8th Grade- Class of 2031

Hello incoming 8th graders!

Summer is a great time for reading, and we encourage you to read as many books as possible. We hope you even make time to do some reading that is not part of a school assignment!

You have many options for obtaining your summer reading books. You can buy them, check them out from a public library, or, if you are a returning student you can get them as ebooks through Sora.

If you are a returning student and would like more information on how to use Sora to check out ebooks for summer reading, make sure to visit the Sora page on this website.

Image by Perfecto_Capucine from Pixabay

summer assignment

We encourage all rising Grade 8 students to spend some time reading over the summer and discovering books they enjoy. Students should read a minimum of four books, including the required Grade 8 texts below. We’ve also included some recommended options below, though students are welcome to choose another novel that interests them.

Please keep a simple Google Doc with the titles and authors of the books you read over the summer.

Required Grade 8 Summer Reading:

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

Students should read these books before the start of school, as it will connect to an in-class assignment during the first week of Grade 8.

While the books listed below offer excellent recommendations, we also encourage students to explore library shelves and bookstores over the summer and discover new books that spark a love of reading.

Wishing you a joyful summer of reading!

If you have any questions, please contact Head of Middle School Humanities, Marie Nieto, at mnieto@dwight.edu

Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.” But when he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Ten people, each with something to hide and something to fear, are invited to an isolated mansion on Indian Island by a host who, surprisingly, fails to appear. On the island they are cut off from everything but each other and the inescapable shadows of their own past lives. One by one, the guests share the darkest secrets of their wicked pasts. And one by one, they die…

Which among them is the killer and will any of them survive?