10th Grade Summer Reading

10th Grade Advanced or Honors Summer Reading 

 

Choose one book from the list to read and complete a Novel Analysis. Novels may contain sensitive content so please discuss options with parents or guardians before choosing an option.  

This assignment is due Monday, August 18 for first semester 2025, or Monday, January 12 for second semester 2026. You have 6 choices listed below. 

 

Choice 1:  Hitler Youth By Susan Campbell Barttoelli 

A meticulously researched account of the largest youth group in history, much of it told by participants. “Gripping” -Booklist, starred review . 

 
In this Newbery Honor and Sibert Honor award-winning book, Susan Campbell Bartoletti explores the riveting and often chilling story of Germany's powerful Hitler Youth groups. 
 
By the time Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, 3.5 million children belonged to the Hitler Youth. It would become the largest youth group in history. Susan Campbell Bartoletti explores how Hitler gained the loyalty, trust, and passion of so many of Germany's young people. Her research includes telling interviews with surviving Hitler Youth members. 

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Choice 2: Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick 

When the Khmer Rouge arrive at his hometown in Cambodia, Arn is just a kid, dancing to rock ‘n’ roll, hustling for spare change, and selling ice cream with his brother. But after the soldiers march the entire population into the countryside, Arn is separated from his family and assigned to a labor camp. One day, the soldiers ask if any of the kids can play an instrument. In order to survive, Arn must quickly master the strange revolutionary songs the soldiers demand. This will save his life, but it will also pull him into the very center of what we know today as the Killing Fields. And just as the country is about to be liberated, Arn is handed a gun and forced to become a soldier. He lives by the simple credo: “Over and over I tell myself one thing: never fall down.” Based on the true story of Arn Chorn-Pond, this is an achingly raw and powerful novel about a child of war who becomes a man of peace. 

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Choice 3: Looking for Smoke by K. A. Cobell 

When local girl Loren includes Mara in a traditional Blackfeet Giveaway to honor Loren’s missing sister, Mara thinks she’ll finally make some friends on the Blackfeet reservation. 
 
Instead, a girl from the Giveaway, Samantha White Tail, is found murdered. 
 
Because the four members of the Giveaway group were the last to see Samantha alive, each becomes a person of interest in the investigation. And all of them—Mara, Loren, Brody, and Eli—have a complicated history with Samantha. 
 
Despite deep mistrust, the four must now take matters into their own hands and clear their names. Even though one of them may be the murderer. 

Choice 4: The Bitter End by Alexa Donne 

When a winter storm traps eight teens in a remote ski cabin, they find themselves stranded with a killer—who may be one of their own. From the acclaimed author of The Ivies and Pretty Dead Queens comes a YA thriller that will make your blood run cold. 
 
The trip of a lifetime might be the death of them all. 
 
The students of LA’s elite Warner Prep can’t wait for their Senior Excursion—five days of Instagrammable adventure in one of the world’s most exclusive locations. This is not your average field trip. 
 
Which is why eight students can’t believe their bad luck when they end up on a digital detox in an isolated Colorado ski chalet. Their epic trip is panning out to be an epic bore . . . until their classmates start dropping in a series of disturbing deaths. The message is clear: this trip is no accident. 

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Choice 5: The Wilderness of Girls by Madeline Claire Franklin 

An unflinching YA debut about a troubled teen who discovers a pack of feral girls in the woods and is swept up in the ensuing mystery: Are the Wild Girls of Happy Valley lost princesses from a faraway land, as they believe, or are they brainwashed victims of a deranged kidnapper? 

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Choice 6: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison 

First published in 1952 and immediately hailed as a masterpiece, Invisible Man is one of those rare novels that have changed the shape of American literature. For not only does Ralph Ellison's nightmare journey across the racial divide tell unparalleled truths about the nature of bigotry and its effects on the minds of both victims and perpetrators, it gives us an entirely new model of what a novel can be. 
 
As he journeys from the Deep South to the streets and basements of Harlem, from a horrifying "battle royal" where black men are reduced to fighting animals, to a Communist rally where they are elevated to the status of trophies, Ralph Ellison's nameless protagonist ushers readers into a parallel universe that throws our own into harsh and even hilarious relief. Suspenseful and sardonic, narrated in a voice that takes in the symphonic range of the American language, black and white, Invisible Man is one of the most audacious and dazzling novels of our century.

 

Novel Analysis Outline 

You must pick three (3) of the sections from below.  The assignment must be hand-written. 

 

I. First Reactions 

A. Immediately after finishing the novel, write your reactions. 

B. Try to relate the action or outcome of the story to your own life or reading experience. 

1. Did you see yourself? 

2. Did you learn a lesson? 

3. Did you remember something from your past that you had forgotten? 

4. Were you inspired? If so, how?  

5. What did you learn that you didn’t know before? 

 

II. Plot and Other Mechanics 

A. Setting 

1. Time, place, situation. 

2. Actual geographic location (you may include a map here.) 

3. Time period, history or season (as appropriate) in which the action takes place. 

4. General environment of the characters (for example, the religious, mental, moral, social and/or economic conditions.) 

B. Character List the major characters and include the following for each: 

1. Conflicts (internal or external) that motivate and shape the character. 

2. 2 or 3 words – key personality traits – that characterize each person (for example, ambitious, lonely, overprotected.) 

C. Point of View. Which is used? (For example, first person objective/subjective, third person 

omniscient/limited omniscient.) 

D. Plot. 

1. Summary VERY SHORT (50 words or less) plot line. 

2. Identify where the major climax is, what conflict it solved, and the reactions of the people in the book to this solution. 

3. List any parallel or recurring events you see. 

4. Ending – purpose? 

E. Opening. Summarize first few pages (beginning scene.) Is there a memorable opening line? 

 

III. Commentary on Plot and Structure 

A. What is the significance of the title to the work? 

B. What effect is created by the opening pages? 

C. For each character identify the following. What values do they hold? What purpose do they 

have in the book? How does the society of the story influence each character? 

D. Was the conclusion a satisfactory ending to the work? Why/ why not? If not, then how would 

you have ended the work, and why? 

E. How do each of the settings make the work more interesting? 

F. Describe the society of the book (the fictional one created by the author.) 

 

IV. Theme and Other Abstract Ideas 

A. What are the major themes (short phrases for each) of the work 

B. How is each of these themes portrayed in the work? 

C. What are the moral and ethical problems explored in the story? 

D. Archetypal themes or motif and patterns? Describe. 

E. List 3 cause/effect relationships found in the story. 

F. How does the author use imagery, symbolism, allusions, etc. to develop his themes? 

 

V. Memorable Lines, Scenes 

A. Write down any memorable lines from the book that you liked or that illustrated important 

ideas in the work 

B. Write a commentary for each set of lines in A. Why is each memorable and how does it 

enhance the meaning of the work? 

C. Paraphrase each quotation in A. Memorize two sets. 

D. Find quotations that illustrate the author’s skill in establishing mood/tone, imagery, 

symbolism, characterization. 

 

Personal Relevance:  Choose 2 prompts and respond... 

A. Write a different ending to the book. Tell why you changed it 

B. Tell 5 ways in which the main character is like you. 

C. How is this work relevant to our time? 

D. Did this book remind you of anything that has happened to you? What? 

E. Did this book give you any new ideas about yourself? What? 

F. Write a letter to a friend recommending this book. 

G. Tell about a time when something similar in the story happened to you or someone you know. 

H. Pretend you are one of the characters in the book. Write a diary about the happenings in your 

life covering one week. 

I. What changes would have to be made if the book occurred 300 years ago? 

J. What difference did it make to you (in your life) that you read this book? What do you think 

you will remember about this book in the future?