Summer Reading at MBA: Seventh Grade

Summer Reading Requirement – Seventh Grade

Students entering the 7th grade at MBA will read three texts over the summer. Two assignments will be completed and turned into their Literature and Composition teacher during the first week of school. 

I.  All School Read for 2025-26: Each boy in grades seven through twelve is required to read

II: The second text will be one choice book from the following list. Students should choose a book they have not read. 

1.  Eragon by Christopher Paolini (Fantasy)
2.  Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (Science Fiction)
3.  Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (Science Fiction)
4.  The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman (Fantasy)
5.  Into Thin Air by John Krakauer (Nonfiction)
6.  Rocket Boys by Homer Hickman (Nonfiction)
7.  The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (Historical Fiction)
8.  Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (Science Fiction)
9.  City of Ghosts by V. E. Schwab (Horror)
10.  Skyward by Brandon Sanderson (Science Fiction)
11. The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass (Horror)
12. All Thirteen by Christina Soontrnvat (Nonfiction)
13. The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart (Adventure)
14. The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (Mystery)

III. The third text will be A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This will be a great starting point for the beginning of Q1, when students will read “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” by providing them with background knowledge on the characters of Holmes and Watson. 

Assignment 1:

After reading your choice book, write a letter to the book’s publisher about the cover of the copy of the book you read. If you think the cover art is well-suited to the novel’s plot and themes, explain why to the publisher. If you believe the cover is not well-suited to the novel’s plot and themes, suggest to the publisher what would make the cover better or more relevant. 

As you write, consider:

• Other books you have read with great covers 
• Which elements of the cover capture your interest or make you lose interest
• How the colors or lack of color impacts the reader

This assignment must be written in first person with at least 250 words, typed and double-spaced.

Assignment 2: 

After reading “A Study in Scarlet” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, consider the following quotation from a Sherlock Holmes story you will be reading in Q1: “I had no keener pleasure than in following Holmes in his professional investigations, and in admiring the rapid deductions, as swift as intuitions, and yet always founded on a logical basis with which he unravelled the problems which were submitted to him” (Doyle). 

Think about a recent memory in your own life during which you had an intuition that led you to a deduction. Write a story based on that memory, but turn it into a detective story. This assignment must be written in first person with at least 300 words, typed and double-spaced.