Students taking Senior English during the 2025-2026 school year have six books from which to choose. Students are required to read only ONE book. Additionally, students must complete a dialectical journal to show their interactions with the text. There will also be a quiz over your selected book during the first week of class.
This is a requirement for all students taking Senior English in the fall of 2025.
Students must use their selected summer reading book to complete 20 entries in their dialectical journal. All journals must be handwritten. Electronic journals will not be accepted.
All entries must include a quoted passage from the text, the page number, and then an explanation using one of the six dialectical codes. The codes can be found on the assignment sheet.
Detailed directions and a sample journal can be found in the link below. Students who do not have a paper copy of the blank journal can print one out using the link below.
The dialectical journal should be completed and ready to turn in on the first day of school.
A Man Called Ove
By: Fredrik Backman
Fiction: 368 pages
From Amazon: "Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon—the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him “the bitter neighbor from hell.” But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn’t walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?
Behind the cranky exterior, there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove’s mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents’ association to their very foundations."
Talking to GOATs
By: Jim Gray
Nonfiction: 301 pages
From Amazon: "As a sportscaster and sports historian, Jim's career genuinely stands the test of time . . . . This book is sports history about some of the greats by one of the greats, who was taking it all in on the sidelines, in the stands or the dugout, by the eighteenth green, courtside, or in the broadcast booth." — Tom Brady, seven-time NFL Super Bowl chamption GOAT
"A riveting, insightful memoir of never-before-told stories from Jim Gray, twelve-time Emmy Award-winner, Hall of Fame sports broadcaster, and renowned interviewer—that explores the author's career and the inside stories and memoriable moments of the famous legends he has covered including Muhammad Ali, Tom Brady, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and Mike Tyson."
Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds (Clean Edition)
By: David Goggins
Nonfiction: 364 pages
From Amazon: "For David Goggins, childhood was a nightmare - poverty, prejudice, and physical abuse colored his days and haunted his nights. But through self-discipline, mental toughness, and hard work, Goggins transformed himself from a depressed, overweight young man with no future into a U.S. Armed Forces icon and one of the world's top endurance athletes. The only man in history to complete elite training as a Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller, he went on to set records in numerous endurance events, inspiring Outside magazine to name him 'The Fittest (Real) Man in America.'"
We recommend purchasing the "Clean Edition" of this book. The original version has coarse language that some may find inappropriate.
Mornings with Rosemary
By: Libby Page
Fiction: 336 pages
From Amazon: "Rosemary Peterson has lived in Brixton, London, all her life, but everything is changing. The library where she used to work has closed. The family grocery store has become a trendy bar. And now the lido, an outdoor pool where she’s swum daily since its opening, is threatened with closure by a local housing developer. It was at the lido that Rosemary escaped the devastation of World War II; here she fell in love with her husband, George; here she found community during her marriage and since George’s death.
Twentysomething Kate Matthews has moved to Brixton and feels desperately alone. A once-promising writer, she now covers forgettable stories for her local paper. That is until she’s assigned to write about the lido’s closing. Soon Kate’s portrait of the pool focuses on a singular woman: Rosemary. And as Rosemary slowly opens up to Kate, both women are nourished and transformed in ways they never thought possible."
The Lost City of the Monkey God
By: Douglas Preston
Nonfiction: 302 pages
From Amazon: "Since the days of conquistador Hernán Cortés, rumors have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden somewhere in the Honduran interior, called the White City or the Lost City of the Monkey God. Indigenous tribes speak of ancestors who fled there to escape the Spanish invaders, and they warn that anyone who enters this sacred city will fall ill and die. In 1940, swashbuckling journalist Theodore Morde returned from the rainforest with hundreds of artifacts and an electrifying story of having found the Lost City of the Monkey God-but then committed suicide without revealing its location.
Three quarters of a century later, bestselling author Doug Preston joined a team of scientists on a groundbreaking new quest. In 2012 he climbed aboard a rickety, single-engine plane carrying the machine that would change everything: lidar, a highly advanced, classified technology that could map the terrain under the densest rainforest canopy."
Remarkably Bright Creatures
By: Shelby Van Pelt
Fiction: 368 pages
From Amazon: "After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.
Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors—until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.
Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova’s son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it’s too late."
You may use the links below to purchase your selected book. The purchase link is simply provided for your convenience. Books can be purchased anywhere (new or used).