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Summer Reading Recommendations, Part II: For Students
In May we asked various scholars, writers, current and former Humanities Texas board members, and others to recommend books for summer reading in the humanities. Now we offer recommendations aimed specifically at elementary, junior high school, and high school students, from teachers and educational professionals around the state. (Book summaries in quotation marks are from the recommenders themselves.)
Kenneth Austin, history teacher, The Academy of Irving ISD
David McCullough, Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt. "Great information on the Victorian era leading up to Teddy Roosevelt's election as president."
Thom Barthelmess, youth services manager, Austin Public Library
Maureen Johnson, Suite Scarlett (for teens). "On Scarlett's fifteenth birthday, she is entrusted with the Empire Suite at the Hopewell, her family's aging Manhattan hotel. When enigmatic, bigger-than-life Amy Amberson comes to spend the summer, Scarlett gets more than she bargained for, in this uproarious, madcap, big-city romp."
Gordon Korman, Swindle (for kids). "When sixth-grader Griffin Bing is swindled out of a hugely valuable baseball card by a nefarious collectibles dealer, he and a crew of classmate-specialists plot an elaborate heist to get it back. Of course, nothing goes as planned, and hilarious highjinks ensue."
J. Barton, U.S. history teacher, Mount Pleasant High School
Thomas L. Friedman, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. "An excellent work to help students understand the globalization of our economy and how they need to be ready to compete on not just a regional or national level, but on a truly global level."
Eric Bayne, Texas history teacher, Del Rio Middle School
Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
John Bednarczyk, Texas, U.S., and world history teacher, Howell Middle School, Victoria
Peter Reese Doyle, Independence, Bunker Hill, and A Captive in Williamsburg (the Drums of War series).
Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.
Susie Bowers, U.S. history teacher, Boerne Middle School North (for seventh grade GT Texas history students)
John Holland Jenkins, Recollections of Early Texas: The Memoirs of John Holland Jenkins. "John Holland Jenkins was a small child during the Republic and lived into his eighties. He retired to Bastrop, Texas, and was encouraged to write his memoirs. His father was killed by Comanches, his step-dad killed at the Alamo, etc. I liked to use this book because it was authentic, not fiction."
Donna L. Britt, social studies teacher, Ross S. Sterling High School, Baytown (for "rising juniors" in high school)
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin. "This classic book about the Old South and the institution of slavery still touches the hearts of students. I refer to it often when we are studying the antebellum days in U.S. history."
Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels. "This Pulitzer Prize-winning book illuminates the struggles of the soldiers and commanders, and why certain decisions were made at the Battle of Gettysburg. My daughter read it when she was in eighth grade and fell in love with it."
Elmer Kelton, The Day the Cowboys Quit. "Mr. Kelton is an award-winning author who writes about the changes that occurred in the West in the last half of the nineteenth century, and the effects these changes had on ranchers and cowhands alike. His book portrays the realities of life in the Texas Panhandle."
Melba Pattillo Beals, Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High. "Of all the books they read, my students liked this one the best. It follows the story of the Little Rock Nine who integrated Central High in 1957. It presents the politics of the time, the social conflicts facing the students, and the emotions they had to deal with on a daily basis."
Sue Casey, social studies and language arts teacher, Helotes Elementary School
Mary Ann Fraser, Ten Mile Day: And the Building of the Transcontinental Railroad.
Sharol Caw, Texas history teacher, Permenter Middle School, Cedar Hill
Carolyn Meyer, White Lilacs.
Elizabeth Chapman, Texas history and English teacher, Westbrook Intermediate School, Friendswood
Lewis F. Fisher, The Spanish Missions of San Antonio.
Ronnie C. Tyler and Lawrence R. Murphy, The Slave Narratives of Texas.
David La Vere, The Texas Indians.
Martha H. Chappell, special education teacher, Belton High School
Andy Adams, The Log of a Cowboy: A Narrative of the Old Trail Days. "First published in 1903, this is a great piece of fiction about experiences on the cattle drives through Texas and Oklahoma. Time-Life republished the book in 1981."
Kathryn Craig, American studies and English teacher, Carl Wunsche Senior High School, Spring
Walter Dean Myers, Fallen Angels.
Monica Daily, Texas and U.S. history teacher, Cooper Junior High School, Wylie
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Luis Garza, world history teacher, Porter High School, Brownsville
Kenneth M. Stampp, The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South.
Ann Hale, English teacher, Haltom High School, Fort Worth
Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage. "Classic story of the Civil War and the coming of age of a young soldier, by a young journalist born after the end of the war who died at age twenty-nine. Loosely based on the Battle of Chancellorsville, this book is short but has a lot to say about the nature of courage and heroism."
Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain. "The story of a teenaged boy living in Boston just before the American Revolution. He meets and interacts with such real-life Revolutionary heroes as Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Paul Revere."
Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried. "A fictionalized account of O'Brien's experiences in the Vietnam War. The author appears as a character in his story in the same way that Chaucer made himself a character in The Canterbury Tales. Realistic stories of war not for younger readers."
Walter Scott, Ivanhoe. "A retelling of the Robin Hood legend as part of the story of the building of the English nation as a combination of the Norman and Anglo-Saxon cultures. A great story, but it has a challenging vocabulary that many students find difficult."
Stacy Hricko, English III/IV teacher, Melissa High School (eighth grade and above)
Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine. "About growing up and facing your fears. One of those books I've reread a dozen times and still see something new—and one that is often overlooked."
Beth Hudson, fifth grade American history and language arts teacher, Travis Heights Elementary School, Austin, and 2007 Humanities Texas Outstanding Teaching of the Humanities Award winner (for students in grades three–six)
Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. "The account of summer days on Jackson Island, digging for lost treasure, and murder in the graveyard."
Hendrik Willem van Loon, The Story of Mankind. "The first book to win a Newbery Award (published in 1921), this book tells the history of the world in a grand story-telling manner and was recently updated to include more recent twentieth-century history."
Maud Hart Lovelace, the Betsy Tacy series. "A series of ten books based on the author's childhood from turn-of-the-century Minnesota through her World War I wedding, and her ambitions to be a writer."
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island. "Just the grandest adventure story ever told, with pirates and buried treasure."
Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust. "A Newbery winner about the Great Depression and Dust Bowl in Oklahoma."
Richard Peck, The Teacher's Funeral: A Comedy in Three Parts. "In 1904 Indiana, a young man's dread of school turns to horror when his sister becomes the teacher."
Richard Peck, Here Lies the Librarian. "A young auto mechanic's world is turned upside down by the arrival of college girls to run the small-town library in pre-World War I Indiana."
Richard Peck, The River Between Us. "The mysterious story of two young women looking for refuge during the Civil War."
Richard Peck, On the Wings of Heroes. "A young boy sees his brother off to World War II."
Richard Peck, Fair Weather. "A rural family attends the Chicago World's Fair, 1894."
Richard Peck, A Year Down Yonder. "In this Newbery winner, a fifteen-year-old city girl must go live with her grandmother in rural America during the Great Depression."
L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables. "Older siblings on Prince Edward Island seek to adopt a boy but get a precocious red-haired girl instead. Published in 1908."
Christopher Paul Curtis, The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963. "This Newbery winner is a very funny, engaging author who also introduces younger readers to the tragedy of the Birmingham church bombing."
Sandy Hutson, social studies and language arts teacher, Woolls Intermediate School, Hondo
Mary Stolz, A Ballad of the Civil War.
Lois Lowry, Number the Stars.
Pam Kennedy, science and social studies teacher, Anton Elementary School (for fifth and sixth graders)
Candy Dawson Boyd, Charlie Pippin. "It has good information and background on the Vietnam War."
Edelia Lira, U.S. history teacher, Sidney Lanier High School, San Antonio
Gretchen Moran Laskas, The Miner's Daughter.
Terry Loessin, social studies curriculum specialist, Austin ISD (for high school age students and adults)
Linda Scarbrough, Road, River, and Ol’ Boy Politics: A Texas County’s Path from Farm to Supersuburb. A local journalist tells the story of profound political changes and phenomenal growth in post-World War II Williamson County, just north of Austin.
John Hamamura, The Color of the Sea. The hero of this coming-of-age novel is born in Hawaii, the son of Japanese immigrants, and the book follows his romance with the American-born daughter of Japanese immigrants before and during World War II.
Neil Loewenstern, world geography/contemporary issues/facing history teacher, Liberal Arts and Science Academy High School, Austin (for high school age students and adults)
Yann Martel, Life of Pi. "A work of fiction about a boy from India who is cast away on a life boat with a tiger for eight months. It is a story that explores spirituality and religion."
Joan McCarson, English and art teacher, Leakey High School
Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God. "An exceptional novel on the early 1900s and the cross-expectations of blacks to blacks and whites to blacks to survive."
Adam Miller, U.S. history teacher, Covington Middle School, Austin
Howard Zinn, Mike Konopacki, and Paul Buhle, A People's History of American Empire: A Graphic Adaptation. "In a vibrant, graphic style, two historians and one cartoonist team up to tell the story of America's actions around the world during the past 120 years, illuminating events from Wounded Knee to the Iraq War, and offering new ways to see our history from the ground level."
Benjamin Montemayor, world geography and world history teacher, Jimmy Carter High School, La Joya
Maurine Liles, The Littlest Vaquero: Texas' First Cowboys and How They Helped Win the American Revolution.
José Morales, Spanish and U.S. history teacher, Louise Perkins Middle School, Brownsville
Merrill Jensen, The Founding of a Nation: A History of the American Revolution, 1763–1776.
Phyllis Nawrot, Texas history and world cultures teacher, Cinco Ranch Junior High School, Katy
Jon Meacham, Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship.
Peter Perry, AP U.S. history teacher, McKinney High School (for AP U.S. history)
Alan Taylor, American Colonies: The Settling of North America."This book prepares the student to learn about colonization; it connects late world history to colonization, and provides details often absent from textbooks."
Kimberly Pope, world cultures and pre-AP Texas history teacher, Coppell Middle School West
Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild. "The book allows for multiple themes and concepts, such as individualism, power, and authority, that could tie into social studies."
Craig Pritchett, U.S. history, government, and economics teacher, Riesel High School (for juniors and seniors)
Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, Fail-Safe. "A Cold War story about the U.S attacking Russia—but is the attack real, simulated, or misunderstood by the computer systems of both countries?"
Carol Pugh, Texas and U.S. history teacher, Peet Junior High School, Conroe
Janice Jordan Shefelman, A Paradise Called Texas.
Fred Gipson, Old Yeller.
Kathleen Reid, AP U.S. history teacher, Memorial High School, San Antonio
Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America.
Joe Russell, social studies teacher, Winfree Academy Charter School, Richardson
James Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. "A great book for introducing a little controversy back into the history classroom and teaching kids that history is interpretive and that it is necessary to question what is taught."
John T. Schmidt, history teacher and department chair, Grape Creek High School
Phillip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle. "A book about how World War II could have gone."
Wendy Seeliger, economics and AP world history teacher, Lewisville High School
Toni Morrison, Sula. "An excellent portrayal of the life of two African American women in the 1920s."
Denise Scott, social studies and English teacher, Lamar Academy, McAllen
Carol Berkin, A Brilliant Solution: Inventing the American Constitution. "A readable text with anecdotes about members of the Constitutional Convention. It includes short biographies of every member of the Convention, text of the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution. There is no bibliography, but an afterword with recommendations for further study."
Elizabeth Sharp, eighth-grade U.S. history teacher, Garland ISD
Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America. "A thrilling non-fiction account of a Chicago mass murderer set during the 1893 World's Fair. Industrialization and politics of the 1890s."
Celeste Smith, social studies curriculum specialist, Austin Independent School District (for upper high school students)
Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner. "About two young boys from Afghanistan from different social groups who become best friends, then, after a tragic incident, must deal with the consequences. I used it with my tenth-grade students toward the end of the semester, and after a letter to parents that some content may be disturbing to some readers, had both parents and students report that they loved the book."
Jeff Steele, social studies teacher, Runge High School, Refugio
T. Harry Williams, Lincoln and His Generals.
Jack Steers, pre-AP world history and AP U.S. history teacher, Central Catholic High School, San Antonio
Frederick Wilkins, The Highly Irregular Irregulars: Texas Rangers in the Mexican War.
Hershel Walker, world history and AP U.S. history teacher, Giddings High School (for older students or adults)
Iris Chang, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II.
Paul Wenzlaff, U.S. history, government, macroeconomics, psychology, sociology, and advanced independent studies teacher, Memorial High School, San Antonio
Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States: 1492–Present.