SUMMER READING LIST
JOHN MCEACHERN HIGH SCHOOL
9th Grade Literature and Composition
Honors/Gifted Level
This summer reading list is designed to offer many choices for students. Please choose a book that
is appropriate for your reading level, interest, and personal values. These books can be found at the
local libraries or you may purchase a copy at local bookstores.
ALL students must read The Miracle Worker by William Gibson. Students should also
choose 1 other book from the list below. All reading should be completed before the first day of
school on Monday, August 10th so that discussion and learning can begin immediately.
Abarat by Clive Barker - Candy Quackenbush is growing up in Chickentown, Minnesota, yearning for
more--which she finds, quite unexpectedly, when a man with eight heads appears from nowhere in the
middle of the prairie, being chased by something really monstrous. And so begins Candy's epic adventure to
the islands of the Abarat. Peopled by all manner of creatures, cultures, and customs, the islands should prove
a fertile setting for the series that Barker is calling The Books of Abarat.
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie - Considered the best mystery novel ever
written by many readers, And Then There Were None is the story of 10 strangers, each lured to Indian Island
by a mysterious host. Once his guests have arrived, the host accuses each person of murder. Unable to leave
the island, the guests begin to share their darkest secrets--until they begin to die.
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton - An island off Costa Rica will soon be the world's most
ambitious theme park--a dinosaur preserve. A visionary financier's biotechnology company has succeeded in
cloning these extinct reptiles. Fifteen different species, presumably incapable of breeding, are now placidly
roaming around, but Jurassic Park's resident mathematician, an expert in chaos theory, predicts that the
animals' behavior is inherently unstable. When a rival genetics firm attempts to steal frozen dinosaur
embryos, things go haywire. Two cute American kids, eight-year-old Tina and 11-year-old Tim, a safari guide
from Kenya and a Denver paleontologist set things aright--almost.
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens - David Copperfield is a bildungsroman, the story of the
narrator's life from early childhood to maturity. In it, Copperfield describes the obstacles he overcame as an
orphan and the unhappy events he lived through before becoming a successful novelist in later years. The
book is an expert blend of fiction and autobiography.
The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer - Fields of white opium poppies stretch away over
the hills, and uniformed workers bend over the rows, harvesting the juice. This is the empire of Matteo
Alacran, a feudal drug lord in the country of Opium. Any menial tasks are done by "eejits," humans in whose
brains computer chips have been installed to insure docility. Alacran, or El Patron, has lived 140 years with
the help of transplants from a series of clones. The intelligence of clones is usually destroyed at birth, but
Matt, the latest of Alacran's doubles, has been spared because he belongs to El Patron. He grows up in the
family's mansion, alternately caged and despised as an animal and pampered and educated as El Patron's
favorite. Gradually he realizes the fate that is in store for him, and with help, he escapes to Aztlan. There he
and other "lost children" are trapped in a more subtle kind of slavery before Matt can return to Opium to
take his rightful place and transform his country.
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest Gaines - Set in rural southern
Louisiana, the novel spans 100 years of American history--from the early 1860s to the onset of the civil
rights movement in the 1960s--in following the life of the elderly Jane Pittman, who witnessed those years. A
child at the end of the Civil War, Jane survives a massacre by former Confederate soldiers. She serves as a
steadying influence for several black men who work hard to achieve dignity and economic as well as political
equality. After the death of her husband, Joe Pittman, Jane becomes a committed Christian and a spiritual
guide in her community. Spurred on by the violent death of a young community leader, Jane finally confronts
a plantation owner who represents the white power structure to which she has always been subservient.
The Bean Trees (900) by Barbara Kingsolver - Feisty Marietta Greer changes her name to
"Taylor" when her car runs out of gas in Taylorville, Ill. By the time she reaches Oklahoma, this strong-willed
young Kentucky native with a quick tongue and an open mind is catapulted into a surprising new life. Taylor
leaves home in a beat-up '55 Volkswagen bug, on her way to nowhere in particular, savoring her freedom.
But when a forlorn Cherokee woman drops a baby in Taylor's passenger seat and asks her to take it, she
does. Taylor playfully names her little foundling "Turtle," because she clings with an unrelenting, reptilian
grip; at the same time, Taylor aches at the thought of the silent, staring child's past suffering. With Turtle in
tow, Taylor lands in Tucson, Ariz., with two flat tires and decides to stay. The desert climate, landscape and
vegetation are completely foreign to Taylor, and in learning to love Arizona, she also comes face to face with
its rattlesnakes and tarantulas. Similarly, Taylor finds that motherhood, responsibility and independence are
thorny, if welcome, gifts.
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy - The novel tells of the mysterious and much spoken-of
League of the Scarlet Pimpernel. This group is led by the cunning and noble Sir Percy Blakeney who with
accomplices risks life and limb rescuing the innocents caught up in the Reign of Terror in Paris. His disguises
and other inventive ways of eluding capture stretch to his anonymity even amongst the English.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson - Through the curiosity of Utterson, a lawyer,
we learn of the ugly and violent Mr Hyde and his odd connection to the respectable Dr Jekyll who pays out a
check for Hyde’s despicable behavior. A brutal murder follows. The dead man is one of Utterson’s clients, Sir
Danvers Carew. The murder weapon was, unbelievably a cane Utterson had given to Jekyll. As such, the
lawyer becomes entangled in the strange world of the physician Jekyll who it transpires has created a drug
that separates his good and evil natures - purifying the doctor himself but with the ghastly side effect of
periods spent as the monstrous Hyde.