Reading is a vital aspect to academic success in every subject area including English. Every summer, Niles West High School's English Department requires summer reading, based on a theme for each grade level.
You are required to choose a book from the wide variety of genres to read, and you will be assessed in the fall in English Class. I hope you find something that you enjoy.
Happy Reading!
Sanlida Cheng
Freshmen:
Hero Cycle What does it mean to be a hero? It's Not About the Bike (Lance Armstrong) (NON-FICTION)
The Book Thief (Markus Zusak)
The Sword in the Stone (T. H. White)
Stardust (Neil Gaiman)
Eragon (Christopher Palolini)
Adventures of Blue Avenger (Norma Howe)
Heir Apparent (Vivian VandeVelde)
Between a Rock and a Hard Place(Aron Ralston) (NON-FICTION)
The Hero and the Crown (Robert McKinley)
I am the Messenger (Markus Zusak)
The Work of Wolves (Kent Meyers)
Private Peaceful (Michael Morpurgo)
Nation (Terry Pratchett)
The Knife of Never Letting Go: Chaos Walking (Patrick Ness)
Chasing Lincoln’s Killer (James L. Swanson) (NON-FICTION)
Tomorrow When the War began (John Marsden)
Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes (Chris Crutcher)
Lightning Thief (Rick Riordan)
Elsewhere (Gabrielle Zevin)
Ghosts of War: The True Story of a 19 Year-Old GI (Ryan Smithson)
(NON-FICTION) Hate List (Jennifer Brown) | Sophomores:
Trust, Betrayal & Power What is power and where does it come from? A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
Return of the Native (Thomas Hardy)
Jude (Kate Morgenroth)
Touching Snow (M. Sindy Felin)
Pygmalion (George Bernard Shaw)
The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy)
Hiroshima (John Hersey)(NON-FICTION)
What I Saw and How I Lied (Judy Blundell)
How to Defeat Your Own Clone: And Other Tips for Surviving the Biotech
Revolution (Kyle Kurpinsky and Terry D. Johnson)
The Uglies (Scott Westerfeld)
Catalyst (Laurie Halse Anderson) Graceling (Kristin Cashore)
Wild Roses (Deb Caletti) Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets
(Sudhir Venkatesh)(NON-FICTION)
Cat's Cradle (Kurt Vonnegut)
A Civil Action (Johnathon Harr)(NON-FICTION)
The Tenth Circle (Jodi Picoult)
Shattering Glass (Gail Giles)
Riot (Walter Dean Myers) The Angel Experiment (Book One of the Maximum Ride series)(James Patterson) A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving) Cutting for Stone (Abraham Verghese) |
Juniors:
A Multitude of Voices
How are different voices and experiences represented in literature? Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale
Hurston)
Yellow Raft in Blue Water (Michael Dorris)
Geographies of Home (Loida Maritza Perez)
Sula (Toni Morrison)
The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf (Mojha Kahf)
Black Ice (Lorene Cary)
Who Will Tell my Brother (Marlene Carvell)
Voices from Chernobyl (Alexievich and Gessen)(NON-FICTION)
Does My Head Look Big in This? (Randa Abdel-Fattah)
True Notebooks (Mark Salzman(NON-FICTION)
The Botany of Desire or In Defense of Food (Michael Pollan)
Stiff (Mary Roach)
Blood Meridian (Cormac McCarthy)
Ironman (Chris Crutcher)
Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Dave Eggers)(NON-FICTION)
Dairy Queen (Catherine Gilbert Murdock)
The Secret Story of Sonia Rodriguez (Alan Lawrence Sitomer)
A Thousand Splendid Suns (Khaled Hosseini)
Dark Dude (Oscar Hijuelos)
Mexican White Boy (Matt De La Pena)
Warriors Don’t Cry (Melba Pattillo Beals) Forgotten Fire (Adam Bagdasarian)
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier (Ishmael Beah)(NON-FICTION)
Under the Persimmon Tree (Suzanne Fisher Staples)
Ask Me No Questions (Marina Budhos)
Bonfire of the Vanities (Tom Wolfe)
Where Courage is Like a Wild Horse (Sharon Skolnick)
Love Medicine (Louise Erdrich)
The Chosen (Chaim Potok)
How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accent (Julia Alvarez)
The Glass Castle (Jeannette Walls)(NON-FICTION)
Fast Food Nation (Eric Schlosser)(NON-FICTION)
Getting Mother's Body (Suzan-Lori Parks)
So the Wind Won’t Blow it All Away (Richard Brautigan) Freakonomics
(Steven Levitt)
Columbine (Dave Cullen)
A Step from Heaven (An Na)
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Rebecca Skloot) Freakonomics (Steven Levitt)(NON-FICTION)
| Seniors:
Fate & Free Will
Self Determination Can one escape fate? Can one have free will? The Namesake (Jhumpa Lahiri)
Notes from an Incomplete Revolution (Meredith Maran)(NON-FICTION)
Razor’s Edge (W. Somerset Maugham)
Rabbit, Run (John Updike)
The Alchemist (Paulo Coehlo)
The Translator (Daoud Hari)
Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir (Frank McCourt) (NON-FICTION)
Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance (Atul Gawande)(NON-FICTION)
Clone (Gina Kolata)(NON-FICTION)
Outliers: The Story of Success (Malcolm Gladwell)
Bel Canto (Ann Patchett) Just in Case (Meg Rosoff)
Snakehead (Ann Salam)
American Gods (Neil Gaiman)
Deep Survival (Laurence Gonzales)
The House of the Spirits (Isabel Allende)
Whatever You Do, Don’t Run: True Tales of a Botswana Safari Guide (Peter
Allison)(NON-FICTION)
Impossible (Nancy Werlin)
So Long, See You Tomorrow (William Maxwell)
Madapple (Christina Meldrum)
A Northern Light (Jennifer Donnelly)
The Road (Cormac McCarthy)
Franny and Zooey (J.D. Salinger)
What Is the What (Dave Eggers)(NON-FICTION) Driving Mr. Albert (Michael Paternini)(NON-FICTION) Where Men Win GLory (Jon Krakauer)(NON-FICTION) There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America (Alex Kotlowitz)(NON-FICTION) Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago (Le Alan Jones)(NON-FICTION) |
