Summer Reading Program Gets Officially Underway Next Week

The summer reading program will be in full swing as of Tuesday, July 5.

The library and the Hasbrouck Heights school district collaborated on this program which includes book groups, events and activities designed to keep kids reading over the summer months.

The “You Are Here” themed teen program offers activities each day.

• Mondays – genealogy workshop from 3 to 4 p.m.
• Tuesdays – “Speak Out” book discussion group for students grades 10 to 12 meets from 7 to 8:30 p.m.
• Wednesdays – Game night from 7 to 8:45 p.m.
• Thursdays – “Talk It Up” book discussion group for students grades 7 to 9 p.m. meets from 3 to 4:30 p.m.
• Fridays – Writing workshop from 3 to 4:30 p.m.

For the younger children, Marie Joyce, children’s librarian, has created a program designed to encourage youngsters to read or be read to for about one-and-a-half hours per week. Children who signed up for the program will get a special card which they will mark up with stickers to reflect how much they read that week.

Story time and a “Battle of the Books,” event – a “quiz show” type game in which students can win prizes - are also planned for the coming months.

For students in the middle school and high school there are required reading assignments administrators have put together for the summer months. Middle school students have a three part reading assignment.

• Grade 6 students are required to read one novel, one non-fiction article and one editorial piece.
• Grade 7 students must read one novel, two non-fiction articles and one editorial piece.
• Grade 8 students must read one novel, three non-fiction articles and one editorial piece.

For the high school students grades 9 to 12 each grade level has one chosen book to complete over the summer in addition to a novel they can chose from the grade-level reading list. They are also required to read three editorial articles on a topic related to the  subject of the novel chosen for their grade level.

Required titles:

• Grade 9: “Big Mouth and Ugly Girl” by Joyce Carol Oates.
• Grade 10: “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck
• Grade 11: “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley
• Grade 12: “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger.

Topics for informational articles:

• Grade 9: Environmental science, group psychology, sociology
• Grade 10: Disabilities, discrimination and the plight of Native Americans
• Grade 11: Drugs, DNA and utopias
• Grade 12: College and career preparations

Additional grade-level reading list:

• Grade 9:
  “Speak” by Laurie Hulse Anderson
  “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold
• Grade 10:
  “A Lesson Before Dying” by Ernest Gaines
  “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie
• Grade 11:
  “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley
  “The Fifth Child” by Doris Lessing
• Grade 12:
  “Zeitoun” by Dave Eggers
  “Fences” by August Wilson

Students are also required to complete an article review worksheet. The novels will be discussed in the classrooms in the fall about two weeks into the new school year.