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Recognizing the array of interests among students and their families, the humanities teachers in the Upper School provide an extensive list of books from which the students can choose for Summer Reading. We ask the ninth and tenth grades to read one book from the list titled “Books of Literary Significance” and one other book that may come from any of the three lists. We ask the eleventh and twelfth graders to read three books, one from each list. (Below you will find some detail about what students will do with the books once school commences in August.) Though seemingly obvious, let us clarify that students should read books they have not already read. As well, we encourage parents to be involved with their sons and daughters in choosing the books and to read along with them.

This list comes from a multiple of sources: many favorites of teachers, suggestions from parents and students, and works considered classics. The list consists of fiction and nonfiction and touches on a myriad of topics. We certainly think that anyone should be able to find some books of interest. As well, though, we would encourage students and their parents to be adventuresome in their reading. After all, it’s summer, so why not read something with which you might be unfamiliar or that challenges you? If you have suggestions for books to add to the list, please let us know.

When they return to school after the summer vacation, the ninth and tenth graders will write one essay for each of the two books they read, the one about the book from the list “Books of Literary Significance” for English and the other for either Bible or History, whichever a particular student takes in the Fall Semester. The essay should include a specific explanation of the significant topics, themes, or questions the book addresses as well as the response the book offers to those topics. These essays should be one and half to two pages long and replete with detail so that the reader is fully convinced that the writer read and engaged the book. We encourage students to mark significant passages and write notes and questions as they read so that they are prepared to write these papers.

The eleventh and twelfth graders will take on a bit more involved task, and they should be up to it, having reached these grade levels. For the book from the list “Books of Literary Significance,” students will write a persuasive essay in which they argue to support an opinion they have about the book they read. The opinion will be based on their application of the book either to their own lives or to our culture. English teachers will take students through the process of writing these essays in the first few days of classes. We want each student to come to school with a typed summary of the book he or she reads; it should be at least one and a half pages in length. We recommend that students annotate the books as they read them to be prepared to write this essay. They will need to write clearly and specifically about the topics the books address, the responses the books offer to those topics, as well as the aforementioned application.

For the books the eleventh and twelfth graders read from the other two lists, they will deliver oral reports, one in their Bible class and the other in History. While teachers will give the students a more specific definition of what the reports should contain, let us say here that they should give to their audience a detailed overview of the topics the books address and their responses to those topics. As well, we want students to comment on why they think the book is important, either personally or culturally. In short, these oral reports in content will be quite similar to the papers the students will write in English.

We hope that students will take these readings seriously and relax to enjoy the books they choose to read. Students should return to school ready to create some thoughtful and interesting work so as to begin the year auspiciously.

We would like to thank those who participated on the Parents Advisory Committee on Summer Reading for their advice, recommendations, and discussion regarding certain books as well as the general topic of Summer Reading. Anyone who would like to read reviews and critiques of these books can find such information at Amazon.com or at many other websites. As with any research on the Internet, we would caution that users of the Internet consider the validity of a website. Finally, anyone with questions about Summer Reading should contact the Chair of the English Department, Greg Hyde, at

Suggested Readings for Upper School Students
(* Indicates books recommended by the College Board.)

Books of Literary Significance

1984	George Orwell
*Babbitt	Sinclair Lewis
Bleachers	John Grisham
*Brave New World	Aldous Huxley
Brighton Rock	Graham Greene
*The Call of the Wild	Jack London
Cold Sassy Tree	Olive Ann Burns
*The Color Purple	Alice Walker
The Complete Stories	Flannery O’Connor
*Crime and Punishment	Fyodor Dostoyevsky
*The Crucible	Arthur Miller
Cry, the Beloved Country	Alan Paton
*Cyrano de Bergerac	Edmond Rostand
The Dante Club	Matthew Pearl
*Doctor Zhivago	Boris Pasternak
*Don Quixote	Miguel de Cervantes
In Dubious Battle	John Steinbeck
Fahrenheit 451	Ray Bradbury
*A Farewell to Arms	Ernest Hemingway
*Frankenstein	Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
*The Glass Menagerie	Tennessee Williams
The Good Earth	Pearl S. Buck
*The Grapes of Wrath	John Steinbeck
*The Hunchback of Notre-Dame	Victor Hugo
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings	Maya Angelou
The Importance of Being Earnest	Oscar Wilde
Interpreter of Maladies	Jhumpa Lahiri
*Invisible Man	Ralph Ellison
*Jane Eyre	Charlotte Bronte
The Last Gentleman	Walker Percy
*The Last of the Mohicans	James Fenimore Cooper
A Lesson Before Dying	Ernest J. Gaines
The Lords of Discipline	Pat Conroy
The Man Who Was Thursday	G. K. Chesterton
The Martian Chronicles	Ray Bradbury
*Moby Dick	Herman Melville
The Moviegoer	Walker Percy
*Native Son	Richard Wright
*One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich	Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Othello	William Shakespeare
Peace Like a River	Leif Enger
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek	Annie Dillard
Pilgrim’s Progress	John Bunyan
The Power and the Glory	Graham Greene
*Pride and Prejudice	Jane Austen
The Prince of Tides	Pat Conroy
*Pygmalion	George Bernard Shaw
Reading Lolita in Tehran	Azar Nafisi
Rebecca	Daphne du Maurier
*The Red Badge of Courage	Stephen Crane
*Robinson Crusoe	Daniel Defoe
Run with the Horseman	Ferrol Sams
The Second Coming	Walker Percy
A Separate Peace	John Knowles
Shoeless Joe	W. P. Kinsella
*The Sound and the Fury	William Faulkner
*A Tale of Two Cities	Charles Dickens
*Their Eyes Were Watching God	Zora Neale Hurston
*Uncle Tom’s Cabin	Harriet Beecher Stowe
Walking Across Egypt	Clyde Edgerton
*War and Peace	Leo Tolstoy
Books of Christian Significance
The Call	Os Guiness
Can Man Live Without God	Ravi Zacharias
The Case for Faith	Lee Strobel
The Chosen	Chaim Potok
The Confessions	Saint Augustine
The Dark Night of the Soul	Saint John of the Cross
Diary of a Young Girl	Anne Frank
The Divine Conspiracy	Dallas Willard
Foxe’s Book of Martyrs
Godric	Frederick Buechner
He Chose the Nails	Max Lucado
Hearing God	Dallas Willard
The Hiding Place	Corrie ten Boom
I Ain’t Comin’ Back	Dolphus Weary
The Imitation of Christ	Thomas a Kempis
In His Steps	Charles M. Sheldon
Interior Castle	Teresa of Avila
Jesus Among Other Gods	Ravi Zacharias
The Jesus I Never Knew	Phillip Yancey
Joel	Joel Sonnenberg
King Leopold’s Ghost	Adam Hochschild
Know Why You Believe	Paul Little
Lilith	George MacDonald
The Mind of the Maker	Dorothy Sayers
The Oath	Frank Peretti
Out of the Silent Planet	C. S. Lewis
Paul	Walter Wangerin, Jr.
Peace Child	Don Richardson
The Prophet	Frank Peretti
Ragman and Other Cries of Faith	Walter Wangerin, Jr.
The Real Jesus	Luke Timothy Johnson
Resurrection	Leo Tolstoy
Return of the Prodigal Son	Henri Nouwen
The Sacred Journey	Frederick Buechner
Saint Julian	Walter Wangerin
Same Kind of Different as Me	Ron Hall and Denver Moore
Searching for Home	Craig Barnes
The Screwtape Letters	C. S. Lewis
A Season of Life	Jeffrey Marx
Shadow of the Almighty: Life and Testament of Jim Elliot	Elisabeth Elliot
Shadowmancer	G. P. Taylor
A Skeleton in God’s Closet	Paul L. Maier
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down	Anne Fadiman
Surprised by Joy	C. S. Lewis
Taliesin	Stephen Lawhead
That Hideous Strength	C. S. Lewis
Through Gates of Splendor	Elisabeth Elliot
True Spirituality	Francis Schaeffer
What if Jesus Had Never Been Born	Dr. James Kennedy
What’s So Amazing about Grace	Philip Yancey
Windows of the Soul	Ken Gire
The Wounded Spirit	Frank Peretti
Books of Historical Significance
*All Quiet on the Western Front	Erich Maria Remarque
April 1865	Jay Winik
Ben Hur	Lew Wallace
Black Like Me	John Howard Griffin
Bobos in Paradise	David Brooks
Bury the Chains	Adam Hochschild
Dead Man Walking	Sister Helen Prejean
Fields of Fire	James Webb
The Glory and the Dream	William Manchester
Honor: A History	James Bowman
How Soccer Explains the World	Franklin Foer
Into Thin Air	Jon Krakauer
Into the Wild	Jon Krakauer
Jihad vs. McWorld	Benjamin Barber
The Jungle	Upton Sinclair
The Killer Angels	Michael Shaara
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier	Ishmael Beah
Mountains Beyond Mountains	Tracy Kidder
Night	Elie Wiesel
A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide	Samantha Power
Sophie’s World	Jostein Gaarder
The Stamp of Glory	Tim Stafford
The Stranger	Albert Camus
The Things They Carried	Tim O’Brien
Three Cups of Tea	Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
Uncommon Grounds	Mark Pendergrast