Summer Reading 2020
Each summer students at CCS are required to participate in the summer reading program. The purpose of the program is to augment the curriculum, expose students to quality literature and cultivate a love of reading. All students are required to complete their respective reading assignment. Reading assignments are listed below, including the ISBN of recommended editions.
Incoming 1st grade:
We do not expect reading fluency at this point. Your young reader may require some assistance as they decode words, which is to be expected after the kindergarten year. Consider helping your child read through any number of books selected from the CCS Book Recommendations List while focusing particularly on his/her development of decoding skills.
Incoming 2nd grade:
Read Beginner’s Bible published by Zondervan (ISBN-10: 0310709628).
Read Bill and Pete Go Down the Nile by Tomie DePaola (ISBN-10: 0698114019).
Read one additional book selected from the CCS Book Recommendations List.
Incoming 3rd grade:
Read Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White (ISBN-10: 0064400557).
Read Adventures of the Greek Heroes by Anne M. Wiseman & Mollie McLean (ISBN-10: 0395137144).
Read one additional book selected from the CCS Book Recommendations List.
Incoming 4th grade:
Read The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman (ISBN-10: 9780060521226).
Read The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White (ISBN-10: 0064410943).
Read one additional book selected from the CCS Book Recommendations List.
Incoming 5th grade:
Read The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare (ISBN-10: 9780547577111).
Read Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis (ISBN-10: 0064471055).
Read one additional book selected from the CCS Book Recommendations List.
Incoming 6th grade:
Read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain (ISBN-10: 0486400778).
Read Colloquium Personarum, Chapters 1-8 by Hans H. Orberg (ISBN-10: 158510938X).* Please click here for a message from Mr. Foster regarding the new summer Latin reading requirement.
Read one additional book selected from the CCS Book Recommendations List.
Incoming 7th grade:
Read the books of Genesis and Exodus from the Bible (ESV translation preferred).
Read Colloquium Personarum, Chapters 9-16 by Hans H. Orberg (ISBN-10: 158510938X).*Please click here for a message from Mr. Foster regarding the new summer Latin reading requirement.
Read one additional book selected from the CCS Book Recommendations List.
Incoming 8th grade:
Purchase and Read Mythology by Edith Hamilton (ISBN-10: 0446574759).**
Read Colloquium Personarum, Chapters 17-24 by Hans H. Orberg (ISBN-10: 158510938X).* Please click here for a message from Mr. Foster regarding the new summer Latin reading requirement.
Read one additional book selected from the CCS Book Recommendations List.
Incoming 9th grade:
Read Beowulf translated by Seamus Heany (ISBN: 978-0393320978).
Read one additional book selected from the CCS Book Recommendations List.
Incoming 10th grade:
Read Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe (ISBN: 978-048628208).
Read one additional book selected from the CCS Book Recommendations List.
Incoming 11th grade:
Read 1984 by George Orwell (ISBN: 978-0451524935).
Read one additional book selected from the CCS Book Recommendations List.
Incoming 12th grade:
Read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (ISBN: 978-0446310789).
Read the selected short stories from The Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor (ISBN: 978-0374515362): “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” “Good Country People,” “Revelation,” “Parker’s Back” as well as two other short stories of your choosing in the compilation.
*Colloquium Personarum is a new assignment for 6th-8th grade students. The assigned reading should only take 5-10 minutes per week. This is only a reading, not a translation activity.
**Mythology will be referenced all year in 8th grade Literature class. Students will benefit from purchasing a copy to keep.
Covenant Classical School Book Recommendations List, 2020
For incoming Kindergarten students:
Family read aloud book recommendations:
Carlson, Nancy – Look Out Kindergarten, Here I Come (ISBN-10: 0140568387)
Graham, Oakley – I Can Tie My Own Shoelaces (ISBN-10: 1782448241)
McGhee, Alison – Countdown to Kindergarten (ISBN-10: 015205586X)
Penn, Audrey – The Kissing Hand (ISBN-10: 1933718102)
Wing, Natasha – The Night Before Kindergarten (ISBN-10: 0448425009)
For incoming 1st grade students:
We do not expect reading fluency at this point. Your young reader may require some assistance as they decode words, which is to be expected after the kindergarten year. Consider helping your child read through any number of books selected from the authors/series listed below while focusing particularly on his/her development of decoding skills. Choose books at your child’s reading level so they do not become discouraged. Higher-level books are great for parents or older siblings to read to your rising first grader.
Advanced Level Bob Books
Green Light Readers
I Can Read Books
Puffin Easy-to-Read
Step into Reading
Dick and Jane Books
Dr. Seuss Early Readers
P.D. Eastman Early Readers
Munro Leaf Classics
Read-It! Readers
Hoban, Russell – Frances (Series)
Lobel, Arnold – Frog and Toad (Series)
Minarik, Else Holmelund – Little Bear (Series)
Rylant, Cynthia – Mr. Putter and Tabby (Series)
Rylant, Cynthia – Henry and Mudge (Series)
Family read aloud book recommendations:
Leithart, Peter J. – Wise Words: Family Stories that Bring Proverbs to Life (ISBN-10: 1591280141)
Offen, Hilda – A Treasury of Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes (ISBN-10: 0671501186)
Online resource for phonetic readers:
https://portal.flyleafpublishing.com
For incoming 2nd grade students:
Averill, Esther – Jenny the Cat Club (Series)
Byars, Betsy – The Golly Sisters (Series)
Clearly, Beverly – Henry Huggins (Series)
Dagleish, Alice – The Courage of Sarah Noble
Levinson, Smiler – Snowshoe Thompson
Lobel, Arnold – Days with Frog and Toad (Series)
Karon, Jan – Jeremy: The Tale of an Honest Bunny
McCloskey, Robert – Homer Price (Series)
Parish, Peggy – Amelia Bedelia (Series)
Rylant, Cynthia – The High-Rise Private Eyes (Series)
Sharmat, Marjorie Weiman – Nate the Great (Series)
Stevens, Janet and Susan Stevens Crummel – And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon
Online resource for phonetic readers:
https://portal.flyleafpublishing.com
For incoming 3rd grade students:
Banks, Lynne – The Indian in the Cupboard
Bulla, Clyde R. – Riding the Pony Express
Bulla, Clyde R. – Shoeshine Girl
Cleary, Beverly – The Mouse and the Motorcycle
Cleary, Beverly – Henry Huggins (Series)
Cleary, Beverly – Ramona (Series)
Enright, Elizabeth – The Saturdays
Enright, Elizabeth – Thimble Summer
Estes, Eleanor – Ginger Pye
Estes, Eleanor – The Moffats
Grahame, Kenneth – The Wind in the Willows
Haywood, Carolyn – B is for Betsy (Series)
Henry, Marguerite – Misty of Chincoteague (Series)
Kipling, Rudyard – Just So Stories
Lenski, Lois – Strawberry Girl
Lovelace, Maude Hart – Betsy Tacy (Series)
McCloskey, Robert – Homer Price (Series)
Silverstein, Shel – Where the Sidewalk Ends
Sobol, Donald J. – Encyclopedia Brown (Series)
Stewart, Trenton Lee – Mysterious Benedict Society (Series)
Warner, Gertrude Chandler – The Boxcar Children (Series)
Wilder, Laura Ingalls – Little House on the Prairie (Series)
For incoming 4th grade students:
Burnett, Frances Hodges – Little Lord Fauntleroy
Dixon, Franklin – The Hardy Boys (Series)
George, Jean Craighead – My Side of the Mountain
Jacques, Brian – Redwall (Series)
Keene, Carolyn – The Nancy Drew Mystery Stories (Series)
Kipling, Rudyard – The Jungle Book
Lewis, C.S. – A Horse and His Boy
Little, Jean – Mine for Keeps
Lofting, Hugh – Dr. Doolittle (Series)
MacDonald, George – The Princess and the Goblin
Montgomery, L. M. – Anne of Green Gables (Series)
Nesbit, Edith – Five Children and It
Norton, Mary – The Borrowers (Series)
Porter, Eleanor – Just David
St. John, Patricia – Treasures of the Snow
Vernon, Louise – The Beggar’s Bible
For incoming 5th grade students:
Anderson, Laurie Halse – The Seeds of America Trilogy (Chains; Forge; or Ashes)
Benge, Janet and Geoff – Christian Heroes: Then and Now (George Washington, Benjamin Franklin or John Adams)
Burnett, Frances Hodgson – The Little Princess
Burnett, Frances Hodgson – The Lost Prince
MacDonald, George – The Light Princess
O’Dell, Scott – Island of the Blue Dolphins
O’Dell, Scott – Sarah Bishop
Porter, Eleanor H. – Pollyanna
Rawls, Wilson – Summer of the Monkeys
Spyri, Johanna – Heidi
Stevenson, Robert Louis – Kidnapped
Wyss, Johan – Swiss Family Robinson
Yates, Elizabeth – Amos Fortune
For incoming 6th grade students:
Alcott, Louisa May – Little Women
Christie, Agatha – And Then There Were None
Curtis, Christopher Paul – The Watson’s Go to Birmingham
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – The Hound of Baskervilles
Field, Rachel – Hitty
Finley, Martha – Life of Faith (Series)
Gilbert, Henry – Robin Hood
Henty, G. A. – The Boy Knight; Among Malay Pirates; Freedom’s Cause; et. al.
Bitton-Jackson, Livia – I Have Lived a Thousand Years
Kipling, Rudyard – The Jungle Book
Lewis, C.S. – The Silver Chair
Lewis, C.S. – The Last Battle
London, Jack – Call of the Wild
London, Jack – White Fang
Montgomery, L.M. – Anne of Green Gables
O’Dell, Scott – The King’s Fifth
Paterson, Katherine – Bridge to Terabithia
Raskin, Ellen – The Westing Game
Rawls, Wilson – Where the Red Fern Grows
Swift, Jonathan – Gulliver’s Travels
Tolkien, J.R.R. – The Fellowship of the Ring
Twain, Mark – The Prince and the Pauper
Twain, Mark – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Verne, Jules – Around the World in Eighty Days
Verne, Jules – From Earth to Moon
Verne, Jules – Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Wyss, Johann – Swiss Family Robinson
Sutcliffe, Rosemary – Eagle of the Ninth
For incoming 7th through 8th grade students:
Adams, Richard – Watership Down
Armstrong, William – Sounder
Avi – The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
Card, Orson Scott – Ender’s Game
Carroll, Lewis – Alice in Wonderland
Carroll, Lewis – Through the Looking Glass
Cather, Willa – O Pioneers!
Chesterton, G. K. – Father Brown, The Essential Tales
Christie, Agatha – Death on the Nile
Crane, Stephen – The Red Badge of Courage
Douglas, Lloyd C. – The Robe
Eliot, George – Middlemarch
Eliot, George – Silas Marner
Frank, Anne – Diary of a Young Girl
Goldman, William – The Princess Bride
Gunther, John – Death Be Not Proud
Henty, G. A. – Winning His Spurs
Herbert, Frank – Dune
Hurnard, Hannah – Hinds’ Feet on High Places
Juster, Norton – The Phantom Tollbooth
Lewis, C. S. – Out of the Silent Planet (Space Trilogy)
Lewis, C. S. – Screwtape Letters
Kane, Ben – The Silver Eagle
Keyes, Daniel – Flowers for Algernon
Kipling, Rudyard – The Jungle Book
Kipling, Rudyard – Kim
Lowry, Lois – The Giver
Montgomery, L. M. – Anne of Green Gables
O’Dell, Scott – Island of the Blue Dolphins
Pyle, Howard – Otto of the Silver Hand
Sayers, Dorothy – Whose Body? (Lord Peter Wimsey Series)
Stevenson, Robert Louis – Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Stevenson, Robert Louis – Kidnapped
Sutcliff, Rosemary – Eagle of the Ninth
Twain, Mark – A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
Twain, Mark – The Prince and the Pauper
Twain, Mark – Pudd’nhead Wilson
Tolkien, J. R. R. – Fellowship of the Ring
Tolkien, J. R. R. – The Two Towers
Tolkien, J. R. R. – The Return of the King
Verne, Jules – Around the World in Eighty Days
Verne, Jules – 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Wodehouse, P. G. – Carry on Jeeves
Wodehouse, P. G. – The Inimitable Jeeves
Wodehouse, P. G. – Very Good, Jeeves!
Wyss, Johann David – The Swiss Family Robinson
For incoming 9th through 12th grade students:
Abbott, Edwin – Flatland
Austen, Jane – Emma
Austen, Jane – Persuasion
Austen, Jane – Sense and Sensibility
Boccaccio – The Decameron
Bolt, Robert – A Man for All Seasons
Bradbury, Ray – Dandelion Wine
Bradbury, Ray – Fahrenheit 451
Brontë, Charlotte – Jane Eyre
Brontë, Emily – Wuthering Heights
Bunyan, John – Pilgrim’s Progress
Chesterton, G. K. – The Man Who Was Thursday
Clarke, Arthur C. – 2001: A Space Odyssey
Cooper, James Fenimore – Last of the Mohicans
Dickens, Charles – Great Expectations
Dickens, Charles – Hard Times
Dickens, Charles – Oliver Twist
Dinesen, Isak – Out of Africa
Dostoevsky, Fyodor – The Brothers Karamazov
Dostoevsky, Fyodor – The Idiot
Dumas, Alexander – The Count of Monte Cristo
Dumas, Alexander – The Three Musketeers
Eliot, T. S. – Murder in the Cathedral
Ellison, Ralph – The Invisible Man
Faulkner, William – The Reivers
Faulkner, William – The Unvanquished
Flaubert, Gustave – Madame Bovary
Forster, E. M. – A Passage to India
Gaarder, Jostein – Sophie’s World
Hardy, Thomas – Tess of the d’Urbervilles
Harris, Joel Chandler – The Complete Tales of Uncle Remus
Hemingway, Ernest – A Farewell to Arms
Hemingway, Ernest – For Whom the Bell Tolls
Hudson, W. H. – Green Mansions
Hugo, Victor – The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hugo, Victor – Les Misérables
James, Henry – The Portrait of a Lady
James, Henry – The Turn of the Screw
Knowles, John – A Separate Peace
Lewis, Sinclair – Babbitt
MacDonald, George – Phantastes
McPherson, James M. – Battle Cry Freedom
Melville, Herman – Billy Budd
Melville, Herman – Moby Dick
Mitchell, Margaret – Gone with the Wind
More, Sir Thomas – Utopia
Orwell, George – Animal Farm
Orwell, George – Homage to Catalonia
Pasternak, Boris – Dr. Zhivago
Paton, Alan – Cry the Beloved Country
Porter, William Sidney – The Best Short Stories of O. Henry
Potok, Chaim – The Chosen
Rand, Ayn – We the Living
Shaara, Michael – The Killer Angels
Scott, Sir Walter – Ivanhoe
Shakespeare, William – A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Shakespeare, William – Romeo and Juliet
Shakespeare, William – Twelfth Night
Shakespeare, William – Hamlet
Sinclair, Upton – The Jungle
Steinbeck, John – The Grapes of Wrath
Steinbeck, John – The Pearl
Stowe, Harriet Beecher – Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Swift, Jonathan – Gulliver’s Travels
Tan, Amy – The Joy Luck Club
Thoreau, Henry David – Walden
Thurber, James – The Thurber Carnival
Tolstoy, Leo – Anna Karenina
Tolstoy, Leo – The Death of Ivan Ilych
Tolstoy, Leo – War and Peace
Turgenev, Ivan – Sketches from a Hunter’s Album
Wells, H. G. – The Time Machine
Wilde, Oscar – The Picture of Dorian Gray
Woolf, Virginia – To the Lighthouse
Wright, Richard – Native Son

Covenant Classical School
1701 Wind Star Way
Fort Worth, TX 76108
817-820-0884
info@covenantfw.org