In the waning days of summer vacation, there are malls to be shopped and waves to be surfed, music to be downloaded and gossip to be shared. Oh, and there are books to be read -- all enumerated on the summer reading lists of schools throughout the area.
"The Catcher in the Rye" is a favorite. So is "The Outsiders" by S.E. Hinton ("who wrote the novel when she was 16," the staff at the Chadwick School noted in its handout to seventh-graders). "Siddhartha" by Herman Hesse may be nestled in various beach bags this summer as well.
Turns out vacation isn't quite as vacant as it was in the days before private high school fees rivaled college tuition and applying for college became as competitive as running for political office.
Many schools send their charges home for the summer with reading lists -- sometimes with suggested titles but more often with mandatory readings and required essays.
And the reading lists would put to shame those of their elders who nod off in bed to a Dean Koontz thriller or the latest Candace Bushnell trifle. (Which is not to say that some parents don't read the books on their children's lists. Schools even suggest it.)
Teachers and administrators who make up summer reading lists insist that the assignments aim to stoke a passion for reading.
"A book is like your best friend," said Genevieve Morgan, head of the English department at the Archer School for Girls, grades six through 12, in Brentwood. "If you keep your mind fresh, you're never lonely."
Morgan picks most of the books in conjunction with the teachers.
"My first thought is to find something enjoyable for [students] to read, so if they're reluctant readers, they learn to love reading," Morgan said. The second goal is to find "something juicy that will spark discussion. During the year we teach books you need more leading through.... You don't really want a seventh-grader reading Shakespeare on her own during the summer. That's going to turn her off Shakespeare."
Among the recommended lists for seventh- through ninth-graders are Scott Westerfield's science fiction fables about the tyranny of beauty in society -- "Uglies," "Pretties" and "Specials." They are "the hot books the kids are loving," Morgan said.
But it's not just about a good read. Incoming Archer sixth-graders must read the classic "Anne of Green Gables" and Neal Gaiman's "Coraline," about a girl's journey through a mysterious door in her house into an eerie parallel world.
