12th+Grade+Summer+Reading

12 CP and Honors students (Class of 2014) should ask themselves, “Who am I in the world?” Students must read one of the following:
// The Natural //, is also the first—and some would say still the best—novel ever written about baseball. In it Malamud, usually appreciated for his unerring portrayals of postwar Jewish life, took on very different material—the story of a superbly gifted “natural” at play in the fields of the old daylight baseball era—and invested it with the hardscrabble poetry, at once grand and altogether believable, that runs through all his best work. The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant, //The Kite Runner // is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption, and it is also about the power of fathers over sons-their love, their sacrifices, their lies. Pat Summitt, head coach of the Tennessee Lady Vols, is a phenomenon in women's basketball. Now, in this groundbreaking motivational book, Pat Summitt presents her formula for success, which she calls the "Definite Dozen System." In each of the book's twelve chapters, Summitt talks about one of the system's principles--such as responsibility, discipline, and loyalty--and shows how you apply it to your own situation. Along the way, she uses her own remarkable story as a vehicle for explaining how anyone can transform herself through ambition.
 * //*The Natural//** **by Bernard Malamud**
 * //*The Kite-Runner//** **by Khaled Hosseini**
 * //Reach for the Summit//** **by Sally Jenkins and Pat Head Summitt**


 * //A Lesson Before Dying//** **by //Ernest Gaines//**
 * [[image:http://img2.imagesbn.com/images/13690000/13697831.JPG width="84" height="133"]] ||
 * A Lesson before Dying ||

// Lesson Before Dying //, is set in a small Cajun community in the late 1940s. Jefferson, a young black man, is an unwitting party to a liquor store shoot out in which three men are killed; the only survivor, he is convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Grant Wiggins, who left his hometown for the university, has returned to the plantation school to teach. As he struggles with his decision whether to stay or escape to another state, his aunt and Jefferson's godmother persuade him to visit Jefferson in his cell and impart his learning and his pride to Jefferson before his death. In the end, the two men forge a bond as they both come to understand the simple heroism of resisting—and defying—the expected. Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher, or a colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, helped you see the world as a more profound place, gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it.For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years ago.
 * //Tuesdays With Morrie by//** **Mitch Albom**

On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.
 * //*Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption//** **by Laura Hillenbrand**

*Contains mature themes