The Summer Reading Assignment texts below have been assigned according to rising grade level. Please read the book assigned for the grade you will be entering in the fall of 2022:
Grade 5 & 6 Assignment: Read the book listed below for your grade level over the summer. During the first few weeks of school in the fall, you will analyze the parts of the story (beginning, middle, and end) and answer questions in your literature class about the characters and plot.
Grade 7 & 8 Assignment: Read the book for your grade level over the summer. During the first few weeks of school in the fall, you will be given an outlining assignment to analyze the structure of the book. You should also be prepared to discuss the book in class.
High School Assignment: Read Animal Farm over the summer. On one of the first days of school in the fall, there will be a seminar class discussion for all high school students.
Saint Michael School has limited copies of each of these texts in our library. Texts will be loaned on a first come-first serve basis, and each family is responsible for the return and condition of any book borrowed from the school.
If you would like to borrow a copy from the school for the summer, please make arrangements through the front office at (802) 254-6320 or by emailing sandigauthier@smsvt.info.
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”
George R.R. Martin
A Dance with Dragons;
Dear SMS Families,
Greetings! The SMS Summer Reading Challenge is here! Saint Michael Catholic School students in grades 1-12 are encouraged to take up the challenge and read a good book over summer vacation. A truly good book is not only an opportunity to stretch the imagination and foster a sense of adventure, but a chance to learn about geography, history, mythology and science. The books on our lists will stir minds, fill hearts and capture imaginations!
The Summer Reading Challenge is voluntary but we heartily recommend that each child build his/her reading strength by striving to read several of the titles listed. For your convenience the list is divided by grade level to aid in reading selection. Within the graded lists are books for every reading level: beginning, intermediate and advanced readers. Consider keeping a reading log to aid your student in keeping track of his/her reading and in measuring his/her progress. Google Docs File HERE
Good Luck! Let the reading begin!
The House that Jack Built – Antonio Frasconi
A Treasury of Mother Goose – Dr. Seuss
Quick as a Cricket – Audrey Wood
Andy and the Lion – James Daugherty
Stone Soup – Ann McGovern
Amelia Bedelia – Peggy Parish
Make Way for Ducklings – Robert McCloskey
The Little Engine that Could – Watty Piper
The Tale of Peter Rabbit – Beatrix Potter
The Three Little Pigs – Paul Galdone
The Mouse and the Motorcycle – Beverly Cleary
The Emperor’s new Clothes – Hans C. Anderson
The Velveteen Rabbit – Marjorie Williams
Owl Moon – Jane Yolen
Three Young Pilgrims – Cheryl Harness
Owls in the Family – Farley Mowat
One Morning in Maine – Robert McCloskey
Thunder at Gettysburg – Patricia Gauch
The Selfish Giant – Oscar Wilde
The Little Flowers of St. Francis (Ignatius Press)
The Moffats – Eleanor Estes (any of the series)
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever – Barbara Robinson
Dr. Dolittle – Hugh Lofting
The Cricket in Times Square – George Selden
Farmer Giles of Ham – J.R.R. Tolkien
Taran Wanderer – Lloyd Alexander
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis
Tales from Shakespeare – Charles and Mary Lamb
Lassie – Eric Knight
Outlaws of Ravenhurst- Imelda Wallace
St. John Bosco and St. Dominic Savio – Catherine Beebe (Ignatius Press)
The Bronze Bow – Elizabeth Speare
Heidi – Johanna Spyri
Otto of the Silver Hand – Howard Pyle
Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
Adam of the Road – Elizabeth Janet Gray
Little Lord Fauntleroy – Frances Hodgson Burnett
King Arthur – Howard Pyle
Hans Brinker – Mary Mapes Dodge
Kidnapped- Robert Louis Stevenson
Black Beauty – Anna Sewell
Kateri Tekakwitha- Evelyn M. Brown (Ignatius Press, Saints for Youth series)
Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe
The Princess and the Goblin – George MacDonald
Tom Sawyer – Mark Twain
Journey to the Center of the Earth – Jules Verne
Through the Looking Glass – Lewis Carroll
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – Jules Verne
Edmund Campion – Harold Gardiner SJ (Ignatius Press, Saints for Youth series)
The Once and Future King – T.H. White
Anne of Green Gables – Lucy Montgomery
Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
Around the World in Eighty Days – Jules Verne
Little House on the Prairie – Laura Ingalls Wilder
Oregon Trail – Francis Parkman
Captains Courageous – Rudyard Kipling
Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott
The Travels of Marco Polo – by Marco Polo
The Song at the Scaffold – Gertrude von Le fort – (Ignatius Press)
(The Scarlet Pimpernel – Baroness Orzey)
Two Years Before the Mast – Richard Henry Dana Jr.
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
A New Voyage Round the World – William Dampier
White Company – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Mill on the Floss – George Eliot
Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo
The Virginian – Owen Wister
Four Just Men – Edgar Wallace Page
Midsummer Night’s Dream – William Shakespeare
Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Harriet Beecher Stowe
Quo Vadis – Henryk Sinkiewicz
The Cloister and the Hearth – Charles Reade
Romeo & Juliet – William Shakespeare
A Son of the Middle Border – Hamlin Garland
A Man Called Thursday – G.K. Chesterton
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – Vicente Blasco Ibanez
The Way of All Flesh – Samuel Butler
Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad
The Prisoner of Zenda – Anthony Hope
Last of the Mohicans – James Fenimore Cooper
Up From Slavery – Booker T. Washington
That Hideous Strength – C.S. Lewis
Rob Roy – Sir Walter Scott
Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky
Kristin Lavransdatter – Sigrid Undset (Any of the three volumes)
Fathers and Sons – Ivan Turgenev
The Red and the Black – John Stendahl
The Charterhouse of Parma – John Stendhal
The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
The House of Seven Gables – Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Life of St. Thomas More – William Roper
Diary of a Country Priest – Georges Bernanos
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
The Death of Ivan Ilyich – Leo Tolstoy
Kim – Rudyard Kipling
Silas Marner – George Eliot
Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift
Barchester Towers – Anthony Trollope