Hi everyone! I tutor a student in reading/writing and I'm putting together a list of possible readings for our summer sessions.
This student will be going into ninth grade and is a gifted/high performing student. The student also goes to a very good (although urban public) school and their English curriculum is a bit advanced from the typical public school curriculum – in eighth grade they read Fahrenheit 451, Othello, and Things Fall Apart and is writing complex, thesis-driven 5 paragraph essays if that gives you an idea. So I want to choose books that will be interesting and not too dry (it is still summer reading after all) but are still around the reading level of those books. Would prefer for it to not be mostly dead white dudes but I'm also not overly concerned about that.
Here's my working list that I'm looking to add to before presenting it to the students and their parents –
Novels-
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (kind of in between a novel and short story in length and density)
Short Stories-
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson
“To Build a Fire” by Jack London
“Last Day of Summer” by Ian McEwan
Memoirs-
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
Graphic Novels-
Maus by Art Spiegelman
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
by m592w137