Summer Reading 2023-2024

All students attending TOPS for the 2022-2023 school year must complete a summer reading assignment by September 1, 2023. Each grade level will provide three novel options.  Students are required to select and read one novel from their grade-level options and complete a reading log. 

Novel selections for each grade level and reading log templates are listed below. There are several ways to access the reading selections. 

Students will need to utilize their local public library, choose a selection that is available online, or purchase their chosen novel. 

AP English students are required to complete a different summer reading assignment (See Below)

Summer Reading Log Template (required for every grade level):

If you have questions about summer reading, please contact Ms. April Trivett.

Summer Reading Novel Options (by grade) 

Freshmen (English I)

Students who are registered for English I need to choose one novel to read from the selection below:

1. The Call of the Wild by Jack London.  An online version of this novel can be found at Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/215/215-h/215-h.htm 

Jack London’s break out novel of survival is the essence of the American dream, its longings, and frustrations.  Taste the cold with Buck in the unforgettable adventure of a dog in the Yukon. 

2. The Road by Cormac McCarthy. 

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

3. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. 

Four mothers, four daughters, four families whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's "saying" the stories. In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Rather than sink into tragedy, they choose to gather to raise their spirits and money. Forty years later the stories and history continue.

All students are required to complete a summer reading log for their novel selection, which will be submitted in English class for a grade. 

Sophomores (English II) 

Students who are registered for English II need to choose one novel to read from the selection below:

1. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.  An online version of this novel can be found here.

Past the rusted gates and untrimmed hedges, Hill House broods and waits…. 

Four seekers have come to the ugly, abandoned old mansion: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of the psychic phenomenon called haunting; Theodora, his lovely and lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a lonely, homeless girl well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the adventurous future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable noises and self-closing doors, but Hill House is gathering its powers and will soon choose one of them to make its own. 

2. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien 

Like every other hobbit, Bilbo Baggins likes nothing better than a quiet evening in his snug hole in the ground, dining on a sumptuous dinner in front of a fire. But when a wandering wizard captivates him with tales of the unknown, Bilbo becomes restless. Soon he joins the wizard’s band of homeless dwarves in search of giant spiders, savage wolves, and other dangers. Bilbo quickly tires of the quest for adventure and longs for the security of his familiar home. But before he can return to his life of comfort, he must face the greatest threat of all - a treasure-troving dragon named Smaug.

3. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe 

Things Fall Apart is a classic narrative about Africa's cataclysmic encounter with Europe as it establishes a colonial presence on the continent. Told through the fictional experiences of Okonkwo, a wealthy and fearless Igbo warrior of Umuofia in the late 1800s, Things Fall Apart explores one man's futile resistance to the devaluing of his Igbo traditions by British political and religious forces and his despair as his community capitulates to the powerful new order.

All students are required to complete a summer reading log for their novel selection, which will be submitted in English class for a grade. 

Juniors (English III)

Students who are registered for English III need to choose one novel to read from the selection below:

1. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane. An online version of this novel can be found at Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/73/73-h/73-h.htm 

Taking place during the American Civil War, the story is about a young private of the Union Army, Henry Fleming, who flees from the field of battle. Overcome with shame, he longs for a wound, a "red badge of courage," to counteract his cowardice. When his regiment once again faces the enemy, Henry acts as standard-bearer. Although Crane was born after the war, and had not at the time experienced battle first-hand, the novel is known for its realism.  

2. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson 

In a thrilling narrative showcasing his gifts as storyteller and researcher, Erik Larson recounts the spellbinding tale of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. The White City (as it became known) was a magical creation constructed upon Chicago's swampy Jackson Park. Dr. Henry H. Holmes combined the fair's appeal with his own fatal charms to lure scores of women to their deaths. Whereas the fair marked the birth of a new epoch in American history, Holmes marked the emergence of a new American archetype, the serial killer, who thrived on the very forces then transforming the country. 

3. The Help by Kathryn Stockett 

Written from the point of view of three Black housekeepers in 1922 Mississippi, their story is told, as well as that of the women who employ them. The social structure and societal mores of the day when it comes to employment of Blacks is vividly told. It is a moving story with both laughs and, in some cases, tears. Movie made on the basis of this best-selling novel. 

All students are required to complete a summer reading log for their novel selection, which will be submitted in English class for a grade.

Seniors (English IV)

Students who are registered for English IV need to choose one novel to read from the selection below:

1. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell An online version of this novel can be found at Planet eBook: https://www.planetebook.com/free-ebooks/1984.pdf 

Written more than 70 years ago, 1984 was George Orwell’s chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, his dystopian vision of a government that will do anything to control the narrative is timelier than ever. 

2. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon 

A bestselling modern classic—both poignant and funny—about a boy with autism who sets out to solve the murder of a neighbor's dog and discovers unexpected truths about himself and the world. 

3. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen An online version of this novel can be found here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1342/1342-h/1342-h.htm

The story follows the main character, Elizabeth Bennet, as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education, and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of the British Regency. Set in England in the early 19th century, Pride and Prejudice tells the story of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet's five unmarried daughters after the rich and eligible Mr. Bingley and his status-conscious friend, Mr. Darcy, have moved into their neighborhood. While Bingley takes an immediate liking to the eldest Bennet daughter, Jane, Darcy has difficulty adapting to local society and repeatedly clashes with the second-eldest Bennet daughter, Elizabeth. 

All students are required to complete a summer reading log for their novel selection, which will be submitted in English class for a grade.

AP ENGLISH 

All students enrolled in AP English Literature and Composition at TOPS for the 2021-2022 school year will be required to participate in Summer Reading. Students will choose two books from the following list to read this summer.  Students will write a literary essay with each of the chosen novels in August once school begins. Students transferring to TOPS for the spring semester will be given time to complete the readings.  If you have questions about Summer Reading, please contact Mr. Tim Davis.

Choose two novels to read:

1. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston 

One of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love story with the wit and pathos found only in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston. Out of print for almost thirty years—due largely to initial audiences’ rejection of its strong black female protagonist—Hurston’s classic has since its 1978 reissue become perhaps the most widely read and highly acclaimed novel in the canon of African-American literature. 

2. There, There by Tommy Orange 

Tommy Orange’s wondrous and shattering bestselling novel follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize. Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle’s death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time. Together, this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American—grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism.  

3. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens 

Great Expectations is a bildungsroman, or a coming-of-age novel, and it is a classic work of Victorian literature. It depicts the growth and personal development of an orphan named Pip. The novel contains some of Dickens most memorable scenes, including its opening, in a graveyard, when the young orphan Pip is accosted by the escaped convict, Abel Magwitch. Great Expectations is a graphic book, full of extreme imagery, poverty, prison ships ("the hulks"), barriers and chains, and fights to the death. 

4. Picture of Dorian Gray- by Oscar Wilde  

First published as a serial story in the July 1890 issue of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, the editors feared the story was indecent, and without Wilde's knowledge, deleted five hundred words before publication. Despite that censorship, The Picture of Dorian Gray offended the moral sensibilities of British book reviewers, some of whom said that Oscar Wilde merited prosecution for violating the laws guarding the public morality. In response, Wilde aggressively defended his novel and art in correspondence with the British press.   

Summaries provided by Amazon.