South Mecklenburg High School
Summer Reading
Rising 11th Grade
2018-2019
Honors English III: Read any two (2) of the following selections:
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Jonathan Safran Foer
Jonathan Safran Foer's ambitious second novel follows nine-year-old Oskar Schell as he navigates New York City on a quest to unlock the secrets of a mysterious key and its connection to his father, who died in the collapse of the World Trade Center on 09/11.
The Circle Dave Eggers
The Circle is a 2013 novel by Dave Eggers. It is a dystopian work of fiction surrounding a young woman, Mae Holland, and her career with an enormous tech company called the Circle. The novel explores the issues of privacy, technology, and personal space.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Ken Keesey
When Randle Patrick McMurphy gets transferred for evaluation from a prison farm to a mental institution, he assumes it will be a less restrictive environment. But Nurse Ratched runs the psychiatric ward with an iron fist, keeping her patients cowed through abuse, medication and sessions of electroconvulsive therapy. The battle of wills between the rebellious McMurphy and the inflexible Ratched soon affects all the ward's patients.
Go Tell it on the Mountain James Baldwin
James Baldwin describes the course of the fourteenth birthday of John Grimes in Harlem, 1935. Baldwin also uses extended flashback episodes to recount the lives of John's parents and aunt and to link this urban boy in the North to his slave grandmother in an earlier South.
The Road Cormac McCarthy
The Road is a post-apocalyptic tale of a journey of a father and his young son over a period of several months, across a landscape blasted by an unspecified cataclysm that has destroyed most of civilization and, in the intervening years, almost all life on Earth.
In Cold Blood Truman Capote
In Cold Blood tells the true story of the murder of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas, in 1959. The Clutter family – Herbert and Bonnie, and their teenage children, Nancy and Kenyon – lead a prosperous and principled life on their farm in Holcomb, a small rural settlement in western Kansas.
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent Julia Alvarez
How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, Alvarez’s first novel, has an episodic plot covering a time span of thirty-three years, from 1956 to 1989, revolving around the García family—the parents and their four daughters, Carla, Sandi, Yolanda, and Sofia. Set against a backdrop of the political upheavals in the Dominican Republic and in the turbulent years of the 1960’s in the United States, the narrative focuses on the struggles of the García family to make sense of the practices and expectations in the New World and reconcile them with the traditions they brought with them.
English III Standard: Read one (1) of the following selections:
Lies We Tell Ourselves Robin Talley
In 1959 Virginia, Sarah, a black student who is one of the first to attend a newly integrated school, forces Linda, a white integration opponent's daughter, to confront harsh truths when they work together on a school project.
The Gunslinger Stephen King
The book opens by introducing the gunslinger, Roland Deschain, who is on a journey to find the Man in Black. As he ventures across the desert with his mule, he meets a farmer who goes by the name of Brown with his crow, Zoltan. The gunslinger begins to tell of the time he spent in the town of Tull. This is the first book in The Dark Tower Series.
Speak Laurie Halse Anderson
After facing the fact that she was raped, Melinda begins to recover from the trauma of the event. She is worried about Andy Evans' intentions for her former best friend, Rachel, and finally tells Rachel what happened to her. While Rachel does not believe Melinda, Melinda begins to feel free after speaking up.
The Fault in Our Stars John Green
Seventeen-year-old Hazel Grace Lancaster reluctantly attends a cancer patients' support group at her mother’s behest. Because of her cancer, she uses a portable oxygen tank to breathe properly. In one of the meetings she catches the eye of a teenage boy, and through the course of the meeting she learns the boy’s name is Augustus Waters. He's there to support their mutual friend, Isaac. Hazel and Augustus experience an ill-fated love.
House on Mango Street Sandra Cisneros
On a series of vignettes, The House on Mango Street covers a year in the life of Esperanza, a Chicana (Mexican-American girl), who is about twelve years old when the novel begins. During the year, she moves with her family into a house on Mango Street.
Summer Reading
Rising 11th Grade
2018-2019
Honors English III: Read any two (2) of the following selections:
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Jonathan Safran Foer
Jonathan Safran Foer's ambitious second novel follows nine-year-old Oskar Schell as he navigates New York City on a quest to unlock the secrets of a mysterious key and its connection to his father, who died in the collapse of the World Trade Center on 09/11.
The Circle Dave Eggers
The Circle is a 2013 novel by Dave Eggers. It is a dystopian work of fiction surrounding a young woman, Mae Holland, and her career with an enormous tech company called the Circle. The novel explores the issues of privacy, technology, and personal space.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Ken Keesey
When Randle Patrick McMurphy gets transferred for evaluation from a prison farm to a mental institution, he assumes it will be a less restrictive environment. But Nurse Ratched runs the psychiatric ward with an iron fist, keeping her patients cowed through abuse, medication and sessions of electroconvulsive therapy. The battle of wills between the rebellious McMurphy and the inflexible Ratched soon affects all the ward's patients.
Go Tell it on the Mountain James Baldwin
James Baldwin describes the course of the fourteenth birthday of John Grimes in Harlem, 1935. Baldwin also uses extended flashback episodes to recount the lives of John's parents and aunt and to link this urban boy in the North to his slave grandmother in an earlier South.
The Road Cormac McCarthy
The Road is a post-apocalyptic tale of a journey of a father and his young son over a period of several months, across a landscape blasted by an unspecified cataclysm that has destroyed most of civilization and, in the intervening years, almost all life on Earth.
In Cold Blood Truman Capote
In Cold Blood tells the true story of the murder of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas, in 1959. The Clutter family – Herbert and Bonnie, and their teenage children, Nancy and Kenyon – lead a prosperous and principled life on their farm in Holcomb, a small rural settlement in western Kansas.
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent Julia Alvarez
How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, Alvarez’s first novel, has an episodic plot covering a time span of thirty-three years, from 1956 to 1989, revolving around the García family—the parents and their four daughters, Carla, Sandi, Yolanda, and Sofia. Set against a backdrop of the political upheavals in the Dominican Republic and in the turbulent years of the 1960’s in the United States, the narrative focuses on the struggles of the García family to make sense of the practices and expectations in the New World and reconcile them with the traditions they brought with them.
English III Standard: Read one (1) of the following selections:
Lies We Tell Ourselves Robin Talley
In 1959 Virginia, Sarah, a black student who is one of the first to attend a newly integrated school, forces Linda, a white integration opponent's daughter, to confront harsh truths when they work together on a school project.
The Gunslinger Stephen King
The book opens by introducing the gunslinger, Roland Deschain, who is on a journey to find the Man in Black. As he ventures across the desert with his mule, he meets a farmer who goes by the name of Brown with his crow, Zoltan. The gunslinger begins to tell of the time he spent in the town of Tull. This is the first book in The Dark Tower Series.
Speak Laurie Halse Anderson
After facing the fact that she was raped, Melinda begins to recover from the trauma of the event. She is worried about Andy Evans' intentions for her former best friend, Rachel, and finally tells Rachel what happened to her. While Rachel does not believe Melinda, Melinda begins to feel free after speaking up.
The Fault in Our Stars John Green
Seventeen-year-old Hazel Grace Lancaster reluctantly attends a cancer patients' support group at her mother’s behest. Because of her cancer, she uses a portable oxygen tank to breathe properly. In one of the meetings she catches the eye of a teenage boy, and through the course of the meeting she learns the boy’s name is Augustus Waters. He's there to support their mutual friend, Isaac. Hazel and Augustus experience an ill-fated love.
House on Mango Street Sandra Cisneros
On a series of vignettes, The House on Mango Street covers a year in the life of Esperanza, a Chicana (Mexican-American girl), who is about twelve years old when the novel begins. During the year, she moves with her family into a house on Mango Street.