Summer Reading Requirement– Ninth Grade
I. Each rising ninth-grader (regulars and honors) is required to read Ernest Gaines' A Lesson Before Dying. This novel will be quizzed the first week of school and will be the basis of the year’s first writing assignments.
II. All School Read for 2023-24: Each boy in grades seven through twelve is required to read The Race of the Century: The Battle to Break the Four-Minute Mile by Neal Bascomb. All students will take a quiz on this book the first week of school.
III. Each student will also read one book from the list below. Early in the year, students will write a short in-class essay on a topic from this book. Please have access to a copy of this novel when school starts.
Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood’s End
Bernard Malamud,The Natural
Bram Stoker, Dracula
C. S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet or Till We Have Faces
Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding
Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys (not for regular students)
Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon
David Benioff, City of Thieves
David Wroblewski, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Frank Herbert, Dune
Garth Stein, The Art of Racing in the Rain
Herman Hesse, Siddhartha
H. G. Wells, War of the Worlds
Isaac Asimov, Pebble in the Sky
James Welch, Fools Crow
Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones
Laura Ruby, Bone Gap
Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony
Louise Erdrich, The Round House
Mark Harris, Bang the Drum Slowly
Twain, Mark, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (not for honors students)
Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Naomi Novik, Temeraire: His Majesty’s Dragon
Pat Conroy, Lords of Discipline
Pat Frank, Alas Babylon
Paul Zindel, The Pigman
Richard Bradford, Red Sky at Morning
Robert Heinlein, Tunnel in the Sky
Russell Banks, Rule of the Bone
Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Tobias Wolff, This Boy’s Life
Tony Hillerman, Dance Hall of the Dead