AP/Pre-AP/GT Summer Reading Assignment

Students who select an Advanced Placement or Pre-Advanced Placement English Course (or AP/GT, PreAP/GT) in grades 7-12 have a required summer reading assignment. Prior to the first day of school, the AP, PreAP, AP/GT or PreAP/GT English student should select and carefully read one of the titles for his/her grade level and course. The summer reading assignment applies to students entering AP, PreAP, AP/GT or PreAP/GT English in grades 7-12.

For the summer of 2011, your child must select and carefully read one title listed below that corresponds with his/her grade level and course.

• Language Arts 7E PreAP, Language Arts 7R PreAP or Language Arts 7C PreAP/GT
• Language Arts 8E PreAP or Language Arts 8E PreAP/GT
• English I PreAP or English I PreAP/GT
• English II PreAP or English II PreAP/GT
• AP English Language and Composition or AP English Language and Composition
• AP English Literature and Composition or AP English Literature and Composition

Language Arts 7E PreAP, Language Arts 7R PreAP or Language Arts 7C PreAP/GT

Tangerine by Edward Bloor
Paul Fisher’s older brother is a high school football star, but to Paul he’s no hero. Paul’s own game is soccer, which he plays even though he has to wear thick glasses because of a mysterious eye injury. When the Fishers move to Tangerine, Florida, Paul tries to make sense of things. But it’s not easy. In Tangerine, underground fires burn for years and lightening strikes the same practice field every day. Strange things happen here all the time – but nothing is stranger than the secrets Paul discovers about his brother, his new group of friends, and his own dangerous past.

The Last Book in the Universe by Rodman Philbrick
In a world where most people are plugged into brain drain entertainment systems, epileptic teenager Spaz is a rare human being who can see life for what it really is. When he meets an old man called Ryter, he begins to learn about earth and its past. With Ryter as his companion, Spaz sets off on an unlikely quest to save his dying sister ­ and in the process, perhaps the world.

Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan

Esperanza and her mother are forced to leave their life of wealth and privilege in Mexico to go work in the labor camps of Southern California.  Once there, they must adapt to the harsh circumstances facing Mexican farm workers on the eve of the Great Depression.

Language Arts 8E PreAP or Language Arts 8E PreAP/GT

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
Just after midnight, a snowdrift stopped the Orient Express in its tracks. The luxurious train was surprisingly full for the time of year, but by the morning there was one passenger fewer. An American lay dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside. Red herrings galore are put in the path of Hercule Poirot to try to keep him off the scent, but in a dramatic denouement he succeeds in coming up with not one but two solutions to the crime.

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
Could the sudden death of Sir Charles Baskerville have been caused by the gigantic ghostly hound which is said to have haunted his family for generations? Arch-rationalist Sherlock Holmes characteristically dismisses the theory as nonsense. Claiming to be immersed in another case, he sends Watson to Devon to protect the Baskerville heir and to observe the suspects at close hand.

English I PreAP or English I PreAP/GT

Unwind by Neal Shusterman.

In the future, being a troubled teen means something worse than being sent to a boot camp to get straightened out. When a child is between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, a parent may choose to "unwind" the child, whose body parts are harvested for use by other people. Connor, Risa and Lev, who are all scheduled to be unwound, are literally running for their lives: if they can evade capture and survive until the age of 18, they will be spared a terrible fate.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

To save her young sister from competing, Katniss Everdeen takes her place in the annual Hunger Games, a televised competition in which only one person, the winner, survives. By turns an adventure, a love story, and a futuristic thriller, this is the first in a planned trilogy.

Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Lily Owens is an emotionally abused fourteen year old girl growing up with an uncaring father on a peach farm in rural South Carolina. Lily remembers bits and pieces about her mother whose accidental death continually haunts her.  When Lily and her African American caretaker set out to find information about her mother, Lily meets three sisters who own a honey farm and who eventually help Lily accept her loss and learn the power of forgiveness.

A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines

Set in rural Louisiana in the late 1940s, the novel centers on two men’s redemption. One man is Jefferson, a twenty-one year old African American man who faces a death sentence. The other man is Grant Wiggins, a college educated African American native of the town who has returned to teach at the plantation school for African American children. A jury convicts Jefferson, who is nearly illiterate, of murder, and although his attorney pleads he is too simple-minded, he receives the death penalty. His godmother, Emma Glenn, hires Grant Wiggins to educate Jefferson so he can die with dignity.  Jefferson and Glenn form a bond in the realization that sometimes simply choosing to resist the expected is an act of heroism.

English II PreAP or English II PreAP/GT

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, The Road by Cormac McCarthy follows an incredible journey of a father and son as they travel across a burned-out, post-apocalyptic America. Alone, they must forage for food in abandoned towns and cities and defend themselves from lawless bands who would do them harm and steal what little they scrounge up. When seemingly no hope remains for the pair, the love and devotion of the father keeps them alive in the face of total devastation. The novel contains the message of the valleys and mountains every human must cross, and how in the end we have only self-reliance and faith.

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak
Nine-year old Liesel steals a gravedigger’s instruction manual and begins her lifelong fascination with books in The Book Thief, winner of the 2007 Printz Award for Teen Literature. Narrated by Death, this story of the German families in World War II and one particular family who hides a Jew is a heart-wrenching tale of the power of words and books to change lives. Though the longer of the two books, this is truly a “good read.”

AP English Language and Composition or AP English Language and Composition GT

Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman revolves around the last days of Willy Loman, a failing salesman, who cannot understand how he failed to win success and happiness. Through a series of tragic soul-searching revelations of the life he has lived with his wife, his sons, and his business associates, we discover how his quest for the "American Dream" kept him blind to the people who truly loved him. Arthur Miller won a Pulitzer Prize for his play in 1949, and still today his play is considered “a thrilling work of deep and revealing beauty that remains one of the most profound classic dramas of the American theatre.”

The Crucible, by Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller’s The Crucible takes place in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. Based on historical people and real events, The Crucible recounts the events surrounding the Salem Witch Trials. Arthur Miller's play uses the destructive power of socially sanctioned violence unleashed by the rumors of witchcraft as a powerful allegory about McCarthyism, when the U.S. government blacklisted accused communists, including Miller himself. The play won a Tony for “Best Play” in 1953 and is considered a central work in the canon of American drama.

AP English Literature and Composition or AP English Literature and Composition GT

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

As I Lay Dying is Faulkner’s harrowing account of the Bundren family’s Odyssey across the Mississippi countryside to bury Addie, their wife and mother. Told in turns by each of the family members – including Addie herself—the novel ranges in mood from dark comedy to the deepest pathos. (Taken form the back of the Vintage International edition).

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice centers around the Bennet family, primarily Elizabeth Bennet and her complex relationship with Fitzwilliam Darcy.  (The following is from the Penguin Classics edition of the text) When Elizabeth Bennet first meets eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam Darcy, she thinks him arrogant and conceited, while he struggles to remain indifferent to her good looks and lively mind. When she later discovers that Darcy has involved himself in the troubled relationship between his friend Bingley and her beloved sister Jane, she is determined to dislike him more than ever. In the sparkling comedy of manners that follows, Jane Austen shows the folly of judging by first impressions and superbly evokes the friendships, gossip and snobberies of provincial middle-class life.