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Dear Students and Families,

The English Department sends the following summer reading list in hopes that your months away from Hotchkiss will be enriched by the texts we have suggested.

We ask that students read two books this summer. The first is this year’s All-School Read, Samantha Harvey's 2024 Booker Prize-winning novel Orbital. We urge you to peruse this helpful study guide as you begin to engage with this beautiful tale about six crew members on the International Space Station.

Your second summer reading assignment is sorted by grade level (see below). The English Department has chosen a book for each grade level that we think will inform the rich variety of other texts you will encounter in your English courses this coming school year. We hope that after a summer of reading these books on your own, we will gather around our maple tables in Main Building this fall to transform our individual experiences into collective conversation.

There will likely be moments of real joy and contemplation as we read, as well as encounters with language that may unsettle or even offend us. Navigating such encounters is essential, and should we find ourselves in such a moment, we (and the works themselves) may be best served by considering the context of the vexing material: Does the author use it disparagingly or gratuitously? How do the language and the events described serve the work as a whole? How might we present these thoughts to classmates during an open discussion? We offer such questions as ways to help us all make the most of our summer reading and to begin what soon becomes a shared communal inquiry in the fall.  

At the close of what we hope is a restful and reinvigorating summer, you will be asked to speak and write about the works you have explored and to share your reactions and reflections with others. We aim to establish class atmospheres of respectful rapport and curiosity, and our words about the readings and viewings we each select over the summer are the first steps to that end. 

Sincerely, 

Dr. Katie Fleishman 

Head of the English Department

All-School Summer Read

All students must read and be prepared to discuss this book in class and in advisory this fall.

Orbital

by Samantha Harvey

(Novel, 2024)

A helpful study guide may be found here.

Prep English Summer Read (9th Grade)

All preps must read and be prepared to discuss this book in English class this fall.

Purple Hibiscus

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

(Novel, 2003)

Lower-Mid English Summer Read (10th Grade)

All lower mids must read and be prepared to discuss this book in English class this fall.

Interpreter of Maladies

by Jhumpa Lahiri

(Stories, 1999)

Upper-Mid English Summer Read (11th Grade)

All upper mids must read and be prepared to discuss this book in English class this fall.

Matrix

by Lauren Groff

(Novel, 2021)

Senior English Summer Read (12th Grade)

All seniors must read and be prepared to discuss this book in English class this fall.

A Field Guide to Getting Lost

by Rebecca Solnit

(Nonfiction, 2005)

The Hotchkiss School | www.hotchkiss.org | (860) 435-2591