Hammons’ Reading Recommendations
Students and parents often ask me how to improve a student’s reading comprehension and vocabulary
usage skills. The number one advice in all cases is to read. And by read, I don’t mean just textbooks and
classroom assignments, I mean increase the amount of reading the student does that is considered leisure
reading or extra-curricular reading. It allows the mind time to relax, to escape, and to develop the
imagination, as well as, to sharpen these much needed academic skills.
The Plum Tree - Wiseman
Orphan Train - Kline
Night Road - {modern} - Hannah
What She Left Behind - Wiseman
The Nightingale - Hannah
The Vacationers - Straub
Flight Behavior - Kingsolver
Hornet Flight - Follett
Kite Runner {Middle East/Afghanistan} – Hosseini
And The Mountains Echoed {Middle East/Kabul, Afghanistan}- Hosseini
All the Light We Cannot See {WWII} - Doerr
The Shell Collector - (novella) Doerr
The Snake Handler - (novella) Doerr
The Arsonist - Sue Miller
The Goldfinch - Tartt
The Secret History -Tartt
All the Things I Never Told You {modern}
Divergent Series - Roth
The Book Thief - {WWII} - Zusack
Cutting for Stone - {modern/medical} Verghese
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
A Circle of Friends – Binchy
Cold Mountain {Civil War} – Frazier
Cold Sassy Tree – Burns
Girl with Pearl Earring – Chevalier
The Lovely Bones – Sebold
Montana 1948 – Watson
Secret Life of Bees – Monk
The Lilac Girls {post-WWII} - Hall-Kelly
The Women in the Castle - Shattuck
I am a huge fan of historical fiction done well. Some of my recommendations would be:
Pillars of the Earth (1) – Follett
World Without End (2)– Follett
A Column of Fire - (3) Follett
The Century Trilogy:
Fall of Giants (1) - Follett
Winter of the World (2) - Follett
Edge of Eternity (3) - Follett
**Ken Follett writes some of the best historical fiction I've read - he covers nearly every war, political issue, environmental issue and beyond. His setting s are ancient and modern.