Here’s the “required summer reading” for The Harpist this summer. Before you marvel at what she has before her, let me just explain at it is an AP (Advanced Placement) Literature class. And that she has a week of linguistics, a week of PreCalc review, a mission trip to Mexico for 10 days, and family vacation on her plate. We are wondering how she is going to fit all of these books into her summer.

(and yes… she is upside down with a snake on her head.)

This is the assignment, quoted from the school’s English home page:

2008 Summer Reading List — A.P. Literature 12

Because a second reading so much enriches the reader’s understanding, the AP literature teachers would like for you to read all of the following texts from their 2007-08 syllabi preparatory to an in-depth examination during the fall and spring semesters. If, however, you cannot get to all of the texts, make sure that you read a minimum of three of those asterisked as your first writing assignment for the course will be a general essay in which you will use plot and characterization details from one of them.

Emma – Jane Austen *
Beowulf – Seamus Heaney translation (preferably the dual-language edition)*
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen*
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte*
The Stranger – Albert Camus *
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad*
Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky* (Sidney Monas translation)
Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston *
Beloved – Toni Morrison*
Hamlet – Shakespeare*
Othello – Shakespeare
King Lear – Shakespeare
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead – Tom Stoppard

Fortunately she has already read Pride and Prejudice. And Hamlet. The rest will take some focused effort on her part to fit in… A little light reading, eh? Dostoyevsky? Ugh.

Deb
Who wants her Calvin and Hobbes… (comic books, not theology!)