SUMMER READING BOOK CHOICES 2015
Learning Targets
1. I can find the reading list for my grade level on the following pages
 Incoming Freshman – 9th grade
 Incoming Sophomores – 10th grade
 Incoming Juniors – 11th grade
 Incoming Seniors – 12th grade
2. I can choose ONE book from EACH column for a total of TWO books
3. I can complete a Dialectical Journal (see accompanying document)
4. I can send my completed assignment to my English teacher by September 28, 2015
a. (You can find a digital copy of a blank Dialectical Journal at
www.rcsdk12.org/58 )
WOIS Summer Reading TEXT SELECTIONS by GRADE
Dear Incoming World of Inquiry Freshmen – Graduating Class of 2020:
The curriculum for English I begins this summer with a required reading assignment. You must select and read one
book from each of the lists below. This means you will select one work of fiction and one work of non-fiction for a
total of two books. You must also complete a fiction and non-fiction reading log for the two selected literary works.
Both the fiction and non-fiction reading logs will be collected by your English teacher on Monday, September 28, 2015.
FICTION TITLES
NON FICTION TITLES
Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card:
Set in the future, the children of Earth must fight for their
future. A New York Times Bestseller.
The Lost Books of the Odyssey, Zachary Mason
Imagine the epic anew through these inventive stories.
Dreams from my Father, Barack Obama
This memoir reveals the first African-American president’s
childhood, teenage and college years.
Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer
A personal account of the Mt. Everest Disaster is a 1997
bestselling non-fiction book written by Jon Krakauer.
Firehouse, David Halberstam
Follow thirteen firefighters into the World Trade Center on 9/11.
The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold
Narrated by a murder victim looking down from heaven, a
family’s story in the wake of the crime unfolds.
This Boy’s Life, Tobias Wolff
This story portrays the relationship between a rebellious 1950s
teenager and his abusive father, based on the memoirs of writer
and literature professor Tobias Wolff.
Like Water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel
A Mexican girl learns the secrets of her mother’s kitchen and
heart in this favorite of the magic realism genre.
Pidgeon English, Stephen Kelman
Recently emigrated from Ghana with his sister and mother to
London’s enormous housing projects, Harri is pure curiosity
and ebullience: obsessed with gummy candy, a friend to the
pigeon who visits his balcony, quite possibly the fastest runner
in his school, and clearly also fast on the trail of a murderer.
47, Walter Moseley
Tall John, who believes there are no masters and no slaves, and
who carries a yellow carpetbag of magical healing potions and
futuristic devices, is both an inspiration and an enigma. He
claims he has crossed galaxies and centuries and arrived by Sun
Ship on Earth in 1832 to find the one chosen to continue the
fight against the evil Calash. The brutal white overseer and the
cruel slave owner are disguised as Calash, who must be
defeated.
Chinese Cinderella; The True Story of an Unwanted
Daughter, Adeline Yen Mah
A Chinese proverb says, “Falling leaves return to their roots.”
Adeline Yen Mah returns to her roots to tell the story of her
painful childhood and her ultimate triumph and courage in the
face of despair.
The Book Thief, Markus Zuzak
Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who
scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when
she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help
of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and
shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing
raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement.
Down These Mean Streets, Piri Thomas
In his memoir Thomas navigates El Barrio, a neighborhood of
Spanish Harlem.
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, Michael
Lewis
The author explains how the Oakland Athletics built a successful
team despite one of the smallest payrolls in baseball.
Gemini, Nikki Giovanni
The celebrated author gives an extended autobiographical
statement on her first 25 years as a black poet.
I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced, Nujood Ahi
Sold off by her impoverished family at the age of 10, Nujood
found the courage to run away. With the help of an activist
lawyer, sympathetic judges, and the international press, she
divorced her husband and returned home.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Alex Haley
Haley reveals the life of Malcolm X from his traumatic
childhood plagued by racism to his years as a drug dealer. This
includes his conversion to the Black Muslim sect (Nation of
Islam) while in prison for burglary, his subsequent years of
militant activism, and the unexpected turn late in his life to
orthodox Islam.
Silent Tears: A Journey of Hope in a Chinese Orphanage,
Kay Bratt
In 2003, Kay Bratt’s life changed dramatically. A wife and
mother of two girls in South Carolina, Bratt relocated her family
to rural China to support her husband as he took on a new
management position for his American employer.Within
months, her simple desire to make use of her time transformed
into a heroic crusade to improve the living conditions and
minimize the unnecessary deaths of Chinese orphans.
The Other Wes Moore, Wes Moore
Two kids with the same name live in the same decaying city.
One grows up to be a Rhodes Scholar, the other is serving a life
sentence in prison for felony murder. Here is the story of two
boys and the journey of a generation.
Children of the Paper Crane, Masamoto Nasu
This story chronicles the life and death of a 12 year-old girl in
Hiroshima following the A-bomb attack at the close of World
War II.
The Circuit, Francisco Jimenez
This is a collection of short stories based on the life of the
author, Francisco Jimenez, while he was growing up as the son
of migrant farm workers in California.
WOIS Summer Reading TEXT SELECTIONS by GRADE
Dear Incoming World of Inquiry Sophomores– Graduating Class of 2019:
The curriculum for English II begins this summer with a required reading assignment. You must select and read one book
from each of the lists below. This means you will select one work of fiction and one work of non-fiction for a total of
two books. You must also complete a fiction and non-fiction reading log for the two selected literary works. Both the
fiction and non-fiction reading logs will be collected by your English teacher on Monday, September 28, 2015.
FICTION TITLES
A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini
This book is a moving story of two women struggling to survive the
Taliban’s grip in Afghanistan during the 1990s.
The Power of One, Bryce Courtenay
A lonely British boy in South Africa learns important lessons about
race and courage in following his own heart and two friends, one black
and one white.
Wanting, Richard Flanagan
An aboriginal orphan in Tasmania, an Arctic explorer, and Charles
Dickens all want something more from life.
Breath, Eyes, Memory, Edwidge Danticat
At the age of twelve, Sophie Caco is sent from her impoverished
village of Croix- de-Rosets to New York, reunited with a mother she
barely remembers. She discovers secrets that no child should ever
know, and a legacy of shame that can be healed only when she returns
to Haiti –to the women who first reared her.
Year of Wonders, Geraldine Brooks
This is a gripping story of how the plague impacted one small village in
England during the 1600s.
Animal Dreams, Barbara Kingsolver
In the Southwest, a young woman finds love and new meaning in her
life by embracing dreams, Native American myths, and her past.
The Tiger’s Wife, Tea Obreht
In a Balkan country mending from
war, Natalia, a young doctor, is compelled to unravel the mysterious
circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather’s recent death.
Searching for clues, she turns to his worn copy of The Jungle Book and
the stories he told her of his encounters over the years with “the
deathless man.” But most extraordinary of all is the story her
grandfather never told her – the legend of the tiger’s wife.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, Mark Haddon
The story of Christopher John Francis Boone, who knows all the
countries of the world & their capitals, as well as every prime number
up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of
human emotions. He can’t stand to be touched, and detests the color
yellow.
Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Adiche
In post-colonial Nigeria, three children of different backgrounds
experience the ravages of civil war and relief of union.
Bless Me Ultima, Rudolfo Anaya
Antonio Marez is six years old when Ultima comes to stay with his
family in New Mexico. Under her wise wing, Tony will probe the
family ties that bind and rend him, and he will discover himself in the
magical secrets of the pagan past.
Indian Killer, Sherman Alexie
A serial murderer is terrorizing Seattle, hunting and scalping white
men. The crimes of the so-called Indian Killer have triggered a wave of
violence and racial hatred. Seattle’s Native Americans are shaken and
confused, none more so than John Smith. Born Indian, and raised
white, Smith desperately yearns for his lost heritage and seeks his
elusive true identity.
Mint Alley, C..L.R. James
A young, black, educated, middle class man observes and becomes
involved in the everyday life of the “ordinary, regular people” in Mint
Alley, a barrack yard in Trinidad.
NON-FICTION TITLES
The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin
Baldwin explores the relations between race and religion with a
concentration in his experiences with the Christian church when he was
a young man. In addition, Baldwin discusses the Islamic ideas of others
in Harlem.
On the Rez, Ian Frazier
This book is a sharp, unflinching account of the modern-day American
Indian experience, especially that of the Oglala Sioux, who now live on
the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the plains and badlands of the
American West.
The Lost City of Z, David Grann
A modern-day journalist follows the tracks of an explorer of the
Amazon and solves the mystery of a legendary ancient city.
King Leopold’s Ghost, Adam Hochchild
Hochchild’s superb, engrossing chronicle focuses on one of the great,
horrifying and nearly forgotten crimes of the century: greedy Belgian
King Leopold’s rape of the Congo, the vast colony he seized as his
private fiefdom in 1885.
Reflections of a Rock Lobster, Aaron Fricke
A gay teen describes his decision to use the courts to allow him to bring
a male date to his senior prom.
When I Was Puerto Rican, Esmeralda Santiago
Santiago lyrically writes about her childhood on her native island and
of her bewildering years of transition in New York City
Lies My Teachers Told Me, James W. Loewen
Americans have lost touch with their history, and in Lies My Teachers
Told Me, Professor James Loewen provides an explanation. After
surveying eighteen leading high school American history texts, he has
concluded that not one does a decent job of making history interesting
or memorable.
. Gulag: A History, Anne Applebaum
In this magisterial and acclaimed history, Applebaum offers a fully
documented portrait of the Gulag, from its origins in the Russian
Revolution, through its expansion under Stalin, to its collapse in the
era of Glasnost.
Those Guys Have All the Fun, James Andrew Miller and Tom
Shales
Miller and Shales provide an oral history of the ESPN.
A Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey from the Inner City
to the Ivy League, Ron Suskind
As an honor student walking the gauntlet of sneers and threats at his
crime-infested high school in Washington, D.C., Cedric Jennings
achieved the impossible: a 4.02 grade point average and acceptance
into Brown University.
Notes of a Native Son, James Baldwin
Originally published in 1955, James Baldwin’s first non-fiction book
has become a classic. These searing essays on life in Harlem, the
protest novel, movies, and Americans abroad remain as powerful today
as when they were first written.
Twelve Years a Slave, Solomon Northup
Kidnapped into slavery in 1841, Northup spent 12 years in captivity.
This autobiographical memoir represents an exceptionally detailed and
accurate description of slave life and plantation society.
Born to Run, Christopher McDougall
McDougall reveals the
secrets of distance running from a Mexican Indian tribe.
WOIS Summer Reading TEXT SELECTIONS by GRADE
Dear Incoming World of Inquiry Juniors– Graduating Class of 2018:
The curriculum for English III begins this summer with a required reading assignment. You must select and
read one book from each of the lists below. This means you will select one work of fiction and one work of
non-fiction for a total of TWO books. You must also complete a fiction and non-fiction reading log for the
two selected literary works. Both the fiction and non-fiction reading logs will be collected by your English
teacher on Monday, September 28, 2015.
Fiction
Non-Fiction
The Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
A family of immigrants struggles to blend its new culture into the old.
When the Emperor was Divine, Julie Otsuka
The Japanese-American experience in the WWII internment camps is
told through the eyes of each member of one uprooted family.
A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, Michael Dorris
The story of one
Native American family is woven together through the accounts of a
grandmother, mother, and daughter.
Manchild in the Promised Land, Claude Brown
Harlem’s vibrancy & racism’s viciousness illustrate a young man’s
struggle to rise from petty crime to educated freedom.
The Dew Breaker, Edwidge Danticat
A Haitian woman traveling from Florida to New York with her father
learns the truth about his life and work in Haiti under the Duvalier
dictatorship.
The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins
Examine the intricacies of evolution.
Black Boy, Richard Wright – ALL SOPHOMORES RECEIVED A
COPY OF THIS TITLE!!!
Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates
An indictment of the 1950s in America, the novel focuses on the hopes
and aspirations of Frank and April Wheeler, self-assured Connecticut
suburbanites
who see themselves as very different from their
neighbors in the Revolutionary Hill Estates.
Black Boy, Richard Wright
Wright’s harrowing memoir depicts his childhood while growing up in
rural Mississippi during the 1920s-1930s.
The Tortilla Curtain, T.C. Boyle
This vivid novel follows the lives of two couples in central California
– one, a pair of wealthy suburbanites and the other, illegal immigrants
from Mexico. The plot thickens as their paths collide in interesting and
unexpected ways.
The Help, Kathryn Stockett
Set in 1962 in Jackson, Mississippi, this novel portrays the
relationships between white women and their black maids during an
era of segregation and racial upheaval.
Bodega Dreams, Ernesto Quinonez
Chino, a smart, promising young man living in Spanish Harlem,
admires Bodega, a local drug dealer. Chino is drawn to Bodega’s
street-smart idealism, but soon finds himself over his head, navigating
an underworld of switchblade tempers, turncoat morality, and murder.
In the Castle of My Skin, George Lamming
an autobiographical novel of race and class by one of the leading
th
Black writers of the 20 century.
Unburnable, Marie Elena St. John
Haunted by scandal and secrets, Lillian Baptiste fled Dominica when
she fourteen after discovering she was the daughter of Iris, the halfcrazy woman whose life was referenced in Christmas songs sung
during Carnival.
How to Escape a Leper Colony, Tiphanie Yanique
For a leper, many things are impossible, and many other things are
easily done. Babalao Chuck said he could fly to the other side of the
island and peek at the nuns bathing.
Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann
Philippe Petit’s high-wire
walk between the Twin Towers binds the lives of an unlikely set of New
Yorkers.
Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
Reads like a novel, but this book is a non-fiction work stemming from
ten years of research on one extended family in the Bronx.
Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the Civil
War, Drew Gilpin Faust
Faust makes a major contribution to both Civil War historiography and
women’s studies in this outstanding analysis of the impact of secession,
invasion, and conquest on Southern white women.
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?,
Beverly Daniel Tatum
In this honest story, Ms. Tatum looks at the phenomenon of why selfsegregation has become so common sixty years after Brown v. Board of
Education established integration in schools.
Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
This book is a
collection of “economic” articles. The authors argue that economics is, at
root, a study of incentives.
The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
Gladwell explains how ideas,
products and messages gain popularity. The tipping point is that magic
moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips,
and spreads like wildfire.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot
A woman’s cancer cells were extensively cultured without her
permission during 1951.
The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson
This is a terrifying account of
how an architect and a serial killer were linked by the World’s Fair of
1893.
Angela Davis: An Autobiography, Angela Davis
The political activist reflects upon the people and incidents that have
influenced her life and commitment to global liberation of the oppressed.
Revolutionary Suicide, Huey Newton
Eloquently tracing the birth of a revolutionary, Huey P. Newton’s
famous and oft- quoted autobiography is as much a manifesto as a
portrait of the inner circle of America’s Black Panther Party.
Black Wall Street, Jay Wilson
Black Wall Street is a work of historical fiction which builds its storyline
along the events leading up to the Tulsa race riot of 1921.
WOIS Summer Reading TEXT SELECTIONS by GRADE
Dear Incoming World of Inquiry Seniors –Graduating Class of 2017:
The curriculum for English IV begins this summer with a required reading assignment. You must select and
read one book from each of the lists below. This means you will select one work of fiction and one work of
non-fiction for a total of two books. You must also complete a fiction and non-fiction reading log for the
two selected literary works. Both the fiction and non-fiction reading logs will be collected by your English
teacher on Monday, September 28, 2015.
FICTION WORKS
NON FICTION WORKS
All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy
Part bildungsroman, part meditation on the country, this beautifully crafted
novel tells the story of John Grady Cole, who with his friend Rawlins,
encounter various adventures on their way south and finally arrive at a
paradisiacal hacienda where Cole falls into an ill-fated romance.
The Long Song, Andrea Levy
Told by July, a slave girl born on a Jamaican plantation in the nineteenth
century, this is the story of her life during and after the last years of slavery.
The Good Soldiers, David Finkel
embedded reporter recounts a heartbreaking year in the life of
American battalion fighting in post-surge Iraq.
The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
A powerful family saga, forbidden love story, and piercing political drama, this
is the story of an affluent Indian family forever changed by one fateful day in
1969.
Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled
Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where
despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be
black for the first time. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but
with post-9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous,
undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, they reunite in a newly
democratic Nigeria, and reignite their passion—for each other and for their
homeland.
Kindred, Octavia E. Butler
Dana, a 26-year-old black woman in a mixed-race marriage, is mysteriously
transported back in time from 1970s California to the antebellum South, where
she saves Rufus, the son of a plantation owner.
Ines of My Soul, Isabel Allende
A work of historical fiction, Allende’s novel recounts the life of Ines Suarez, a
daring Spanish conquistadora who toiled to build the nation of Chile.
Philadelphia Fire, John Edgar Wideman
Based on the 1985 bombing by police of a West Philadelphia row house owned
by the Afrocentric cult MOVE, this book tells of Cudjoe, a writer who returns
to his old neighborhood after a decade of self-imposed exile, obsessed with
finding the lone boy who was seen running from the flames.
World War Z, by Max Brooks
Through a series of oral interviews, Max
Brooks, as an agent of the United Nations Postwar Commission, describes the
history of “World War Z”. (Each interview serves a chapter.)
A Walk Across the Sun, Corban Addison
Corban Addison leads readers on a chilling, eye-opening journey into
Mumbai’s seedy underworld – and the nightmare of two orphaned girls swept
into the international sex trade.
Cutting for Stone, Abraham Verghese
Twin brothers, conjoined and then separated, grow up amid the political
turmoil of Ethiopia.
Brown Girl, Brownstones, Paule Marshall
This coming-of-age story centers on the daughter of Barbadian immigrants
living in Brooklyn during the Depression and World War II. A precursor to
feminist literature, this novel was written by and about an African-American
woman.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight,
lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. From his home in New Jersey, where he lives
with his old-world mother and rebellious sister, Oscar dreams of becoming the
Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love.
Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the
Media, Politicians, and Activists, Joel Best
Resist the spin doctors. Joel Best provides a classic guide to
understanding how numbers can confuse us.
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman
Explore the limits and power of healing in this account about
Hmong immigrants in California.
Carry Me Home, Diane McWhorter
The year 1963 was a
cataclysmic turning point in America’s long civil rights struggle.
McWhorter weaves together police and FBI documents, interviews
with black activists and former Klansmen, and personal memories
into an extraordinary narrative of the city, the personalities, and the
events that brought about America’s second Emancipation.
Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing, Ted Conover
The journalist recounts his experience learning about the New York
State Department of Correctional Services by becoming a
correctional officer for a year.
The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright
Wright,
a New Yorker writer, brings exhaustive research and delightful
prose to one of the best books yet on the history of terrorism.
Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in
Kenya, Caroline Elkins
This major work of history for the first time reveals the violence
and terror at the heart of Britain’s civilizing mission in Kenya.
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything,
Christopher Hitchens
Hitchens criticizes religion as a malignant force.
Half the Sky, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
More girls have been killed in the last fifty years, precisely because
they were girls, than men were killed in all the wars of the twentieth
century. New York Times columnist Kristof and his wife, WuDunn,
a former Times reporter, make a brilliantly argued case for
investing in the health and autonomy of women worldwide.
Colonizer and Colonized, Albert Memmi
Memmi discusses the minds of the oppressor as well as the
oppressed. In addition, he reveals the truth about colonialism and
struggles that are as relevant today as they were decades ago.
The Mis-Education of the Negro, Carter G. Woodson
Carter G. Woodson shows us the weakness of Euro-centric based
curricula that fail to include African-American history and culture.
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, James Weldon
Johnson
This literary work tells of a biracial man’s coming-of-age
in the early 1900s.
WOIS Summer Reading TEXT SELECTIONS by GRADE