2023 Summer Reading Handouts

  • Each Webster Groves High School student in grades 9-12 is expected to read a book over the summer. By setting expectations for summer reading, we are supporting our district-wide initiative to build life-long, independent learners.

    Students are assigned reading in connection with their next year’s English class.

    Students are welcome to visit the WGHS Main Office during school hours over the summer to check out their summer reading if they do not have a copy of the book.

    Students are also invited to take part in the optional Webster Reads Summer Reading Challenge.   CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION

    9th GRADE:

    • FRESHMEN LITERATURE & COMPOSITION - Click HERE for handout.

             READ ONE OF THE FOLLOWING:

    • Coyote Waits By Tony Hillerman
    • Ender’s Game By Orson Scott Card
    • The Running Dream By Wendelin Van Draanen
    • Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry By Mildred Taylor
    • Children of Blood and  Bone By Tomi Adeyemi

    • GIFTED & TALENTED 9 - Click HERE for handout.           

       READ
      ALL OF THE FOLLOWING:   

      • And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
      • The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
      • A Science Fiction Book of Your Choosing

    10th GRADE:

    • WORLD LITERATURE & COMPOSITION - Click HERE for handout.
      • Choice novel by an international author or a novel related to a global issue 
    • HONORS WORLD LITERATURE & COMPOSITION - Click HERE for handout.  
      • The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima
    • GIFTED & TALENTED 10 - Click HERE for handout.

             READ ALL OF THE FOLLOWING: 

      • Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman
      • I, Robot by Issac Asimov
      • The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
      • Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

    11th GRADE: 

    • 20th CENTURY AMERICAN LITERATURE & COMPOSITION - Click HERE for handout.  

              READ ONE OF THE FOLLOWING:

    • Educated by Tara Westover
    • I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
    • The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien’s 
    • Notes from a Young Black Chef: A Memoir by Kwame Onwauchi
    • HONORS US STUDIES ACC/AP ENGLISH LANGUAGE & COMPOSTION - Click HERE for handout.  
      • Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
    • AP ENGLISH LANGUAGE & COMPOSITION ACC - Click HERE for handout.  
      • In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
    • GIFTED 11: AP ENGLISH LANGUAGE & COMPOSITION - Click HERE for handout. 
          READ BOTH OF THE FOLLOWING:   
        • The Great Gatsby
        • Just Mercy

        READ ONE OF THE FOLLOWING:

        • Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston OR The Road by Cormac McCarthy

    12th GRADE: 

        • AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE & CULTURE - Click HERE for handout.  
          • If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin
        • CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE & COMPOSITION - Click HERE for handout.  
          • Book of Choice that you have not read before - suggested 200+ pages 
        • AP ENGLISH LITERATURE & COMPOSITION ACC - Click HERE for handout.   

             READ BOTH OF THE FOLLOWING:   

          • Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
          • Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
          • RECOMMENDED - How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster

        • EMERGING VOICES: LITERATURE OF CRITICISM & RESISTANCE ACC - Click HERE for handout.  
          • Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro 
        • GIFTED 12: AP ENGLISH LITERATURE & COMPOSITION ACC - Click HERE for handout.  
          • Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley

    READ ONE OF THE FOLLOWING:
         Mrs. Dalloway (1925) by Virginia Woolf 

    OR 

         Brick Lane
    (2003) by Monica Ali