High School Summer Reading Book Lists 2009

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Bohemia Manor High School

  • Andromeda Strain, The.
    Crichton, Michael. Five day history of a major American scientific crisis. (F) Reading Level-6.5; Lexile Level-840

  • Call of the Wild, The.
    London, Jack. Rugged outdoor story of the sled dog, Buck, who was mistreated by his master and broke free to roam the Alaskan wilderness. (F) Reading Level-7.0; Lexile Level-1170

  • December Stillness.
    Downing-Hahn, Mary. Thirteen-year-old Kelly tries to befriend Mr. Weems, a disturbed, homeless Vietnam veteran who spends his days in the library though he makes clear he wants to be left alone. (F) Reading Level-6.0; Lexile Level-860

  • Hobbit, The.
    Tolkien, J.R.R. The delightful tale which first creates the fantasy called Middle Earth and its charming dwarf-like creatures, the Hobbits. (F) Reading Level-7.5; Lexile Level-1000

  • Hot Zone, The.
    Preston, Richard. A book that argues that dangerous viruses like HIV have emerged with the destruction of jungles and rain forests in Africa. (NF) Reading Level-7.5; Lexile Level-1030

  • Lord of the Flies.
    Golding, William. The classic tale of a group of English school boys who are left stranded on an unpopulated island, and who must confront not only the defects of their society but the defect of their own natures. (F) Reading Level-8.0; Lexile Level-770

  • Martian Chronicles.
    Bradbury, Ray. Leaving behind a world on the brink of destruction, man came to Mars and found Martians waiting. While seeking a new beginning, man nevertheless brought with him his oldest fears and deepest desires. Man conquered Mars, but in that instant, Mars conquered him. (F) Reading Level-7.0; Lexile Level-740

  • October Sky (also titled Rocket Boys).
    Hickam, Homer. A memoir of the author's bumpy ride toward a gold medal at the National Science fair in 1960 after he becomes fascinated with rockets when he sees Spunik over his West Virginia coal mining town. (NF) Reading Level-6.0; Lexile Level-900

  • Outsiders, The.
    Hinton, S.E. According to Ponyboy, there are two kinds of people in the world: greasers and socs. A soc (short for "social") has money, can get away with just about anything, and has an attitude longer then a limousine. A greaser, on the other hand, always lives on the outside and needs to watch his back. Ponyboy is a greaser, and he's always been proud of it, even willing to rumble against a gang of socs for the sake of his fellow greasers--until one terrible night when his friend Johnny kills a soc. (F) Reading Level-5.0; Lexile Level-750

  • Shakespeare Stealer, The.
    Blackwood, Gary. A young orphan boy is ordered by his master to infiltrate Shakespeare's acting troupe in order to steal the script of Hamlet, but he discovers instead the meaning of friendship and loyalty. (F) Reading Level-5.0; Lexile Level-840

Elkton High School

  • Andromeda Strain, The.
    Crichton, Michael. Five day history of a major American scientific crisis. (F) Reading Level-6.5; Lexile Level-840

  • Animal Dreams.
    Kingsolver, Barbara. Blending flashbacks, dreams, and Native American legends, this is a suspenseful love story and a moving exploration of life's commitments. (F) Reading Level-8.0; Lexile Level-790

  • Call of the Wild, The.
    London, Jack. Rugged outdoor story of the sled dog, Buck, who was mistreated by his master and broke free to roam the Alaskan wilderness. (F) Reading Level-7.0; Lexile Level-1170

  • December Stillness.
    Downing-Hahn, Mary. Thirteen-year-old Kelly tries to befriend Mr. Weems, a disturbed, homeless Vietnam veteran who spends his days in the library though he makes clear he wants to be left alone. (F) Reading Level-6.0; Lexile Level-860

  • Having Our Say: The Delaney's Sisters First 100 years.
    Delany, Sarah and Elizabeth. In a memoir that's as much a historical record as a testimony to two extraordinary women, the Delany sisters recall their remarkable live, spanning more than a century of the Afracan-American experience. (F) Reading Level-6.5; Lexile Level-890

  • Hobbit, The.
    Tolkien, J.R.R. The delightful tale which first creates the fantasy called Middle Earth and its charming dwarf-like creatures, the Hobbits. (F) Reading Level-7.5; Lexile Level-1000

  • Hot Zone, The.
    Preston, Richard. A book that argues that dangerous viruses like HIV have emerged with the destruction of jungles and rain forests in Africa. (NF) Reading Level-7.5; Lexile Level-1030

  • Ironman.
    While training for a triathlon, seventeen-year-old Bo attends an anger management group at school which leads him to examine his relationship with his father. (F) Reading Level-7.5; Lexile Level-980

  • Martian Chronicles.
    Bradbury, Ray. Leaving behind a world on the brink of destruction, man came to Mars and found Martians waiting. While seeking a new beginning, man nevertheless brought with him his oldest fears and deepest desires. Man conquered Mars, but in that instant, Mars conquered him. (F) Reading Level-7.0; Lexile Level-740

  • October Sky (also titled Rocket Boys).
    Hickam, Homer. A memoir of the author's bumpy ride toward a gold medal at the National Science fair in 1960 after he becomes fascinated with rockets when he sees Spunik over his West Virginia coal mining town. (NF) Reading Level-6.0; Lexile Level-900

  • Pigman, The.
    Zindel, Paul. John Conlan and Lorraine Jensen have to tell about something that just happened to them, about an experience too overwhelming to keep private. The two high-school sophomores come from constricting, unhappy homes, and although life seems tolerable since they have found each other, there is still much to be desired. Unusual circumstances introduce them to a lonely man with an awful secret. An intense friendship results, and together the three create a strange, unreal world out of their zaniness and laughter. (F) Reading level-6.0; Lexile Level-950

  • Red Scarf Girl.
    Jiang, Ji-Li. Ji-Li has written a compelling memoir which reveals her gradual disillusionment with what she had been taught to believe about Chinese communist government. A highly successful student, Ji-Li's life begins to unravel during the Cultural Revolution when her family wants her to turn down a chance to be trained by the government as a gymnast. Self-centered at first, the effects that propaganda have upon the lives of the people she respects - including her family - expand her concerns beyond her own. (NF) Reading Level-6.0; Lexile Level-780

  • Shakespeare Stealer, The.
    Blackwood, Gary. A young orphan boy is ordered by his master to infiltrate Shakespeare's acting troupe in order to steal the script of Hamlet, but he discovers instead the meaning of friendship and loyalty. (F) Reading Level-5.0; Lexile Level-840

  • Through a Window.
    Goodall, Jane. The dramatic saga of thirty years in the life of a community, of birth and death, love, power and war. It reads like a novel, but it is one of the most important scientific works ever published. The community is Gombe, on the shores of Lake Tangganyika, where the principle residents are chimpanzees and one extraordinary woman (Jane Goodall) who is their student, protector, and historian. (NF)

  • Tree Grows in Brooklyn, A.
    Smith, Betty. Story of a sensitive, intelligent you Francie Nolan as she and her family struggle to survive in a slum. (F) Reading Level-7.5; Lexile Level-810

North East High School

  • All Creatures Great and Small.
    Herriot, James. The memoir of a countryside animal doctor filled with humor, tale-telling and a love of life. (NF) Reading Level-8.0; Lexile Level-990

  • Andromeda Strain, The.
    Crichton, Michael. Five day history of a major American scientific crisis. (F) Reading Level-6.5; Lexile Level-840

  • Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl.
    Frank, Anne. A precocious young girl is obliged by the encroaching Nazi regime to live in enforced seclusion with her family and friends. (NF) Reading Level-6.5; Lexile Level-1180

  • Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, The.
    Gaines, Ernest. A novel in the guise of the tape-recorded recollections of a black woman who has lived 110 years. (F) Reading Level-7.0; Lexile Level-710

  • Beautiful Swimmers: Waterman, Crabs, and the Chesapeake Bay.
    Warner, William. A wonderful read of life on the Chesapeake bay. (NF)

  • Call of the Wild, The.
    London, Jack. Rugged outdoor story of the sled dog, Buck, who was mistreated by his master and broke free to roam the Alaskan wilderness. (F) Reading Level-7.0; Lexile Level-1170

  • Dandelion Wine.
    Bradbury, Ray. The summer of 1928 was a vintage season for a growing boy. A summer of green trees, mowed lawns, and new sneakers. Of half-burnt firecrackers, of gathering dandelions, of Grandma's belly-busting dinner. It was a summer in the life of a twelve-year-old boy named Douglas Spaulding--remembered forever by the incomparable Ray Bradbury. (F) Reading Level-6.0; Lexile Level-880

  • Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam.
    Edelman, Bernard. More than twenty-five years after the official end of the Vietnam War, Dear America allows us to witness the war firsthand through the eyes of the men and women who served in Vietnam. In this collection of more than 200 letters, they share their first impressions of the rigors of life in the bush, their longing for home and family, their emotions over the conduct of the war, and their ache at the loss of a friend in battle. (NF) Reading Level-8.0; Lexile Level-980

  • December Stillness.
    Downing-Hahn, Mary. Thirteen-year-old Kelly tries to befriend Mr. Weems, a disturbed, homeless Vietnam veteran who spends his days in the library though he makes clear he wants to be left alone. (F) Reading Level-6.0; Lexile Level-860

  • Ender's Game.
    Orson, Scott. Ender Wiggin believes he is engaged in a computer war game when in reality he is commanding the last fleet of Earth against an alien race. (F) Reading Level-7.0; Lexile Level-780

  • Farewell to Manzanar.
    Houston, Jeanne. The true story of the impact that the internment of Japanese living in the United States during World War II had on one family. (NF) Reading Level-7.0; Lexile Level-1040

  • Flowers for Algernon.
    Keyes, Daniel. Flowers for Algernon is the journal of Charlie Gordon, a mentally retarded adult who becomes a genius after undergoing a brain operation and what happens afterwards to change his life. (F) Reading Level-8.0; Lexile Level-910

  • Good Earth, The.
    Buck, Pearl S. A classic novel by a Nobel Prize-winning author offers a graphic view of China during the reign of the last Emperor, and tells the story of an honest farmer and his wife as they struggle with the sweeping changes of the twentieth century. (F) Reading Level-8.0; Lexile Level-1530

  • Having Our Say: The Delaney's Sisters First 100 years.
    Delany, Sarah and Elizabeth. In a memoir that's as much a historical record as a testimony to two extraordinary women, the Delany sisters recall their remarkable live, spanning more than a century of the African-American experience. (F) Reading Level-6.5; Lexile Level-890

  • Hobbit, The.
    Tolkien, J.R.R. The delightful tale which first creates the fantasy called Middle Earth and its charming dwarf-like creatures, the Hobbits. (F) Reading Level-7.5; Lexile Level-1000

  • Homecoming.
    Voigt, Cynthia. Abandoned by their mother, four children begin a search for a home and an identity. (F) Reading Level-5.0; Lexile Level-630

  • House on Mango Street, The.
    Cisneros, Sandra. The story of Esperanza Cordero, a young girl growing up in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago and how she rises above the hopelessness of poverty, racial hatred and more. (F) Reading Level-7.5; Lexile Level-870

  • I Am the Cheese.
    Cormeir, Robert. Imagine discovering that your whole life has been a fiction, your identity altered, and a new family history created. Suddenly nothing is as it once seemed; you can trust no one, maybe not even yourself. It is exactly this revelation that turns 14-year-old Adam Farmer's life upside down. As he tries to ascertain who he really is, Adam encounters a past, present and future too horrible to contemplate (F) Reading Level-6.5; Lexile Level-810

  • I Heard the Owl Call My Name.
    Craven, Margaret. A young minister who has two years to live learns about the meaning of life when he is sent to an Indian parish in British Columbia. (F) Reading Level-8.0; Lexile Level-1080

  • Martian Chronicles.
    Bradbury, Ray. Leaving behind a world on the brink of destruction, man came to Mars and found Martians waiting. While seeking a new beginning, man nevertheless brought with him his oldest fears and deepest desires. Man conquered Mars, but in that instant, Mars conquered him. (F) Reading Level-7.0; Lexile Level-740

  • Member of the Wedding, The.
    McCullers, Carson. Twelve-year-old Frankie is a sensitive and confused child and has mixed feelings on the occasion of her older brother's wedding. (F) Reading Level-6.5; Lexile Level-900

  • Nightjohn.
    Paulsen, Gary. Imagine being beaten for learning to read, shackled and whipped for learning a few letters of the alphabet. Now, imagine a man brave enough to risk torture in order to teach others how to read; his name is Nightjohn, and he sneaks into the slave camps at night to teach other slaves how to read and write. (F) Reading Level-5.5; Lexile Level-770

  • October Sky (also titled Rocket Boys).
    Hickam, Homer. A memoir of the author's bumpy ride toward a gold medal at the National Science fair in 1960 after he becomes fascinated with rockets when he sees Spunik over his West Virginia coal mining town. (NF) Reading Level-6.0; Lexile Level-900

  • Pigman, The.
    Zindel, Paul. John Conlan and Lorraine Jensen have to tell about something that just happened to them, about an experience too overwhelming to keep private. The two high-school sophomores come from constricting, unhappy homes, and although life seems tolerable since they have found each other, there is still much to be desired. Unusual circumstances introduce them to a lonely man with an awful secret. An intense friendship results, and together the three create a strange, unreal world out of their zaniness and laughter. (F) Reading level-6.0; Lexile Level-950

  • Separate Peace, A.
    Knowles, John. Gene was a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas was a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete. What happened between them at school one summer during the early years of World War II is the subject of the book. A great bestseller for over thirty years--one of the most starkly moving parables ever written of the dark forces that brood over the tortured world of adolescence. (F) Reading Level-8.5; Lexile Level-1110

  • Shakespeare Stealer, The.
    Blackwood, Gary. A young orphan boy is ordered by his master to infiltrate Shakespeare's acting troupe in order to steal the script of Hamlet, but he discovers instead the meaning of friendship and loyalty. (F) Reading Level-5.0; Lexile Level-840

  • Wizard of Earhsea, A.
    Le Guin, Ursula K. A tale about a reckless, awkward boy named Sparrowhark who becomes a wizard's apprentice after the wizard reveals Sparrowhawk's true name. The boy comes to realize that his fate may be far more important that he ever dreamed possible. (F) Reading Level-7.0; Lexile Level-1150

  • Zlata's Diary.
    Filipovic, Zlata. Zlata Filipovic of Sarajevo began keeping her diary in 1991, just before her eleventh birthday. Ebullient and accomplished, Zlata recorded the swirl of activities she avidly pursued, from school to piano lessons, skiing, parties, and watching her favorite TV shows, all American. We immediately sense that Zlata and her family have a deep love for their country, but just as we enjoy Zlata's fine young mind and cheerful disposition, the chaos and terror of war shatter her world. (F) Reading Level-6.0; Lexile Level-640

Perryville High School

  • Call of the Wild, The.
    London, Jack. Rugged outdoor story of the sled dog, Buck, who was mistreated by his master and broke free to roam the Alaskan wilderness. (F) Reading Level-7.0; Lexile Level-1170

  • December Stillness.
    Downing-Hahn, Mary. Thirteen-year-old Kelly tries to befriend Mr. Weems, a disturbed, homeless Vietnam veteran who spends his days in the library though he makes clear he wants to be left alone. (F) Reading Level-6.0; Lexile Level-860

  • Hatchet.
    Paulsen, Gary. After a plane crash, 13 year-old Brian spends 54 days in the wilderness, learning to survive initially with only the aid of a hatchet, given him by his mother, and learning also to survive his parent's divorce. (F) Reading Level-6.0; Lexile Level-860

  • Martian Chronicles.
    Bradbury, Ray. Leaving behind a world on the brink of destruction, man came to Mars and found Martians waiting. While seeking a new beginning, man nevertheless brought with him his oldest fears and deepest desires. Man conquered Mars, but in that instant, Mars conquered him. (F) Reading Level-7.0; Lexile Level-740

  • October Sky (also titled Rocket Boys).
    Hickam, Homer. A memoir of the author's bumpy ride toward a gold medal at the National Science fair in 1960 after he becomes fascinated with rockets when he sees Spunik over his West Virginia coal mining town. (NF) Reading Level-6.0; Lexile Level-900

  • Shakespeare Stealer, The.
    Blackwood, Gary. A young orphan boy is ordered by his master to infiltrate Shakespeare's acting troupe in order to steal the script of Hamlet, but he discovers instead the meaning of friendship and loyalty. (F) Reading Level-5.0; Lexile Level-840

  • Zlata's Diary.
    Filipovic, Zlata. Zlata Filipovic of Sarajevo began keeping her diary in 1991, just before her eleventh birthday. Ebullient and accomplished, Zlata recorded the swirl of activities she avidly pursued, from school to piano lessons, skiing, parties, and watching her favorite TV shows, all American. We immediately sense that Zlata and her family have a deep love for their country, but just as we enjoy Zlata's fine young mind and cheerful disposition, the chaos and terror of war shatter her world. (NF) Reading Level-6.0; Lexile Level-640

Rising Sun High School

  • Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The.
    Twain, Mark. Twain's classic tale of high jinx on the banks of the Mississippi has it all: mischievous boys, robbers, buried treasure, and a graveyard at midnight. Not to mention the irresistible title character and his adventurous sidekick, Huckleberry Finn. (F) Reading Level-7.0; Lexile Level-950

  • Beautiful Swimmers: Waterman, Crabs, and the Chesapeake Bay.
    Warner, William. A wonderful read of life on the Chesapeake bay. (NF)

  • Call of the Wild, The.
    London, Jack. Rugged outdoor story of the sled dog, Buck, who was mistreated by his master and broke free to roam the Alaskan wilderness. (F) Reading Level-7.0; Lexile Level-1170

  • December Stillness.
    Downing-Hahn, Mary. Thirteen-year-old Kelly tries to befriend Mr. Weems, a disturbed, homeless Vietnam veteran who spends his days in the library though he makes clear he wants to be left alone. (F) Reading Level-6.0; Lexile Level-860

  • Hobbit, The.
    Tolkien, J.R.R. The delightful tale which first creates the fantasy called Middle Earth and its charming dwarf-like creatures, the Hobbits. (F) Reading Level-7.5; Lexile Level-1000

  • Little Prince, The.
    Saint-Exupery, Antoine de. An enchanting fable about a pilot downed in the Sahara Desert, and the boy from outer space who teaches him the meaning of life. (F) Reading Level-8.0; Lexile Level-710

  • Martian Chronicles.
    Bradbury, Ray. Leaving behind a world on the brink of destruction, man came to Mars and found Martians waiting. While seeking a new beginning, man nevertheless brought with him his oldest fears and deepest desires. Man conquered Mars, but in that instant, Mars conquered him. (F) Reading Level-7.0; Lexile Level-740

  • October Sky (also titled Rocket Boys).
    Hickam, Homer. A memoir of the author's bumpy ride toward a gold medal at the National Science fair in 1960 after he becomes fascinated with rockets when he sees Spunik over his West Virginia coal mining town. (NF) Reading Level-6.0; Lexile Level-900

  • Shakespeare Stealer, The.
    Blackwood, Gary. A young orphan boy is ordered by his master to infiltrate Shakespeare's acting troupe in order to steal the script of Hamlet, but he discovers instead the meaning of friendship and loyalty. (F) Reading Level-5.0; Lexile Level-840