Edgewater High School

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Summer Reading 2007-2008

Regular English (9-12), Honors English (9-12), and APA English (10)
APA English (9)
EST English
AP English Literature and Composition
AP Language and Composition
AP US History
AP Latin
AP French

Regular English (9-12), Honors English (9-12), and APA English (10)

For more information, contact Miss Sheehy.

Regular and Honors English students in grades 9-12 and 10th grade APA English students are expected to choose and read at least ONE selection from the reading list below. Be ready for an assignment upon return in August. Assignments could include (but are not limited to) a project, presentation, test, or journal entry assignment.

Choose one title off this list. Click a book title to read a summary. [Printer Friendly Version]

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon

Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog by John Grogan

The Pact by Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, Rameck Hunt

Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life’s Great Lessons by Mitch Albom

Summaries

The Bluest Eye
by Toni Morrison

The story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove, the tragic heroine of Toni Morrison's haunting first novel, grew out of her memory of a girlhood friend who wanted blue eyes. Shunned by her town's prosperous black families, as well as its white families, Pecola lives with her alcoholic father and embittered, overworked mother in a shabby, two-room storefront that reeks of the hopeless destitution that overwhelms their lives. In awe of her clean, well-groomed schoolmates, and convinced of her own intense ugliness, Pecola tries to make herself disappear as she wishes fervently, desperately for the blue eyes of a white girl. In her afterword to this novel, Morrison writes of the little girl she knew: "Beauty was not simply something to behold, it was something one could do. The Bluest Eye was my effort to say something about that; to say something about why she had not, or possibly ever would have, the experience of what she possessed and also why she prayed for so radical an alteration. Implicit in her desire was racial self-loathing. And twenty years later I was still wondering about how one learns that. Who told her? Who made her feel that it was better to be a freak than what she was? Who had looked at her and found her so wanting, so small a weight on the beauty scale? The novel pecks away at the gaze that condemned her."

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
by Mark Haddon

Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. Although gifted with a superbly logical brain, Christopher is autistic. Everyday interactions and admonishments have little meaning for him. Routine, order and predictability shelter him from the messy, wider world. Then, at fifteen, Christopher’s carefully constructed world falls apart when he finds his neighbor’s dog, Wellington, impaled on a garden fork, and he is initially blamed for the killing. Christopher decides that he will track down the real killer and turns to his favorite fictional character, the impeccably logical Sherlock Holmes, for inspiration. But the investigation leads him down some unexpected paths and ultimately brings him face to face with the dissolution of his parents’ marriage. As he tries to deal with the crisis within his own family, we are drawn into the workings of Christopher’s mind. And herein lies the key to the brilliance of Mark Haddon’s choice of narrator: The most wrenching of emotional moments are chronicled by a boy who cannot fathom emotion. The effect is dazzling, making for a novel that is deeply funny, poignant, and fascinating in its portrayal of a person whose curse and blessing is a mind that perceives the world literally. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is one of the freshest debuts in years: a comedy, a heartbreaker, a mystery story, a novel of exceptional literary merit that is great fun to read.

Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog
by John Grogan

John and Jenny were just beginning their life together. They were young and in love, with a perfect little house and not a care in the world. Then they brought home Marley, a wiggly yellow furball of a puppy. Life would never be the same.

Marley quickly grew into a barreling, ninety-seven-pound streamroller of a Labrador retriever, a dog like no other. He crashed through screen doors, gouged through drywall, flung drool on guests, stole women's undergarments, and ate nearly everything he could get his mouth around, including couches and fine jewelry. Obedience school did no good—Marley was expelled. Neither did the tranquilizers the veterinarian prescribed for him with the admonishment, "Don't hesitate to use these."

And yet Marley's heart was pure. Just as he joyfully refused any limits on his behavior, his love and loyalty were boundless, too. Marley shared the couple's joy at their first pregnancy, and their heartbreak over the miscarriage. He was there when babies finally arrived and when the screams of a seventeen-year-old stabbing victim pierced the night. Marley shut down a public beach and managed to land a role in a feature-length movie, always winning hearts as he made a mess of things. Through it all, he remained steadfast, a model of devotion, even when his family was at its wit's end. Unconditional love, they would learn, comes in many forms.

Is it possible for humans to discover the key to happiness through a bigger-than-life, bad-boy dog? Just ask the Grogans.

The Pact
by Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, Rameck Hunt

Jenkins, Davis and Hunt grew up in and around the projects of Newark, N.J., a place decimated by crack. "The sounds of gunshots and screeching cars late at night and before dawn were as familiar to us as the chirping of insects must be to people who live in the country." The three attended high school together in the mid-'80s and made a pact to attend medical school together. "We didn't lock hands in some kind of empty, symbolic gesture... We just took one another at his word and headed back to class, without even a hint of how much our lives were about to change." Against incredible odds the almost complete absence of male role models, a history of substance abuse in two of the families, and even incarcerations the trio made good on their word and now practice medicine. Told in alternating first-person chapters, the story of these young men's struggle has remarkable clarity and insight. In extremely accessible prose, the authors articulate the problems they faced: "On the streets where I grew up, you didn't worry about consequences. If someone disrespected you, you beat his ass. Period," says Hunt; while Jenkins recalls, "Sometimes it felt surreal, walking past the drunks, dealers, and addicts on my way home from dental school with a pile of books." Although it is a memoir (which, by nature, is often self-serving), this book's agenda is far from hidden and its urgency is undeniable: through their pact, Davis, Jenkins and Hunt achieved success, and if they did it, others can, too.

Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life’s Great Lessons
by Mitch Albom

Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher, or a colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, helped you see the world as a more profound place, gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it.

For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years ago.

Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights faded, and the world seemed colder. Wouldn't you like to see that person again, ask the bigger questions that still haunt you, receive wisdom for your busy life today the way you once did when you were younger?

Mitch Albom had that second chance. He rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the older man's life. Knowing he was dying, Morrie visited with Mitch in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final "class": lessons in how to live.

Tuesdays with Morrie is a magical chronicle of their time together, through which Mitch shares Morrie's lasting gift with the world.

APA Engish (9)

The following assignment is for incoming Freshmen in the Advanced Placement Academy. For more information, contact Mr. Bowen.

You can read summaries for the books by clicking here.

Download your summer reading assignment:

AP English Literature and Composition

For more information, contact Mr. Halback.

Download your summer reading assignment:

AP Language and Composition

For more information, contact Mr. Bartholomew.

Read both of the following books:

Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain

You may buy the book or you may read the text on-line at:
www.online-literature.com

A Narrative on the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass

You may buy the book or you may read the text on-line at:
www.online-literature.com

AP US History

For more information, contact Mr. Riccio.

AP US History students will need to choose one non-fiction book to read and one fiction book to read as well; therefore, you will read two books over the summer. The test over both books will be issued on a pre-selected day during the first week of school in August.

Non-fiction:

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass
A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo

Fiction:

Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierska
The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara

AP Latin (Catullus and Ovid) students are to read two books:

For more information, contact Mrs. Katz.

The Key by Benita Kane Jaro. 2002. Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, Inc.
ISBN: 086516534-3
Metamorphoses: A New Translation by Charles Martin. 2004. W. W. Norton & Co., Inc.
ISBN: 0-393-32642-X
Read only the following stories from the Metamorphoses: Book 1 Daphne and Apollo; Book 4 Pyramus and Thisbe; Book 8 Daedalus and Icarus; Book 8 Baucis and Philemon; Book 10 Pygmalion

AP French

For more information, contact Mrs. Moody.

Students are to read: Suivez la Piste by Emile de Harven. The book will be issued to AP students in May.

Download your summer reading assignment:

To read a summary about any title, click the icon below to view the Media Center’s database (34,000+ titles).

Visit Amazon.com to purchase a new or used copy of it, or to read a review.