Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Summer Reading

I was wandering the local Private Schools for wee one, because I just won the lotto didn't you hear. Pissed Off Mom wins the lotto tells the Public School to kiss her ass. Just kidding I did not win lotto, but the system still can kiss my ass.
Did you know that this one nameless school teaches 3rd grade students how to build a house, and then landscape at the same time in their botany class. Where did we go wrong?

Another thing look at the list below for the mandatory summer reading list for High School students and tell me, please which of these books are our students asked to read? Just wondering ?


Freshmen
Read three selections: two from the following list and one individual selection.
A Separate Place by J. Knowles
Kon Tiki by T. Heyerdahl
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by B. Smith
Laughing Boy by O. LaFarge
Annie John by J. Kincaid
My Antonia by W. Cather
Back from Tomorrow by G. Ritchie
The #1 Ladies Detective Agency by A. McCall Smith
The Chosen by C. Potok
Of Mice and Men by J. Steinbeck
The Good Earth by P.S. Buck
Profiles in Courage by J. Kennedy
Growing Up by R. Baker
Story of My Life by H. Keller
The Human Comedy by W. Saroyan
Travels With Charlie by J. Steinbeck
I Heard the Owl Call My Name by M. Craven
Wurthering Heights by E. Bronte
Sophomores
Read three selections: two from the following list and one individual selection.
At Risk by A. Hoffman
House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Memaday
Black Boy by R. Wright
Into Thin Air by J. Krakauer
Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Ironweed by W. Kennedy
The Color Purple by A. Walker
Jane Eyre by C. Bronte
The Daughter of Fortune by I. Allenhoe
Kaffir Boy by M. Mathebane
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by A. Tyler
The Kitchen God's Wife by A. Tan
Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by R. L. Stevenson
The Kite Runner by K. Hosseini
The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Stories by E. A. Poe
Lovely Bones by A. Sebold
Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
The Mists of Avalon by M. Bradley
Go Tell It On the Mountain by J. Baldwin
Scarlett Letter by N. Hawthorne

The Tao of Pooh by B. Huff
Juniors
Read three selections: two from the following list and one individual selection.
The Andromeda Strain by M. Crichton
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by V. Hugo
Angela’s Ashes by F. McCourt
The Joy Luck Club by A. Tan
Bean Trees by B. Kingsolver
Main Street by S. Lewis
Bell Jar by S. Plath
The Name of the Rose by U. Eco
Beloved by T. Morrison
Native Son by R. Wright
Cannery Row by J. Steinbeck
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by K. Kesey
Don Quixote by Cervante
Reviving Ophelia by M. Pipher
Ethan Frome by E. Wharton
Silent Spring by R. Carson
For Whom The Bell Tolls by E. Hemingway
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Z.N. Hurston
Grendel by J. Gardner
Tracks by L. Erdrich
Henderson the Rain King by S. Bellow
Zen in the Art of Archery by E. Herrigel
Seniors
Seniors MUST read four (4) books – Either Anna Karenina, OR Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy, two (2) books from the following list and one (1) individual selection.
1984 by G. Orwell
The Fixer by B. Malamus
100 Years of Solitude by G. Marquez
Franny & Zooey by J.D. Salinger
And There Was Light by J. Lusseyran
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Autobiography of Malcolm X by M.X
Handmaid’s Tale by M. Atwood
Brave New World by A. Huxley
Heart of Darkness by J. Conrad
Brideshead Revisited by E. Waugh
Humboldt’s Gift by S. Bellow
A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes by S. Hawking
Lakota Woman by Mary Crow Dog
The Brothers Karamazov by F. Dostoevsky
Love in the Time of Cholera by G. Marquez
The Cancer Ward by A. Solzhenitsyn
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by J. Joyce
Cat’s Cradle by K. Vonnegut
Prayer for Owen Meany by J. Irving
Cider House Rules by J. Irving
A Room of One’s Own by V. Woolf
A Confederacy of Dunces by J. Kennedy Toole
Song of Solomon by T. Morrison
A Doll’s House & Hedda Gabler by H. Ibsen
The Stand by S. King
A Farewell to Arms by E. Hemingway
Woman Warrior by M. H. Kingston

Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Madness by R. Pirsig

1 comment:

17 (really 15) more years said...

In hindsight, the beauty of attending a private school, as I did, was not constantly being badgered with test prep. We actually learned - and my summer reading list looked pretty much like yours. We didn't take Regents exams - and- guess what? We all turned out just fine. Shocking, isn't it?