Spending Summer With Pliny the Younger

Marblehead High School Latin teacher Dr. Jennifer Chavez will spend her summer with old friends -- really old friends. Horace, Virgil and Cicero, to name a few.

She's devoting some of her vacation to writing the curriculum for the new Latin 5 Honors class this fall.

"I plan to read poetic selections from Horace's Satires and Virgil's Georgics. For prose, I'd like to have the students read the letters of Cicero and Pliny the Younger."

Chavez will put away the classics for some much-anticipated family time and trips to Vermont and New Jersey.

"I'm most looking forward to spending a lot of time with my kids, being outside, reading whatever I like and playing my flute," she said.

What is on Chavez's more modern-day reading list this summer?

"I've just started The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. New on my bookshelf and ready for the summer are The Lacunaby by Barbara Kingsolver, The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry and A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome by Alberto Angela.

Chavez has a message for all her students as they clear out their lockers.

"Aestas felix," or, "have a great summer!"