SMMUSD Summer Reading 2006
One School, One Book 2006:
For our "One School, One Book" program, all students should read Firoozeh Dumas' Funny in Farsi. Copies of the book will be available at Santa Monica Public Libraries as well as in local bookstores. Our goal is to help students develop a love for reading and to foster critical discussion about a common text across the school.In addition to this common text, all students are required to read one book of their own choosing.
Funny in Farsi chronicles the American journey of Dumas’s wonderfully engaging family: her engineer father, a sweetly quixotic dreamer who first sought riches on Bowling for Dollars; her elegant mother, who never fully mastered English (nor cared to); her uncle, who combated the effects of American fast food with an army of miraculous American weight-loss gadgets; and Firoozeh herself, who as a girl changed her name to Julie. In a series of deftly drawn scenes, we watch the family grapple with American English (hot dogs and hush puppies?), American traditions (Thanksgiving turkey?), and American culture (Firoozeh’s parents laugh uproariously at Bob Hope on television, although they don’t get the jokes even when she translates them into Farsi). This is an unforgettable story of identity, discovery, and the power of family love. It is a book that will leave us all laughing—without an accent.
Students enrolling in honors classes must also read the following texts:
Incoming 9HP: Sophie's World, Jostein GaarderIncoming 10HP: The Chosen, Chaim Potok
Incoming 11AP: The Grapes of Wrath (Penguin), John Steinbeck
Incoming 12AP: Candide, Voltaire (Penguin) and the following selections from the Old and New Testaments:
- Genesis 1-9 (Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah)
- Genesis 11 (Tower of Babel)
- Genesis 22 (Abraham and Isaac)
- Judges 13-16 (Samson)
- Ruth (1 - 4)
- Jonah (1 - 4)
- Job (1 - 4, 38 -42)
- Song of Solomon (1 - 4)
- Ecclesiastes 1 - 3
- Reveleation (10 - 13)
- Matthew (1 - 7, 26 - 28)
- Luke (1, 2)
- John (1)
In order to insure that students come to class in September ready to discuss and write about what they have read, students should consider
- marking the text if the book is their own to record comments and questions;
- using Post-it Notes if they borrow the book and saving these notes for future reference;
- keeping a chart of key quotations with commentary.
Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror
Dune, Frank Herbert
The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
Foundation, Isaac Asimov
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
The Crystal Cave, Mary Stewart
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. LeGuin
Classics
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo
Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Thriller/Mystery
The Andromeda Strain, Michael Crichton
Dance Hall of the Dead, Tony Hillerman
Misery, Stephen King
Angel’s Flight, Michael Connelly
The Day of the Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
The Body Farm, Patricia Cornwall
Sports
The Contender, Robert Lipsyte
Stotan!, Chris Crutcher
Moves Make the Man, Bruce Brooks
Hoop Dreams, Paul Robert Walker
Shoeless Joe, W. P. Kinsella
The Natural, Bernard Malamud
Non-fiction
Seabiscuit, Laura Hillenbrand
Hoop Roots, John Edgar Widemen
Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, Barbara Ehrenreich
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers
Woman in the Mists, Farley Mowat
Reviving Ophelia, Mary Pipher
Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
Winterdance, Gary Paulsen
The Hot Zone, Richard Preston
John Adams, David McCullough
Savage Inequalities, Jonathan Kozol/ul
Humor
Big Trouble, Dave Barry
Microserfs, Douglas Coupland
The Snapper, Roddy Doyle
African American Authors
African American Authors
Brown Girl, Brownstones, Paule Marshall
Women of Brewster Place, Gloria Naylor
A Lesson Before Dying, Ernest Gaines
Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison
Native Son, Richard Wright
Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcom X and Alex Haley
The Disappearance, Rosa Guy
Asian American Authors
Bone, Fae Mynne Ng
Wild Swans, Jung Chang
Native Speaker, Chang Rae Lee
Still Life with Rice, Helie Lee
When the Emperor Was Divine, Julie Otsuka
Obasan, Joy Kogaawa
Vietnam War
In Country, Bobbie Ann Mason
The Sorrow of War, Bao Ninh
Fallen Angels, Walter Dean Myers
Bloods, Wallace Terry
MEChA Recommends:
Song of the Hummingbird, Graciela Limon
Chicano, Richard Vasquez
Rain of Gold, Victor Villaseñor
Pocho, José Antonio Villareal
Locas, Yxta Maya Murray
Gods Go Begging, Alfredo Vea
PenPusher (Samohi Literary Magazine Club) Recommends:
What My Mother Doesn’t Know, Sonya Sones
Siddhartha, Herman Hesse
Skinny Legs and All, Tom Robbins
Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney
Jim the Boy, Tony Earley
Riddley Walker, Russell Hoban
The Art Department Recommends:
The Diary of Frida Kahlo
Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron
The Harlem Renaissance, Steven Watson
Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America, Lucy Lippard
Women Artists: An Illustrated History, Nancy Heller
The German Program Recommends:
Doctor Faustus, Thomas Mann
Beneath the Wheel, Hermann Hesse
Steppenwolf, Hermann Hesse
Narcissus and Goldmund, Hermann Hesse
The Tin Drum, Gunter Grass
College Career Center Recommends:
The College Admissions Mystique, Bill Mayer
The College Finder, Steven Antonoff
College Match, Steven R. Antonoff and Marie Friedemann
Don’t Miss Out, Anna and Rober Leider
Boys' Water Polo Recommends:
Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
Pet Sematary, Stephen King
On the Road, Jack Kerouac
Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
Santa Monica Public Library Recommends:
Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
Group of One, Rachna Gilmore
Plainsong, Kent Haruf
Typical American, Gish Jen
The Greatest: Muhammad Ali, Walter Dean Myers
Sabriel, Garth Nix
The Gospel According to Larry, Janet Tashjian
Hard Love, Ellen Wittlinger
Dutton's Bookstore Recommends:
Death of Vishnu, Manil Suri
Bel Canto, Ann Patchett
Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
A Small Death in Lisbon, Robert Wilson
Out of the Girls' Room and into the Night, Thisbe NIssen
Slammerkin, Emma Donoghue
Challenged/Banned Books
The House of Spirits, Isabel Allende
Letters from the Inside, John Marsden
Girls' Softball Recommends:
The Tribes of Palos Verdes, Joy Nicholson
Maus & Maus II, Art Spiegelman
BSU (Black Student Union) Recommends:
Mama and Disappearing Acts, by Terry McMillan
Family and The Wake of the Wind, by J. California Cooper
The Haunting of Hip Hop, by Bertice Berry
Blessings and Caught Up in the Rapture, by Sheneska Jackson
Samohi "Mortensen" Library Recommends the American Library Association's "Best Books for Young Adults, 2002:"
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, by Ann Brashares
The Rag and Bone Shop, by Robert Cormier
Whale Talk, by Chris Crutcher
Breathing Underwater, by Alex Flinn
Damage, by A.M. Jenkins
Zazoo, by Richard Mosher
The Land, by Mildred Taylor
Every Time a Rainbow Dies, by Rita Williams-Garcia
True Believer, by Virginia Euwer Wolff
Libros en espanol:
El llano en llamas, Juan Rulfo
Ficciones, Jorge Luis Borges
Eva Luna, Isabel Allende
La balada de Gregorio Cortez, Américo Paredes
Doce cuentos peregrinos, Gabriel García Márquez
Gringo viejo, Carlos Fuentes
La Cuentista, (traditional tales), Teresa Pijoan (bilingual)
Yearbook Staff Recommends:
A Persian Requiem, Simin Daneshvar
The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Children's Book World Recommends:
If You Come Softly, Jacqueline Woodson
True Adventures of Avenger, Norma Howe
The Tricksters, Margaret Mahy
Incoming 12th Grade AP Students: Bible as Literature
Genesis 1 - 9 (Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah)
Genesis 11 (Tower of Babel)
Genesis 22 (Abraham and Isaac)
Judges 13 - 16 (Samson)
Job (Chapters 1 - 3, 36 - 42)
Song of Solomon
Proverbs (all)
Psalms 1, 7, 22, 23, 47, 61
Ecclesiastes 1 - 3
Matthew (entire Gospel)