Orange County Schools
2015-2016 Summer Recommended Reading
Honors English II
Recommended reading for Honors English II students:
We have selected the following books for our recommended Honors English II summer reading. We have
attempted to select texts which will nurture in our students a love of reading. We recommend that students
and parents read the descriptions carefully and make an informed decision, selecting titles that are
appropriate for their summer reading.
We have included a short summary of our selections. ​
Should a selection be objected to, we have
listed an alternate text as well. ​
(All summaries come from Amazon.)
1.​
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents​
-- Julia Alvarez
Acclaimed writer Julia Alvarez’s brilliant, buoyant, and beloved first novel gives voice to four sisters
recounting their adventures growing up in two cultures. Selected as a Notable Book by both the ​
New York
Times​
and the American Library Association, it won the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award for books
with a multicultural perspective and was chosen by New York librarians as one of twenty-one classics for the
twenty-first century. Ms. Alvarez was recently honored with the 2013 National Medal of Arts for her
extraordinary storytelling. ​
Content advisory​
: crude language, some sexual content.
In this debut novel, the García sisters—Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofía—and their family must flee their
home in the Dominican Republic after their father’s role in an attempt to overthrow a tyrannical dictator is
discovered. They arrive in New York City in 1960 to a life far removed from their existence in the Caribbean.
In the wild and wondrous and not always welcoming U.S.A., their parents try to hold on to their old ways,
but the girls try find new lives: by forgetting their Spanish, by straightening their hair and wearing fringed
bell bottoms. For them, it is at once liberating and excruciating to be caught between the old world and the
new. ​
How the García Girls Lost Their Accents​
sets the sisters free to tell their most intimate stories about
how they came to be at home—and not at home—in America.
2. ​
City of Thieves​
-- David Benioff
During the Nazis’ brutal siege of Leningrad, Lev Beniov is arrested for looting and thrown into the same cell
as a handsome deserter named Kolya. Instead of being executed, Lev and Kolya are given a shot at saving
their own lives by complying with an outrageous directive: secure a dozen eggs for a powerful Soviet colonel
to use in his daughter’s wedding cake. In a city cut off from all supplies and suffering unbelievable
deprivation, Lev and Kolya embark on a hunt through the dire lawlessness of Leningrad and behind enemy
lines to find the impossible.
By turns insightful and funny, thrilling and terrifying, ​
City of Thieves​
is a gripping, cinematic World War II
adventure and an intimate coming-of-age story with an utterly contemporary feel for how boys become men.
3. ​
What Is the What -- ​
Dave Eggers
What Is the What​
is the epic novel based on the life of Valentino Achak Deng who, along with thousands of
other children —the so-called Lost Boys—was forced to leave his village in Sudan at the age of seven and trek
hundreds of miles by foot, pursued by militias, government bombers, and wild animals, crossing the deserts
of three countries to find freedom. When he finally is resettled in the United States, he finds a life full of
promise, but also heartache and myriad new challenges. Moving, suspenseful, and unexpectedly funny,
What Is the What​
is an astonishing novel that illuminates the lives of millions through one extraordinary
man.
4. ​
Hiroshima​
-- John Hersey
On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima was destroyed by the first atom bomb ever dropped on a city. This book, John
Hersey's journalistic masterpiece, tells what happened on that day. Told through the memories of survivors,
this timeless, powerful and compassionate document has become a classic "that stirs the conscience of
humanity" (​
The New York Times​
).
5. ​
And the Mountains Echoed​
-- Khaled Hosseini
Khaled Hosseini, the #1 ​
New York Times​
–bestselling author of ​
The Kite Runner ​
and ​
A Thousand Splendid
Suns​
, has written a new novel about how we love, how we take care of one another, and how the choices we
make resonate through generations. In this tale revolving around not just parents and children but brothers
and sisters, cousins and caretakers, Hosseini explores the many ways in which families nurture, wound,
betray, honor, and sacrifice for one another; and how often we are surprised by the actions of those closest to
us, at the times that matter most. Following its characters and the ramifications of their lives and choices
and loves around the globe—from Kabul to Paris to San Francisco to the Greek island of Tinos—the story
expands gradually outward, becoming more emotionally complex and powerful with each turning page.
6. ​
A Thousand Splendid Suns ​
-- Khaled Hosseini
Propelled by the same superb instinct for storytelling that made ​
The Kite Runner​
a beloved classic, ​
A
Thousand Splendid Suns​
is at once an incredible chronicle of thirty years of Afghan history and a deeply
moving story of family, friendship, faith, and the salvation to be found in love.
Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two
women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers
around them -- in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul -- they come to form a bond that makes them
both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own
lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini shows how a woman's
love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or
even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival. ​
Content advisory:​
some violence and sexual
content.
7. ​
My Forbidden Face​
-- Latifa
Latifa was born into an educated middle-class Afghan family in Kabul in 1980. She dreamed of one day
becoming a journalist: she was interested in fashion, movies, and friends. Her father was in the
import/export business and her mother was a doctor. Then in September 1996, Taliban soldiers seized
power in Kabul. From that moment, Latifa, just 16 years old became a prisoner in her own home. Her school
was closed. Her mother was banned from working. The simplest and most basic freedoms—walking down
the street, looking out a window—were no longer hers. She was now forced to wear a chadri. ​
My Forbidden
Face​
provides a poignant and highly personal account of life under the Taliban regime. With painful honesty
and clarity Latifa describes the way she watched her world falling apart, in the name of a fanatical
interpretation of a faith that she could not comprehend. Her voice captures a lost innocence, but also echoes
her determination to live in freedom and hope. ​
Content advisory​
: brutality and abuse.
8. ​
Sarah’s Key​
-- Tatiana de Rosnay
Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the
Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment,
thinking that she will be back within a few hours.
Paris, May 2002: On Vel’ d’Hiv’s 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article
about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of
long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's
ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past,
she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.
Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and reveals
the taboos and silence that surround this painful episode.
Alternate: ​
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind​
-- William Kamkwamba
William Kamkwamba was born in Malawi, a country where magic ruled and modern science was mystery. It
was also a land withered by drought and hunger. But William had read about windmills, and he dreamed of
building one that would bring to his small village a set of luxuries that only 2 percent of Malawians could
enjoy: electricity and running water. His neighbors called him misala—crazy—but William refused to let go
of his dreams. With a small pile of once-forgotten science textbooks; some scrap metal, tractor parts, and
bicycle halves; and an armory of curiosity and determination, he embarked on a daring plan to forge an
unlikely contraption and small miracle that would change the lives around him.
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind​
is a remarkable true story about human inventiveness and its power to
overcome crippling adversity. It will inspire anyone who doubts the power of one individual's ability to
change his community and better the lives of those around him.
These reading selections have been reviewed by a district committee consisting of a school
level administrator, English Language Arts teachers, a district director, and school media
specialists.
These books may have been challenged by other districts, which is why we have provided a
summary of the selections, as well as an alternate text, so that you and your family may
make an informed choice.
Signature:__________________________________________Date:_______
Principal
Signature:__________________________________________Date:_______
Principal
Signature:__________________________________________Date:_______
Principal
Signature:__________________________________________Date:______
Chief Academic Officer
Optional Honors Summer Assignment
Directions: Choose ​
one​
of the following options to complete on your summer reading novel.
All summer assignments (regardless of whether you have your English class in the fall or
spring) are due on August 25th and will count as the equivalent of two quiz grades. Submit
your assignment to your teacher through Google Documents; contact your teacher through
e-mail if you have questions.
For all of the assignments, do the following:
Split your novel into four sections that encompass the following four plot elements:
a. Setting/culture/historical background
b. Conflict
c. Climax
d. Resolution
Options:
1. For each section, choose a piece of art, a photograph, or a song to represent that plot element.
You must use each artistic medium -- piece of art, photograph, song -- at least once, and you will use one
twice since there are four sections. Copy and paste both the actual piece of
art/photograph/song and a link to it on a Google Document. Then, write a paragraph for each
section explaining in depth why you chose the artistic medium and how it reflects the plot element.
2. Create a blog site on a topic related to your book. Give your blog a title, create an appropriate
visual aesthetic, and create a minimum of four posts (one paragraph each) that address the following four
plot elements: setting/culture/historical background, conflict, climax, and resolution.
3. Fill out the following dialectical journal to analyze how the author creates each plot element. Please make
sure you type the quote in directly with page number. Then use the chart to write a 250-500 word analysis
of how the author creates each element in your novel.
Plot Element
Quotes showing this element
Explanation of quotes
Setting/Culture/Historical
Background
1.
2.
3.
1.
2.
3.
Conflict
1.
2.
3.
1.
2.
3.
Climax
1.
2.
3.
1.
2.
3.
Resolution
1.
2.
3.
1.
2.
3.
Rubric for Extra Credit Reading Assignment
Criterion1: Response to the question
To what extent is an understanding of the expectations of the question shown?
How relevant and focused is the response to these expectations?
Is the response supported by well-chosen references to the text(s)?
Level descriptor
1​
The student has a superficial understanding of the expectations of the question. Ideas are frequently
irrelevant and/or repetitive. The response is not supported by references to the text(s).
2​
There is mostly adequate understanding of the expectations of the question. Ideas are generally relevant
and focused. The response is generally supported by references to the text(s).
3​
There is good understanding of the expectations of the question. Ideas are mostly relevant and focused.
The response is mostly supported by well-chosen references to the text(s).
4​
There is thorough understanding of the expectations of the question. Ideas are relevant and focused. The
response is fully supported by well-chosen references to the text(s).
Criterion 2: Organization and argument
How well organized is the task?
How coherent is the structure?
How well developed is the argument of the written task?
Level descriptor
1​
Little organization is apparent; the task has little structure and is poorly developed.
2​
Some organization is apparent; the task has some structure, although it is not sustained. The assignment
has some development.
3​
The task is organized, and the structure is generally coherent. There is some development of the analysis
4​
The task is well organized; the structure is mostly coherent and the argument is clearly developed.
Criterion 3: Language and style
How effective is the use of language and style?
Level descriptor
1​
There is little clarity, with many basic errors.
2​
There is some clarity, though grammar, spelling and sentence structure are often inaccurate; appropriate
vocabulary.
3​
The use of language and the style are generally clear and effective, though there are some inaccuracies in
grammar, spelling and sentence construction; generally appropriate.
4​
The use of language and the style are clear and effective, with a good degree of accuracy; sentence
construction and vocabulary are varied, showing a growing maturity.
Criterion 4: Structure of Assignment
Did you split the book into the four required areas (setting/cultural context, history, conflict, resolution) and
complete one assignment per section?
Level descriptor
1​
Completed one of the four section.
2​
Completed two of the four sections.
3​
Complete three of the four sections.
4 Completed four of the four sections.