The Avalon School Summer Reading List
Dear Avalon Families,
Reading during the summer months broadens a boy’s horizons like few other activities.
With this end in mind, I am happy to provide you with the Avalon School’s Summer Reading and Poetry Requirements.
All boys at Avalon will be required to memorize one poem over the summer months to recite in September when school begins. Each poem is likely found on the internet or in many poetry collections.
The reading requirements involve more effort. Each boy entering lower or middle school grades is required to read two of the listed works for the grade he is set to enter in September. No other assignment will be required of boys entering grades 2 through 6, but literature teachers will ask the student which books he read. Boys entering grades 7 and 8 must write a single page, double-spaced review of one of the books read explaining why—or why not—he thinks the book was a worthwhile read during the summer.
Requirements for boys entering upper school grades reflect their growing capabilities. Each boy should read three books from the list, and write a review of two of the books. Please note that, while we still require a review of two of the works, we ask for two separate reviews. Each review should be a single page of double-spaced text. Although some summary of the work is necessary, the review should primarily be a critique of what was enjoyable and successful in the work and what was not.
If you know of other quality, age-appropriate books that boys will enjoy, we would be happy to keep them in mind for future summer reading lists.
Kevin J. Davern
Headmaster
Summer Reading List
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2nd - 3rd Grade
Aesop's Fables James and the Giant Peach: A Children’s Story, Roald Dahl Old Yeller, Fred Gipson A Bear Called Paddington, Michael Bond Mr. Popper’s Penguin, Richard and Florence Atwater Poem: The Frog, Hillaire Belloc -2nd Grade Poem: The Oak, Alfred Lord Tennyson - 3rd Grade 4th Grade Boy, Roald Dahl The Black Stallion, Walter Farley Sounder, William Armstrong Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective, Donald Sobol The Matchlock Gun, Walter Edmonds Poem: The Yak, Hillaire Belloc 5th Grade Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis (Pick one.) Sign of the Beaver, Elizabeth George Speare The Adventures of Hank the Cowdog, John Erickson (Pick one.) The Raft, Robert Trumbull (This one is expensive.) Poem: Matilda, Hillaire Belloc 6th Grade Where the Red Fern Grows, WilsonRawls Rifles for Watie, Harold Keith Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, Robert C. O'Brien The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster Son of Charlemagne, Barbara Willard Poem: Pied Beauty, Gerard Manley Hopkins 7th Grade The Scarlet Pimpernel, Barones Orczy Emmuska Cheaper by the Dozen, Ernestine Carey and Frank Gilbreth White Fang, Jack London King Arthur and His Knights, Howard Pyle Poem: Casey at the Bat, Ernest Lawrence Thayer 8th Grade The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkein (Pick one or two.) The Prince and the Pauper, Mark Twain All Creatures Great and Small, James Herriot Drums Along the Mohawk, Walter Edmonds Poem: On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer, John Keats |
Freshmen
Selected Short Stories, O. Henry Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster, John Krakauer Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain The Once and Future King, T.H. White A Study in Scarlet, A. Conan Doyle Edmund Campion, Evelyn Waugh Washington's Crossing, David Hackett Fischer Poem: Sonnet XVIII, William Shakespeare Sophomores Starship Troopers, Robert Heinlein The Wright Brothers, David McCullough Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr. The Case Against Darwin, James Perloff Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage, Alfred Lansing Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card The Spear, Louis de Wohl (available through Ignatius press) Red Sox Reader, edited by Dan Riley Poem: Sonnet LXXIII, William Shakespeare Juniors Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather Mr. Lincoln’s Army, Bruce Catton A Stillness at Appomattox, Bruce Catton Red Dawn at Lexington, Louis Birnbaum Bridge on the River Kwai, Pierre Boulle Teammates, David Halberstam Darwin on Trial, Philip Johnson Seabiscuit, Laura Hillenbrand Poem: Sonnet XCIV, William Shakespeare Seniors Disorientation, John Zmirak (required for all seniors) Brunelleschi's Dome, Ross King (required for AP European History students) 1776, David McCollough John Adams, David McCollough The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman The March of Folly, Barbara Tuchman The Long Walk, Slavomir Racwicz The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe Night, Elie Wiesel The Glory of Their Times, Lawrence S. Ritter Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen, Crabs and the Chesapeake Bay, William Warner Poem: Sonnet XXIX, William Shakespeare |
