LibGuides: eastlibrary.org: SUMMER READING

Summer Reading 2022

Dear English Student and Guardians:

The English Department requires all incoming freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors to read at least one book during the summer, and we certainly encourage you to read more than a single title. Please select a book (or more) from the list provided. The list includes a range of interests and genres. Guardians, please feel free to help your student come up with a final selection.

No formal written response is required before school begins; however, beginning-of-the-year activities will center around these books. You might find it beneficial to use post-it notes, make margin comments, or take screenshots of important passages as you read. Please bring any/all notes regarding the book to class with you on the first day of school, if possible. If you have borrowed from the library please bring any extensive notes you may have taken.

It is important for families to read and discuss together, so we encourage parents/guardians to read these books as well. All summer reading books will be available through students’ school-issued iPads via the Sora app. Should your child wish to use a paper version of the book, please visit your community libraries who have been informed of our summer reading program for copies, or feel free to purchase one at a local bookstore or online.

We look forward to meeting you in August. In the meantime, enjoy the rays and a great read!

Sincerely,

The Glenbard East English Department

Click here for the all-school Summer Reading Bibliography

Click here for the Freshman Summer Reading Bibliography

Click here for the Sophomore-Senior Summer Reading Bibliography

red banner with white text summer reading 2022

All Thirteen by Christina Soontornvat
12 soccer players and their coach enter a cave in Thailand seeking an adventure. But when they turn to leave, floodwaters block their path out. The boys are trapped! Before long, news of the missing team spreads, launching a 17 day rescue involving thousands of rescuers from around the globe. As the world sits vigil, people begin to wonder: how long can a group of ordinary kids survive in complete darkness, with no food or clean water?

NonFiction, Biography, Survival, Sports
Anti/Hero by Kate Karyus Quinn; Demitria Lunetta; Maca Gil (Illustrator)
As if school wasn't tough enough, two students who are sworn enemies run into big problems when a freaky event makes them switch places! Now they must work together if they want their old lives back, but the journey of being in someone else's shoes may bring some BIG surprises.

Graphic Novel/SciFi
Becoming Muhammad Ali by James Patterson; Kwame Alexander; Dawud Anyabwile (Illustrator)
Before he was a household name, Cassius Clay was a kid with struggles like any other. The authors depict his life up to age seventeen in both prose and verse, including his childhood friends, struggles in school, the racism he faced, and his discovery of boxing. Readers will learn about Cassius' family and neighbors in Louisville, Kentucky, and how, after a thief stole his bike, Cassius began training as an amateur boxer at age twelve. Before long, he won his first Golden Gloves and began his transformation into Muhammad Ali.

Sports, Nonfiction, Biography
Before the Ever After by Jacqueline Woodson
ZJ's dad is everyone's hero. As a pro football star, he's as beloved to the neighbors as he is to his millions of fans. But lately life at ZJ's house is anything but charming. His dad is having trouble remembering things and seems to be angry all the time. ZJ's mom explains it's because of all the head injuries his dad sustained during his career. As ZJ contemplates his new reality, he has to figure out how to hold on tight to family traditions and recollections of the glory days, all the while wondering what their past amounts to if his father can't remember it.

Sports, Realistic
Being Jazz by Jazz Jennings
An autobiography of Jazz Jennings in which she shares her experiences of transitioning for male to female and becoming an advocate for transgender youth.

Autobiography, TV Adaptation
Brown Boy Nowhere by Sheeryl Lim
16 year old Filipino American Angelo has been uprooted from San Diego to a boring town in the middle of nowhere. Behind him, ocean waves, his girlfriend, and skateboarding on the California coast. Ahead, flipping burgers and, as the only Asian in his school, being trolled. Resigned to being an outcast, Angelo isn’t alone. Kirsten, a crushable ex-cheerleader and graffiti artist, and Larry, a self-proclaimed invisible band geek, recognize a fellow outsider. They may be low on the high school food chain, but they’re determined to hold their own.

Realistic
Chlorine Sky by Mahogany l. Browne
Picked on at home, criticized for talking trash while beating boys at basketball, and always seen as less than her best friend, a girl struggles to like and accept herself.

Realistic, Sports
A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson
The case is closed. Five years ago, schoolgirl Andie Bell was murdered by Sal Singh. The police know he did it. Everyone in town knows he did it. But having grown up in the same small town that was consumed by the murder, Pippa Fitz-Amobi isn't so sure. When she chooses the case as the topic for her final year project, she starts to uncover secrets that someone in town desperately wants to stay hidden. And if the real killer is still out there, how far will they go to keep Pip from the truth?

Mystery, Thriller
Grenade by Alan Gratz
On April 1, 1945 with the battle of Okinawa beginning, fourteen-year-old native Okinawan Hideki, drafted into the Blood and Iron Student Corps, is handed two grenades and told to go kill American soldiers; small for his age Hideki does not really want to kill anyone, he just wants to find his family, and his struggle across the island will finally bring him face-to-face with Ray, a marine in his very first battle--and the choice he makes then will change his life forever.

Realistic, Historical, War, Action
Last Gate of the Emperor by Kwame Mbalia; Prince Joel Makonnen
Yared Heywat lives an isolated life in a city with rundown tech, lots of rules, and not much to do. His worrywart Uncle Moti and bionic lioness Besa are his only allies. Often in trouble for his wild antics and smart mouth, those same qualities make Yared a star player of an augmented reality game. But when a change in the game prompts Yared to log in with his real name, it triggers an attack that rocks the city. Together with Besa and a game rival turned reluctant ally, Yared must search for his uncle & answers to his place in a forgotten, galaxy-spanning war.

Fantasy, Dystopian
Love in English by Maria E. Andreu
Ana has just moved to New Jersey from Argentina. She’s a poet and a lover of language—but now, she can barely understand what’s going on around her. All Ana wants to do is go home—until she meets Harrison, a very cute American boy. And then there’s her new friend Neo, the Greek boy she’s partnered up with in ESL class, and Altagracia, who is fluent in Spanish and able to help her settle in. But is it possible that she’s becoming too American—as her father accuses—and what does it mean when her feelings for Harrison and Neo start to change?

Romance, Realistic
Nyxia by Scott Reintgen
Emmett accepts an interstellar space contract but learns en route that to win the promised fortune he and nine other recruits face a brutal competition, putting their very humanity at risk.

SciFi, Dystopia
Oh My Gods! by Stephanie Cooke
Karen is just an average teen. But when she moves to Greece to live with her eccentric, mysterious father, Zed, suddenly everything she thought about herself—about life—is up in the air. Starting a new school can be difficult, but starting school at Mt. Olympus Junior High, where students are gods and goddesses, just might take the cake. Especially when fellow classmates start getting turned to stone. Greek mythology . . . a little less myth, a little more eek! And if Karen’s classmates are immortal beings, who does that make her?

Graphic Novel, Mythology
Opposite of Always by Justin A. Reynolds
When Jack and Kate meet at a party, bonding until sunrise over their mutual love of Froot Loops and their favorite flicks, Jack knows he's falling--hard. But then Kate dies. And their story should end there. Yet Kate's death sends Jack back to the beginning, the moment they first meet, and Kate's there again. Healthy, happy, and charming as ever. Jack isn't sure if he's losing his mind. Still, if he has a chance to prevent Kate's death, he'll take it. Even if that means believing in time travel.

Romance, SciFi
When We Were Lost by Kevin Wignall
When their plane crashes in a remote rainforest with no adults left alive, a group of high school students struggles to survive against sinister threats from the jungle—and one another—in this tense thriller.

Action, Realistic, Thriller

Download the Freshman Summer Reading Bibliography

blue spaceman with text use your sora app to find ebooks and audiobooks

Here is a quick video on how to access your holds in Sora. You will need to be logged in to your Glenbard Gmail to access!

Red Banner with white text Summer Reading 2022

Atomic Habits by James Clear
James Clear, an expert on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results. He draws on proven ideas from biology, psychology, and neuroscience to create an easy-to-understand guide for making good habits inevitable and bad habits impossible.

Nonfiction, Self Help
Becoming Kareem by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; Raymond Obstfeld
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, shares his life growing up in New York, becoming the basketball star he's known to be, and getting involved in the world around him as an activist for social change.

Memoir, Sports
Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad
An Emmy Award-winning writer and activist describes the harrowing years she spent in early adulthood fighting leukemia and how she learned to live again while forging connections with other survivors of profound illness and suffering.

Memoir
Bluebird by Sharon Cameron
In 1946, Eva leaves behind the rubble of Berlin for the streets of New York City, stepping from the fiery aftermath of one war into another, far colder one, where power is more important than principles. Eva holds the key to a deadly secret: Project Bluebird -- a horrific experiment of the concentration camps, capable of tipping the balance of world power. Both the Americans and the Soviets want Bluebird, and it is something that neither should ever be allowed to possess. But Eva has come to America for one thing: justice. And the Nazi that has escaped its net.

Realistic, Historical, War
The City Beautiful by Aden Polydoros
In 1893 Chicago, after his best friend becomes the latest victim in a long line of murdered Jewish boys, Alter Rosen is plunged into a nightmare where he is thrown back into the arms of a dangerous boy from his past.

Fantasy, Historical, Mystery
Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas
If there’s one thing 17 year old Maverick Carter knows, it’s that a real man takes care of his family. As the son of a former gang legend, Mav does that the only way he knows how: dealing for the King Lords. Until, that is, Maverick finds out he’s a father. Suddenly he has a baby, Seven. But it’s not so easy to sling dope, finish school, and raise a child. So when he’s offered the chance to go straight, he takes it. In a world where he’s expected to amount to nothing, maybe Mav can prove he’s different.

Realistic
Enduring Freedom by Trent Reedy; Jawad Arash
In this dual-narrative tale, a teenage American army private and an Afghan boy living under the horrors of the Taliban, caught on separate sides of the world during the tumultuous times leading up to and following 9/11, come to discover how much more they have in common than they ever could have imagined.

War, Realistic
The Girls I've Been by Tess Sharpe
When seventeen-year-old Nora O'Malley, the daughter of a con artist, is taken hostage in a bank heist, every secret she is keeping close begins to unravel.

Mystery, Thriller
How It All Blew Up by Arvin Ahmadi
Fleeing to Rome in the wake of coming out to his Muslim family, a failed relationship, and blackmail, eighteen-year-old Amir Azadi embarks on a more authentic life with new friends and dates in the Sistine Chapel before an encounter with a U.S. Customs officer places his hard-won freedom at risk.

Realistic, Romance
The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
When a Connecticut teenager inherits vast wealth and an eccentric estate from the richest man in Texas, she must also live with his surviving family and solve a series of puzzles to discover how she earned her inheritance.

Mystery
Kent State by Deborah Wiles
An exploration of one of the darkest moments in our history, when American troops killed four American students protesting the Vietnam War. May 4, 1970. Kent State University. As protestors roil the campus, National Guardsmen are called in. In the chaos of what happens next, shots are fired and four students are killed. To this day, there is still argument of what happened and why. Told in multiple voices from a number of vantage points.

Realistic, Historical, Novel in Verse
Kneel by Candace Buford
When his best friend is unfairly arrested and kicked off the team, Russell Boudreaux kneels during the national anthem in an effort to fight for justice and, in an instant, falls from local stardom to become a target of hatred.

Sports, Realistic
Living Beyond Borders by Margarita Longoria
ISBN: 9780593204979
An anthology of short stories, essays, poetry, and comics about the Mexican American experience.

Short Stories, Essays, Art, Poetry
The Never Tilting World by Rin Chupeco
After an ancient prophecy is betrayed, a world ruled by a long line of goddesses is split in two--one half in perpetual day, and the other in an endless night--and two young twin goddesses set out on separate and equally dangerous journeys to the Breach that divides them, hoping to save their broken world.

Fantasy, Dystopia
The New David Espinoza by Fred Aceves
Obsessed with the idea that he is not muscular enough and tired of being bullied, David, age seventeen, begins using steroids, endangering his relationships with family and friends.

Realistic, OBOG
Somewhere Between Bitter and Sweet by Laekan Z. Kemp
Told in two voices, Pen, whose dream of taking over her family's restaurant has been destroyed, and Xander, a new, undocumented, employee seeking his father, form a bond.

Romance, Realistic

Download the Sophomore, Junior, & Senior Bibliography

blue spaceman with text use your sora app to find ebooks and audiobooks

Here is a quick video on how to access your holds in Sora. You will need to be logged in to your Glenbard Gmail to access!

Red Banner with white text Summer Reading 2022

Honors English 1 (E1H)

Students will choose a second title to read from the Freshmen Summer Reading list, in addition to Of Mice and Men.

Honors English 1 Letter

Honors English 2 (E2H)

In lieu of a specific novel, students in E2H should choose TWO of the books on the sophomore-senior summer reading list.

Honors English 2 Letter

REACH English 3AP

There are two, short required summer readings/writings for this course. We ask that you read two articles (you will have your choice of several topics), one in June, and one in July, that will emulate the types of reading we will study next year. For each of those assigned articles, you will be asked to record a guided response in Flip Grid and join in a virtual class discussion by responding to one other student’s ideas on the Flip Grid thread. This will all be asynchronous work, to be completed at your leisure.

REACH English 3AP Letter

English 3AP

Students will read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell and The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.

English 3AP Lang Letter

English 4AP

Students will read Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi and an additional title from the sophomore-senior summer reading list.

English 4AP Lit Letter

Humanities Honors

Students will read The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt.

Humanities Honors Letter