Lic. Comunicacion Y Publicidad

WALT WHITMAN HIGH SCHOOL
SUMMER READING LIST FOR GRADE 10
2012-2013

If you are entering 10th grade regular level English, you must read and annotate “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and one selection from the list below by the first day of school. To guarantee that we are all using the same version of the mandatory readings, please follow the directions for downloading short stories.

Ifyou are entering 10th grade honors level English, you must read and annotate “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and read two selections from the list below by the first day of school. To guarantee that we are all using the same version of the mandatory readings, please follow the directions for downloading short stories.

Directions fordownloading the short stories:
Go to the Walt Whitman homepage ( http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/schools/whitmanhs/). Click on “Academics.” Then, select “English.” The readings are available on the English page.

Count on being asked to write about and discuss your summer reading on the first day and during the first week of school in August. We recommend that you take some notes as you read,especially on those books you read early in the summer.

Summer Reading List Selections

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Sijie Dai, Ina Rilke (Trans) This novel tells the story of two hapless city boys exiled to a remote mountain village for re-education during China's infamous Cultural Revolution. There, the two friends meet the daughter of the local tailor and discover a hiddenstash of Western classics in Chinese translation. As they flirt with the seamstress and secretly devour these banned works, the two friends find transit from their grim surroundings to worlds they never imagined.

The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver A young girl from Kentucky travels west in search of a new life. Her adventures begin when she becomes responsible for a very young NativeAmerican girl who cannot talk. How she copes with this situation and further adventures makes fascinating reading.

The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan At the beginning of Amy Tan's fourth novel, two packets of papers written in Chinese calligraphy fall into the hands of Ruth Young. The author is the protagonist's mother, LuLing, who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. In the documents, theelderly matriarch, born in China in 1916, has set down a record of her birth and family history, determined to keep the facts from vanishing as her mind deteriorates.

Dracula byBram Stoker Of the many admiring reviews Bram Stoker's Dracula received when it first appeared in 1897, the most astute praise came from the author's mother, who wrote to her son: "It is splendid. No book since Mrs.Shelley's Frankenstein or indeed any other at all has come near yours in originality, or terror."

The Endurance: Edward Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing In the summer of 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton set off aboard the Endurance, bound for the South Atlantic. The goal of his expedition was to cross the Antarctic overland, but more than a year later, and still half a continent awayfrom the intended base, the Endurance was trapped in ice and eventually was crushed. For five months Shackleton and his crew survived on drifting ice packs in one of the most savage regions of the world before they were finally able to set sail again in one of the ship's lifeboats. It is hard to put this book down.
- 2 -

Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger At twenty, Franny Glass isexperiencing desperate dissatisfaction with her life and seems to be looking for help via a religious awakening. Her brother Zooey tries to help her out of this depression. An older brother, Buddy, is also an important component of the interrelationships in the Glass family. This is one of several Salinger works that take the reader into the peculiar world of the Glass family.

Girl with a Pearl Earring...