Summer Book List, 2012
T
his is our first list of summer reading recommendations for pupils, and we hope that parents will also find it useful when encouraging their sons and daughters to keep up and extend their reading over the summer holidays. The first reason for is simple: pure pleasure, since the school summer vacation is one of the few times in life when for day after day you can dedicate yourself to reading something you are interested in and really enjoy. The second is more educational: all pupils can make real intellectual strides in these months, instead of succumbing to the ‘summer slide’. You should also read newspapers, magazines and articles on websites too: good reading is everywhere around you. This list is not supposed to be comprehensive. It just gives you a start on what books might interest you from a mostly contemporary selection, and in the era of the internet it will be easy to research more before you buy your paperback or e-book, or go to your local library. On www.sccenglish.ie there is also a link to many more lists from publications and institutions (top right of the site, ‘Summer Reading’). In future years we will expand and refresh the list. Meanwhile, choose a good book, sit back and enjoy the holidays... Tom McConville, Librarian Julian Girdham, Head of English Department Our thanks to Marie Haslett (History & historical fiction) and Humphrey Jones (Science) for contributing many suggestions in their areas of expertise.
Fiction
Mostly Junior 1. Millions by Frank Cottrell Boyce: A bag full of money drops into the lives of Damian and Anthony, and suddenly they can buy anything they want, except their mum has died and their dad is suffering, they’ve just moved house and they’re in a new school... Funny, poignant novel of bereavement, childhood and new life. 2. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne: Nine-year-old Bruno’s father is a concentration camp commandant, only he doesn’t know that; then he meets Shmuel who lives on the other side of the wire and wears pyjamas. [Second World War – Holocaust] 3. The Sight by David Clement-Davies: A pack of wolves seeks shelter from the winter, a legend clinging to them of man and wolf, power and death - the Sight has come into their world. 4. The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly: David mourns the loss of his mother and takes refuge in the myths and fairy tales she loved; as war rages across Europe he is soon propelled into a land that is both imaginary and frighteningly real.
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