Summer Reading List for English 9H
Choose one of the works below to read over the summer, and complete the two writing assignments listed at
the end. DO NOT COPY YOUR WORK FROM THE INTERNET OR ANY OTHER SOURCE. You don’t
want to start the year with me distrusting everything you do because it might be plagiarized.
Related to Class Texts (Romeo and Juliet and The Odyssey)
Othello
William Shakespeare
Hamlet
William Shakespeare
Twelfth Night
William Shakespeare
Romiette and Julio
The Iliad
Sharon Draper
Homer
The Aeneid
Virgil
Iago tricks his commander into thinking his wife is
having an affair.
Hamlet’s father’s ghost says his brother killed him and
married his wife
Comedy of mistaken identities and tricking a
pompous man.
A re-envisioning of Romeo and Juliet.
About the Trojan War, which takes place before
The Odyssey
The travels of Aeneas after the Trojan War.
Science Fiction
Ender’s Game
Foundation
Orson Scott Card
Isaac Asimov
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Douglas Adams
A boy is trained to fight off invading aliens.
Psychohistory is developed to guide the galactic
empire through its crises.
Hilarious satire of science fiction.
Non-Fiction
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Alex Haley
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman Ernest Gaines
Tuesdays with Morrie
Mitch Albom
A Walk in the Woods
Bill Bryson
Fast Food Nation
An Anthropologist on Mars
Searching for Bobby Fischer
Eric Schlosser
Oliver Sacks
Fred Waitzkin
About the controversial civil rights figure.
Actually fiction, tells history through the eyes of a
110-year old slave
Life lessons gained from meetings with a
dying professor.
Tells of humorous adventures hiking the
Appalachian Trail (some mature language)
Revealing look at fast food.
Fascinating studies of mental disorders.
Insight into the chess world.
Multicultural
The House on Mango Street
The Joy Luck Club
The Bluest Eye
Sandra Cisneros
Amy Tan
Toni Morrison
Like Water for Chocolate
The Bone People
Laura Esquivel
Keri Hulme
Short episodes about a Hispanic community.
Chinese family adapts to America.
An 11-year old black girl wishes for blue eyes
to be pretty.
Magical realism about food and family.
About a Maori woman, alcoholism, child
abuse, and culture in New Zealand.
Fantasy
A Spell for Chameleon
Piers Anthony
On a Pale Horse
The Golden Compass
Nine Princes in Amber
Piers Anthony
Philip Pullman
Roger Zelazny
Pawn of Prophecy
David Eddings
First of the Xanth series. Everyone has
magic but Bink, who is outcast as a result.
Death as a physical being.
Political plots, warrior bears, and daemons.
Power struggles using the tarot and travel
through dimensions among princes.
Garion’s quest to fight the evil god Torak
Fiction
I am the Cheese
A Prayer for Owen Meany
The Book of Ruth
Practical Magic
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
Cat’s Cradle
Speak
Robert Cormier
Intriguing story split between a bike ride
and an interrogation.
John Irving
Owen thinks killing his friend’s mother with
a foul ball means he’s an instrument of God.
Jane Hamilton
Heavy, thought-provoking book of conflicted
Ruth and her struggles.
Alice Hoffman
Magic and reality mix in the Owens family.
Ann Brashores
Four girls share magical pants one summer.
Kurt Vonnegut
Vonnegut is great and quirky. Ice-9 could
freeze the world.
Laura Halse Anderson A girl feels outcast and unable to speak
because of a traumatic event.
Collections
Curses! Broiled Again! (or other collections of Urban Legends)
Any collection of folklore (at least 125 pages)
Any short story anthology (at least 125 pages)
Any collection of Greek Mythology (at least 125 pages)
Jan Brunvand
Bring these two assignments with you on the first day of school.
1. Write a 100-200 word (1 page) summary of what you read. For collections of stories, give an overview of
what the stories were and what some of them were about.
2. Choose one of the following themes and explain how it relates to your reading in 200-300 words, using
three examples.
a. Prejudice is a destructive force – where is the prejudice, what does it destroy?
b. Courage is needed in the face of overwhelming obstacles – what are the obstacles, and when is
courage needed to face them?
c. Destiny is predetermined – how are the events unchangeable regardless of what the characters
do?
d. Think of the consequences before acting – what should the characters have considered before
doing something?
e. Love conquers all – what gets conquered by love?
f. Don't judge someone until you walk around in that person's skin. – who gets judged and how
would knowing their perspective change this?