.
Madame Bovary ~ Flaubert, Gustave. A novel about a young woman of the bourgeois class whose unhappiness in her marriage leads her to several affairs and a tragic fate.
One Hundred Years of Solitude ~ Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. Translation of the Spanish novel which traces the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo, through the history of the Buendia family.
A Passage to India ~Forster, E. M. A story about the clash between Eastern and Western cultures during British rule in India.
The Plague ~ Camus, Albert. A coastal city in Algeria is struck by bubonic plague and is shut off from the world for months.
Possession ~ Byatt, A. S. While researching the lives of two long-dead Victoria poets, a pair of young academics uncover a clandestine love affair and find themselves drawn into the historical world of mystery and passion.
Things Fall Apart ~ Achebe, Chinua. Set in an Ibo village in Nigeria, the novel recreates pre-Christian tribal life and shows how the coming of the white man led to the breaking up of the old ways.