Eugenio Sancho, Academic Dean, announced the 2009 Summer Reading list for Mercersburg Academy.
Check it out: It includes writings about common threads that define the human condition. Each provides insights into scientific developments, political conflict, and exploration in the depths of the Amazon in Brazil.
All students in the Fall, 2009, will have read at least one of the five summer reading selections. Upon arriving on campus, students will declare their reading selection with the history and English departments and we will also share our reactions to these books in school-wide seminars.
The Well-Dressed Ape: A Natural History of Myself by Hannah Holmes
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah
The Ayatollah Begs to Differ by Hooman Majd
Midnight on the Line by Tim Gaynor
The Lost City of Z by David Grann
On campus, each student will write an essay that addresses how their summer reading book book challenges or reinforces some belief or value that you consider important. Describe that belief or value and explain—in detail and with supporting examples from the text—just how the book challenges or reinforces it.
Essays will compete school wide for cash awards and a letter of commendation.
The school faculty subscribe to the idea that reading—and reading widely—defines the core of an educated person.
The best preparation for active and engaged learning is reading. There is little question that the habitual reader is more inquisitive, more sensitive to language, and more responsive to subtle distinctions than is the person who reads little or not at all.
Please let me know if you’ve found any of these online to download to my Tablet.