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Summer Reading Lists

The Bookworm has compiled a list of area school summer reading lists. Required reads are below!

Vail Mountain School

Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs by Betty G. Birney (all lower school); So You Want to be President by Judith St. George (4 and 5); Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech (6); The Glory Field by Walter Dean Myers (7); The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (8); Lord of the Flies by William Golding (9); Animal Farm by George Orwell (10); The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien (11); Jim the Boy by Tony Earley (12)

The Vail Academy (one of the following titles for the appropriate grade plus one additional book)

Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor (6); The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth Goerge Speare (6); Time Machine by H.G. Wells (7); The Call of the Wild by Jack London (7); The Pearl by John Steinbeck (8); Night by Elie Weisel (8)

Stone Creek Charter School

The Macmillan Book of Greek Gods and Heroes by Alice Low (6); A Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli (6); Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Jane Grey (6); a biography of an iconic figure born 1800.

Nothing to Fear by Jackie French (7); Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (7); King Arthur by Roger Lancelyn (7); a biography of a luminary who lived between 1860 and World War II.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (8); The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska Orczy (8); Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (8); The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (8); Kim by Rudyard Kipling (8); a biography of a historical figure from World War II to the present

Vail Christian

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (English 1); Mythology by Judith Hamilton (pre-AP); The Once and Future King by T.H. White (World Lit Honors); The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (World Lit); Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner (AP Lang); Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman (AP Lang); The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (U.S. Lit); Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer (U.S. Lit); How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster (AP Lit); The Elements of Style by Rick Strunk (Rhetoric); Warriors Don't Cry by Melba Patillo Beals

The Yiddish Policemen's Union

Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Chabon recently released the paperback version of his bestselling noir novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union. A story that only Chabon could execute, this novel features doomsday prophecies, chess prodigies, sea planes, and drug runners in remote Alaska. Yes, you read that all correctly. This inventive story was a Bookworm Best Book of 2007. Check out the trailer below!

Take Our Word For It

 

The Bookworm is proud to review recent releases for our local newspaper, The Vail Daily. Staff reviews appear weekly, so keep your eyes peeled. And if you miss one, visit the Daily's archives here. Click on the picture of William Gibson's Spook Country for the full review.

 

Click the title for previous reviews...

Carl Hiaasen's Downhill Lie

Pulitzer Prize winners!

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz ~ This hilarious and heartbreaking tale of an obese and nerdy Dominican teen won its way into the Bookworm's heart with its well-crafted characters and imaginative storytelling. Go on, give Oscar a chance.

The Years of Extermination by Saul Friedlander ~ The winner in general nonfiction chronicles the haunting violence behind the gates of one of the most notorious Nazi internment camps.

What Hath God Wrought by Daniel Walker Howe~ The winner in the history category, What Hath God Wrought examines America's history from 1815 at the Battle of New Orleans through 1848 and the Mexican-American War, as well as the United State's expansion and take over of the Pacific Coast.

Eden's Outcast by John Matteson ~ Matteson explores the relationship between Louisa May Alcott and her father. Alcott wrote the classic Little Women. Eden's Outcast won the biography Pulitzer.

 

 

 

Register Your Club

Register your bookclub at The Bookworm and receive a discount on all club selections. Just simply let us know your club, a contct person, and a list of what you'll be reading! Call 970.926.READ to get your group registered!

 

 

May we suggest...

Titles to pique your interest

Five Skies

by Ron Carlson

Three drastically different men undertake a construction project in the Rocky Mountains. Strangers at first, they slowly reveal themselves in startling ways that are both triumphant and troublesome. A debut novel from a noted short story master. ($14, Penguin Putnam)

Beijing Coma

by Ma Jian

An inventive novel of a comatose boy who's been asleep since the Tiananmen Square resistance. As he finally emerges from his decade-long sleep, Dai Wei finds his mother has gone crazy, one of his kidneys is missing, and that the deep sleep is a stark contrast from the turbulent world that await. ($27.95, Farrar Straus Giroux)

The Story of a Marriage

by Andrew Sean Greer

Set in 1950s San Francisco, this novel tells the story of three people trapped by the confines of their times, be it politically, racially, or sexually. The stigma of the innocent 1950s is forever changed in this surprising novel of repression and rebellion. Also, check out the audio version ready by Epatha Merkeson. ($22, Farrar Straus Giroux; CD, $29.95, Macmillan Audio)

In the Woods

by Tana French

An award-winning thriller from a first-time author, In the Woods centers on three boys who go to play in the woods outside of Dublin, but only one of them is found. Twenty years later, that same boy is now a detective enlisted to solve a murder too similar to his own dark past. ($14, Penguin Putnam)