Skip To Main Content

Logo Image

Logo Title

Students Entering Grade 11: Recommended/Required Summer Reading List

Required Reading:
Incoming Grade 11 Honors English Students

  • Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger 
    Holden Caulfield, about to be kicked out of yet another boarding school for flunking most of his courses, decides not to wait until the end of term and takes off for his hometown, Manhattan, a few days early. He figures he'll hole up in a cheap hotel, look up a few friends, then arrive home on time. But Holden is deeply troubled by the death of his beloved younger brother from leukemia, as well as a classmate's suicide. Alone in an uncaring city, his already fragile psyche begins to unravel. (Warning: some adult language and themes)

Eleventh Grade Honor students: Please click here for the Reading Comprehension Notes worksheet that you should use when reading Catcher in the Rye to prepare for class discussions in the fall.

Required Reading:
Incoming Advanced Placement Students

Recommended Reading: All 11th Grade

  • American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
    A multi-narrative graphic novel about a teenage boy named Jim Wang who struggles to find and accept his cultural identity.
     
  • Born a Crime by Trevor Noah 
    The story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist.
     
  • Educated: a Memoir by Tara Westover
    Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life.
     
  • The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
    Starr Carter lives in a poor black neighborhood, and when she and her friend are pulled over by the police one night and he is shot and killed, she has to decide if she wants to speak out. Angie Thomas' searing debut about an ordinary girl in extraordinary circumstances addresses issues of racism and police violence with intelligence, heart, and unflinching honesty. 
     
  • The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
    Meet the Ganguli family, new arrivals from Calcutta, trying their best to become Americans even as they pine for their home. The name they bestow on their firstborn, Gogol, betrays all the conflicts of honoring tradition in a new world--conflicts that will haunt Gogol on his own winding path through divided loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs.
    .
  • Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
    This thriller deals with a high-stakes online contest that mixes puzzles with video game violence. Set in a depressed future United States, where most people escape into virtual reality, it features a bunch of tough-talking teens fighting to keep their online playground out of the hands of an evil corporation.

If you are having difficulty finding and acquiring a text for summer reading,  please click here to email Lori Jolley in the Curriculum Department.