Cover to Cover Bookstore

Convenience, Comfort, Community

Summer Hours:

Monday - Thursday: 10 - 8 PM

Friday: 10 - 6 PM

Saturday: 10 - 5 PM

2009-2010

Arlington High School

Summer Reading:   9^th Grade English

Honors students:  choose 3 books                                                                  Standard students:  choose 2 books

(Honors students may choose only one book with an * after the author’s name.)

The following books have been chosen because of their engaging storylines, immense readability, and student recommendations.  We hope you find them to be enjoyable rather than just one more chore to complete in preparation for high school.  To help you determine which books you might like, the descriptions from the backs of the books are included.  

During the first week of school, all English students will be tested on their summer reading selections.

Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card

Andrew “Ender” Wiggin isn’t just playing games at Battle school; he and the other children are being tested and trained for war.  Ender is the most talented result of Earth’s desperate quest to create the military genius that the planet needs in its struggle against an alien enemy.  Is Ender the general the earth needs?  The only way to find out is to throw the child into ever-harsher training, to chip away and find the diamond inside, or destroy him utterly.  Ender Wiggin is six years old when it begins.  He will grow up fast.

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.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith

A profoundly moving novel, and an honest and true one.  It cuts right to the heart of life….  The Nolans live in the Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn.  Their daughter, Francie, and their son, Neely, know more than their fair share of hardships and sufferings that are the inheritance of a great city’s poorest citizens.  Primarily, this is Francie’s book.  She is a superb feat of characterization, an imaginative, alert, resourceful child.  And, Francie’s growing up and beginnings of wisdom are the substance of this book.  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a poignant and moving tale filled with compassion and cruelty, laughter and heartache, crowded with life and people and incident.

Tex, by S. E. Hinton*

Easygoing and reckless Tex likes everyone and everything, especially his rambling rodeo-riding father, his horse, and Johnny Collins blue-eyed sister, Jamie.  Life with his older brother, Mason, would be just about perfect if only Mace would stop complaining about Pop, who hasn’t been home in five months.  While Mason worries about paying the bills and getting a basketball scholarship—his ticket out of Oklahoma—Tex just seems to attract trouble.  Can he find a way to keep things together when everything seems to be falling apart?

Eragon, by Christopher Paolini*

When Eragon finds a polished blue stone in the forest, he thinks it is the lucky discovery of a poor farm boy; perhaps it will buy his family meat for the winter.  But when the stone brings a dragon hatchling, Eragon soon realizes he has stumbled upon a legacy nearly as old as the Empire itself.  Overnight his simple life is shattered, and he is thrust into a perilous new world of destiny, magic, and power.  With only an ancient sword and the advice of an old storyteller for guidance, Eragon and the fledgling dragon must navigate the dangerous terrain and dark enemies of an Empire ruled by a king whose evil knows no bounds.  Can Eragon take up the mantle of the legendary Dragon Riders?  The fate of the Empire may rest in his hands.

And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie*

First there were ten—a curious assortment of strangers summoned as weekend guests to a private island off the coast of Devon.  Their host, an eccentric millionaire unknown to all of them, is nowhere to be found.  All that the guests have in common is a wicked past they’re unwilling to reveal—and a secret that will seal their fates:  each has been marked for murder.  One by one they fall prey.  Before the weekend is out, there will be none.  And, only the dead are above suspicion. 

Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer

In April 1992, a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. He had given $25,000 in savings to a charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet and invented a life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. Jon Krakauer brings Chris McCandless's uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows and illuminates it with meaning in this mesmerizing and heartbreaking tour de force.

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Last modified: 05/22/10