Classic Summer Reads For 9th Graders

A Tale of Two Cities
Charles Dickens

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . .” With these famous words, Charles Dickens plunges the reader into one of history’s most explosive eras—the French Revolution. From the storming of the Bastille to the relentless drop of the guillotine, Dickens vividly captures the terror and upheaval of that tumultuous period. At the center is the novel’s hero, Sydney Carton, a lazy, alcoholic attorney who, inspired by a woman, makes the supreme sacrifice on the bloodstained streets of Paris.

One of Dickens’s most exciting novels, A Tale of Two Cities is a stirring classic of love, revenge, and resurrection.

Black Like Me
John Howard Griffin

In the Deep South of the 1950s, journalist John Howard Griffin decided to cross the color line.  Using medication that darkened his skin to deep brown, he exchanged his privileged life as a Southern white man for the disenfranchised world of an unemployed black man.  His audacious, still chillingly relevant eyewitness history is a work about race and humanity-that in this new millennium still has something important to say to every American.

He trudged southern streets searching for a place where he could eat or rest, looking vainly for a job other than menial labor, feeling the “hate stare.” He was John Griffin, a white man who darkened the color of his skin and crossed the line into a country of hate, fear, and hopelessness–the country of the American Black man.

The Hobbit
J. R. R. Tolkien

J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic prelude to his Lord of the Rings trilogy

Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely traveling any farther than his pantry or cellar. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard Gandalf and a company of dwarves arrive on his doorstep one day to whisk him away on an adventure. They have launched a plot to raid the treasure hoard guarded by Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon. Bilbo reluctantly joins their quest, unaware that on his journey to the Lonely Mountain he will encounter both a magic ring and a frightening creature known as Gollum.

Written for J.R.R. Tolkien’s own children, The Hobbit has sold many millions of copies worldwide and established itself as a modern classic.

Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe

Things Fall Apart stands out from so many other works of its era because it does not sentimentalize Africa. Situated in the village of Umuofia it speaks of brutality and suffering, tradition and community.

Follow the story of Okonkwo, the son of a lazy but amiable man and the father of several children of his own. Overcoming the obstacles set before him in childhood, he becomes a prosperous farmer and winning wrestler and gains the respect of his peers.

A classic of modern African writing, this is the tale of what happens to tribal customs and old ways when white man comes.

Book description from Barnes&Noble.com