 If you received a book from Mrs. Russell or the SMS librarian,
Ms. Heather Turner, in the book swap, you MAY read that book for your 9 th grade summer reading selection.
 If you received a recommendation by a teacher to read a specific book as your summer reading novel, you MAY read that book. However, you MUST be able to tell your 9 th grade instructor the name of the teacher who recommended the book to you.
 You only need to read ONE book; it should be completed by the first day of school. You will have a project to do, so you may want to take some notes! ***Remember-you may read your
“book swap” novel to complete this requirement.
 If you do not use a book from the “Book Swap”, or by teacher recommendation, your teacher will expect you to read ONE book off the list.
 You may have to purchase the book (i.e., depending on its availability) or you can go to a library to sign out the book.
 The book must be read by the start of school.
 You SHOULD take notes or complete a graphic organizer for some of the book’s most important concepts.
 Since the teacher will assign to you a significant task relating to the book, you may want to take some notes (i.e., about such things as plot, setting, characterization, conflicts, climax, resolution, theme, etc.) to remind you of the work’s important ideas in case you forget information over break.
 To minimize preparatory work, you can choose to write about only those ideas crucial to a better understanding of the book.
 During the first five weeks of school, you will complete a major project on the book for a substantial grade.
The Pianist by Wladyslaw Szpilman -Written immediately after the end of World War
II, this morally complex Holocaust memoir exactly depicts the grim details of life in Warsaw's
Polish ghetto under the Nazi occupation. Wladyslaw Szpilman, a pianist for Polish radio when the Germans invaded, struggles to survive when circumstances force him into hiding before
Nazi hunters find him to send him to the death camps.
Habibi by Naomi Shihab-Nye : Liyana's doctor father, a native Palestinian, decides to move his contemporary Arab-American family back to Jerusalem from St. Louis, 14-year-old.
When Liyana falls in love with Omer, a Jewish boy, she challenges family, culture, and tradition. In the background is the city of Jerusalem itself, where ancient tensions between Jews and Palestinians make the hope for peace a challenge to achieve.

Sunrise Over Fallujah, by Walter Dean Myers
:
Robin Perry, from Harlem, is sent to Iraq in 2003 as a member of the Civilian Affairs Battalion, and his time there profoundly changes him.
Speaker for the Dead, by Orson Scott Card:
A youthful and intelligent hero, battling destructive alien forces in the hugely popular prequel Ender’s Game, Ender Wiggin must remind everyone that his initial success against the forces of doom is not what it seems.
Paralleling sixteenth century European explorers, the humans in this book arrogantly assume that they must dominate the new cultures which they encounter. If they do not learn the past’s lessons, their blindness could have tragic consequences which even the brilliant Ender can not forestall.
Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury: A frightening vision of the future; firemen don't put out fires--they start them in order to burn books. In this book, the vividly painted society holds up the appearance of happiness as the highest goal--a place where trivial information is good, and knowledge and ideas are bad.
Tuesday With Morrie
by Mitch Albom: a true story about sportswriter Mitch
Albom and his favorite college professor Morrie Schwartz. During Albom's undergraduate years at Brandeis University, when he takes every class taught by his mentor, he and Schwartz form a bond that goes beyond the typical student/teacher relationship.
Think Like a Fish, by Thomas Mann: Biography Chronicling the Life of Bass
Fisherman Thomas Mann. A Must read for all fisherman!
Romiette and Julio, by Sharon Draper: Romiette, an African-American girl, and Julio, a Hispanic boy, discover that they attend the same high school after falling in love on the Internet, but are harassed by a gang whose members object to their interracial dating.
The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch: Reflections of a Carnegie Mellon computer science professor who lectured on "Really achieving your childhood dreams," shortly after having been diagnosed with terminal cancer. His advice concerned seizing the moment while living, rather than dying.
Into the Wild, by: Jon Krakauer: This is a non-fiction story about a young man who hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness. He had donated $25,000 of his savings to a charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself.
Four months later, his decomposed body and personal journal were found by a local moose hunter.

Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins:
(The final installment in the Hunger Games trilogy.)
As she wanders through district 12, Katniss realizes more than 90% of her neighbors are dead; the rest have been relocated to district 13, an area that was thought to be abandoned, but is very much alive. President Snow has made it clear that he is angry and that no one is safe. Katniss isn’t safe, nor are her family and friends.
Girl Stolen, by April Henry: The expression “The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry” clearly reflects how a simple theft turns out horribly wrong, not just for the victim but also for the criminal. What should a car thief do when his crime results in an unexpected kidnapping, when he feels tenderness for his victim, and when his heartless father has a sinister plan for a helpless girl whose wealthy parent can pay almost anything to have his daughter back alive? Actually, the larger question in all of this is: “How can a victim in this nightmare scenario use every bit of her wits to survive, especially when she is blind?”
The Misfits, by James Howe: Four friends resolve to stand up to their classmates’ bullying.
Whale Talk, by Chris Crutcher: Intellectually and athletically gifted, TJ, a multiracial, adopted teenager, shuns organized sports and the gung-ho athletes at his high school until he agrees to form a swimming team and recruits some of the school's less popular students
Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain: Mark Twain portrays life along the Mississippi through the youthful escapades of Tom Sawyer. Full of boyhood mischief, Tom's pranks and high-spirited exploration land him in trouble.
Black Like Me, by John Howard Griffin: A controversial novel about his experiences as a white man who transforms himself with the aid of medication and dye in order to experience firsthand the life of a black man living in the Deep South in the late 1950s is a mesmerizing tale of the ultimate sociological experiment.
Maus: a Survivor’s Tale, by Art Spiegelman: a memoir presented in cartoon format, about a Jewish family during and after the Holocaust.