The Geneva School yearns to see good readers, and reading well requires direction, discipline, and diligence.  For nearly ten months of the year, our teachers strive arduously toward the task of teaching both mechanics and comprehension, analysis and appreciation.  They assign books to be read, questions to be answered, and ideas to be pondered.  Their direction demands discipline and diligence, and your children dutifully comply.  Reading for understanding begins with the necessity of hard work, without doubt, but it takes flight in its accomplishment by inspiring.

The love of reading good books, by contrast, is born, not built; it is always cultivated, never compelled.  The enjoyment of that which is good, true, and beautiful is the fruit of all genuine leisure and the proper object of our God-given freedom to choose.  That a book we are reading does not have to be read is often what brings us greatest pleasure.  For this reason Geneva has chosen this year to draft a summer reading list of recommendations, rather than of obligations.  The titles reflect some of the best of our ideals, both of faith and of learning, and they are works deemed virtuous and valuable by our teachers.

The Geneva School longs to see good readers of best books, but it desires equally to cultivate a love of them.  Encourage your children to read.  Read with them, and around them, and to them, please.  But when they ask, “Why ought I read this book or that?” consider the answer not must, but should.

Note to Parents: We recommend that you participate in your child’s summer literature experience by reading, or at least previewing, the books that your child selects. Some of the texts within the list below contain difficult subject matter, strong language, and/or powerful scenes that may remain with the reader long after they have finished the book.  Be assured that the faculty has taken the utmost care in choosing titles for this summer’s reading list, believing that their content is of value, is consistent with Geneva’s educational objectives, and will act as a spring board for discussion and deeper thought. However, while each of these texts has been read by our faculty and deemed appropriate for certain age groups, we encourage you to screen the chosen selections to help ensure appropriateness, keeping in mind your own personal family convictions and your child’s individual sensibilities.

Remember, unabridged audio books are widely available in libraries and are great for long road trips.

Rising Seventh Grade

• The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox (historical)
• The Chosen by Chaim Potok (contemporary)
• Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (fantasy)
• All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot (biography)
• Tales of a Dead King by Walter Dean Myers (mystery)

Rising Eighth Grade

• The Robe by Lloyd Cassel C. Douglas (historical)
• Joni by Joni Eareckson (biography)
• Birds, Beasts and Relatives and/or My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell (biography)
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and/or The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain (classic)
• Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (classic)
• Any mystery by Agatha Christie

Rising Ninth Grade

• The Once and Future King by T. H. White
• The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien
• Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis
• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
• The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
• White Fang by Jack London
• My Antonia by Willa Cather
• Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
• Foundation by Isaac Asimov and others in this series (This series was inspired by Gibbons the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and develops themes with which we will incorporate in the Western Civilization class).
• The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells

Rising Tenth Grade

• Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr.
• Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (students need only read book 1)
• The Crucible by Arthur Miller
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Frankenstein by Mary W. Shelley
• Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
• Emma by Jane Austen
• Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins
• The Life of Pi by Yann Martel
• Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
• Into The Wild by John Krakauer
• Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

Rising Eleventh Grade

• Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr.
• 1984 by George Orwell
• The Chosen by Chaim Potok
• Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
• Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
• All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
• Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
• The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
• The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• Passage to India by E. M. Forster
• Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick
• Peace Child by Don Richardson

 Scientific Revolution

• Pensees by Blaise Pascal (Penguin Edition ISBN: 0140446451)

Rising Twelfth Grade
We recommend that rising seniors read two or more of the following works during the summer:

Long reads:

• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas père
• Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Shorter reads:

• The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton
• Wise Blood: A Novel by Flannery O'Connor
• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn (The 1991 H. T. Willets translation is recommended)

 Relativity and Reason

• Pensees by Blaise Pascal (Penguin Edition ISBN: 0140446451)

Rising French III Students

• Vive le taureau! by Lisa Ray Turner and Blaine Ray (available online for under $5; ISBN 0929724607)

Rising French IV Students

• The Little Prince (English language edition) by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
• L’Evangile selon Marc (The Gospel according to Mark, in French. You may order a copy of the French Bible or New Testament, or you may read the entire text online for free at www.biblegateway.com, or, in the most recent translation, at www.interbible.org/interBible/ecritures/bu/index.php)