1. Summer Reading Welcome to Penncrest!

3. One Self-Selected Book See the back of the packet for ideas!

4. Required Reading (Choose One): Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah Phoenix Island by John Dixon Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie by David Lubar Endangered by Eliot Schrefer

5. Tell the Wolves I’m Home This coming-of-age story reveals the striking pangs and promise of an adolescent girl's fitful awakening to adulthood. For 14-year-old June Elbus, the early death of her beloved uncle, artist Finn Weiss, blotted her world. When, shortly after the funeral, she was approached by another friend of the painter, she took comfort in their sharing of their loss. What followed though was unexpectedly intense.

6. A Long Way Gone This absorbing account by a young man who, as a boy of 12, gets swept up in Sierra Leone's civil war goes beyond even the best journalistic efforts in revealing the life and mind of a child abducted into the horrors of warfare. Beah's harrowing journey transforms him overnight from a child enthralled by American hip-hop music and dance to an internal refugee bereft of family, wandering from village to village in a country grown deeply divided by the indiscriminate atrocities of unruly, sociopathic rebel and army forces.

7. Phoenix Island A champion boxer with a sharp hook and a short temper, sixteen-year-old Carl Freeman has been shuffled from foster home to foster home. He can’t seem to stay out of trouble— using his fists to defend weaker classmates from bullies. His latest incident sends his opponent to the emergency room, and now the court is sending Carl to the worst place on earth: Phoenix Island. Classified as a “terminal facility,” it’s the end of the line for delinquents who have no home, no family, and no future. Located somewhere far off the coast of the United States—and immune to its laws—the island is a grueling Spartan-style boot camp run by sadistic drill sergeants who show no mercy to their young, orphan trainees.

8. Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie Starting high school is never easy. Seniors take your lunch money. Girls you’ve known forever are suddenly beautiful and unattainable. And you can never get enough sleep. Could there be a worse time for Scott’s mother to announce she’s pregnant? Scott decides high school would be a lot less overwhelming if it came with a survival manual, so he begins to write down tips for his new sibling. Meanwhile, he’s trying his best to capture the attention of Julia, the freshman goddess. In the process, Scott manages to become involved in nearly everything the school has to offer. So while he tries to find his place in the confusing world of high school, win Julia’s heart, and keep his sanity, Scott will be recording all the details for his sibling’s—and your—enjoyment.

9. Endangered After 14-year-old Sophie leaves her home in Florida, where she lives with her father, to visit her mother’s bonobo sanctuary in Congo, she rescues a young bonobo from its captor. Sophie names her new friend Otto and the two bond, but after civil war breaks out, Sophie and the young ape must flee from the sanctuary and attempt to survive in the jungle against overwhelming odds. With cruel revolutionaries everywhere, Sophie’s life is constantly in danger.

10. Level 1 Requirement: The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain This is the story of two young boys, one a prince and the other a pauper, who look identical. They meet and on a whim trade places. Unfortunately each ends up trapped in the other's world. The result is a great adventure story told by the master storyteller Mark Twain.