In a time when YouTube, streaming video, 24-hour sports coverage, and video games compete for our attention at every turn, Gilman School believes in literature’s unique ability to instill in readers the values of empathy, wonder, and intellectual stimulation. The Summer Reading program promotes reading for pleasure, hoping to establish a lifelong habit in all Gilman boys. While some books have been chosen by the faculty and administration, students also have the opportunity to make choices in line with personal interests. Between the required and choice books, all students will read at least three books over the summer.The Modern Language Department’s reading requirements and the books for the Elizabeth Woolsey Gilman Prize, one of Gilman’s oldest and most honored awards, are also listed below.This year’s all Upper School read is All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely. The Maryland Humanities Council has also selected it as the One Maryland One Book program “to bring together diverse people in communities across the state through the shared experience of reading the same book.”

Winner of the Walter Dean Myers Award, a Coretta Scott King Honor book and Starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist and School Library Journal, the book offers character perspectives on topics relevant to 2016, Baltimore and the restarting of the Freddie Gray trials. Some students may be surprised that we would select a book that includes some profane language. We believe that the language fits some of the situations that the characters face. We are also pleased to announce that the authors will be visiting Gilman on September 29th so that we may have an open conversation with them.We believe strongly in the importance of reading. Buying the Cliff’s Notes, watching films, or using online resources (i.e. Spark Notes) in lieu of reading one of these books cannot substitute for reading the actual text. Students will simply be cheating themselves if they do not read the book itself. Electronic book (e-book) formats (Kindle, Nook, and iPad) are acceptable for completing the readings.

If you have any questions regarding the summer reading program, please do not hesitate to contact any of the three of us.All Upper School students will read All American Boys by Jason Reynolds & Brendan Kiely (The authors will be visiting Gilman on September 29th.)Rising 9th graders will read The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger.Originally published in 1951, J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye is eminently relatable to rising ninth graders at Gilman. eclipse thermalayer crinkle curtainsThe novel's protagonist, the anxious, disillusioned Holden Caulfield, journeys from his insular all-boys prep. ankara blue eyelet curtainsschool in Pennsylvania - from which he has been recently expelled - to the wild and sometimes confusing locale of New York City. blackout curtains rona

As he makes his way back home to his family, fearful of how he has disappointed them, Holden is overwhelmed by the "phoniness" of the adult world. Pushed to the brink of desperation by the hypocrisy he witnesses seemingly everywhere, Holden's experience with the unfairness and injustice of our world offers no easy answers, instead, the story documents one young man's courageous attempt to face down his demons and come to terms with a society he wants nothing to do with.sedar curtains saudi arabiaThe ninth grade English course at Gilman is designed to highlight the power of story and to encourage students to recognize themselves in the characters they read about. merete curtains beigeStudents strive to acknowledge a variety of perspectives as legitimate and empathize with different, often conflicting viewpoints. vitaminer curtains

In this way, the boys nurture compassion and understanding.As you read this book, please consider the following questions:Rising 10th graders will read 1984 by George Orwell.As you read this book, please consider the following questions:To begin their study of American Literature, rising Juniors taking English at Gilman will read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. ikea teresia curtainsThose Juniors taking English at Bryn Mawr will read The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien and those Juniors taking English at RPCS will read Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok. should check the website of that school regarding required books.Bryn Mawr School Summer ReadingRoland Park Counrtry School Summer ReadingReturn to the Edward R. Fenimore Jr. LibraryDebora Black: You always seem to be having a really good time writing your characters and their situations—even when the subject matter wouldn’t suggest a good time.

But you like to toy with things, amp up a situation and play it out. In your latest novel, The Harder They Come, you transform sunny California, its middle-class inhabitants, and their American ideals into a war zone. What compelled you to write this story? T.C. Boyle: What prompted me to write this novel is the Mad Max warzone of gun violence this country has become. Sadly, I could have chosen any number of real-life incidents to write about, but this one is based on a series of occurrences in Ft. Bragg, California, in 201l. Many of the details of Adam’s story derive from the extensive police report of the case. Debora: The Harder They Come—great title! Does the book have anything to do with Jimmy Cliff? T.C. Boyle: Very much so. I am referencing song and film both, which celebrate gangster life in Jamaica, and, of course, I am making use of the same expression Jimmy Cliff used: “The harder they come, the harder they fall.” The novel wants to find out if it’s true and what it means below the surface.

Debora: For me, your characters made for a pins-and-needles experience, start to finish. It’s not just your principals, Sten, Adam, and Sara, who are tightly wound and in conflict with their worlds. Christabel, the Mexicans, Carey, Carolee, the police, the entire community of characters have something to protect and are, at varying degrees, ready to roll when threatened. Was it difficult to carry the tension and suspense through the entire book? T.C. Boyle: Aw, shucks, I’m just doing what comes natural. I see a vision and try to translate it into words. All the complexity and interweaving you find in the book derives from this organic process of writing. Debora: Adam lives inside a haze of alcohol and drug intoxication that exacerbates his departures into increasingly severe schizophrenic episodes. In the way you deliver him, his thought processes and behaviors seem authentic. And the way everyone reacts to him, misinterpreting his problem and trying to fix symptoms, seems authentic.

Is his character invented out of personal experience of any sort, or is he entirely imagined? T.C. Boyle: I wrote about a schizophrenic (Stanley McCormick) in Riven Rock, so I had that experience to draw from. Plus, as you will know from my article, “The Dark Times,” on Buzzfeed, one of my very closest boyhood friends spiraled downward into severe schizophrenia. I am channeling him. Debora: At the Steamboat Springs reading, you mentioned that you don’t collaborate with editors and never have. You said that you begin each writing day by re-writing what you wrote the day before. So the writing is done when you reach the final pages. Your stance seemed to shock a lot of the audience. Will you define the role of the writer and the role of the editor? T.C. Boyle: Each to his own. Many writers need and want to collaborate with their editors. I have never felt the need. Which is not to say that I don’t listen to what my editors have to say once the ms. is delivered, just that what I deliver is in finished form.

I work in isolation and have never felt the need to bounce ideas (or chapters) off of anyone. Debora: You have written so many beloved and awarded books—The Tortilla Curtain, Drop City, World’s End are only a few. Aside from talent and commitment, what has enabled your writing success along the way? T.C. Boyle: I have been very fortunate to have attracted a devoted following of readers both here and abroad, without compromising my artistic vision or ever attempting to calculate what might or might not appeal. I do my thing. Readers have embraced it. Debora: Who are some of your favorite writers, and how have they influenced you? T.C. Boyle: I love the absurdist playwrights (Beckett, Ionesco, Genet), satirists like Evelyn Waugh and Kingsley Amis, fantasists like Calvino and Garcia-Marquez, wildmen (and women) like Robert Coover, Thomas Pynchon, Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner. All literary work is an amalgam of influences. Look deep and ye shall find. Debora: I love following you on Twitter—you’re always up to something kind of strange, like relocating rats and messing around with leeches.

And there’s the fear of toilet flushing, and other water concerns. Do your tweets connect to the book you’re working on—The Terranauts? You say, science fiction—but not really. Will you tell us anything more?I recently discovered Tweeting (my publisher set up an account when I went off on the recent tour). I’d never felt the need for social media since my website (and blog), invented by my son Milo when he was a high-schooler, is now in its seventeenth year and flourishing. But now the Twitter feed appears on the blog page, so the two are combined. I see the website as a fan site, as well as an educational site for journalists, students writing papers, etc. The Twitter feed is a place for quips, as I snapshot my way through my daily life. People seem to like seeing something of how I go about my day and what I’m thinking (which is primarily a reflection of my twelve-year-old’s brain, always chock full of wonderment). What great fun it is to tweet. Debora Black lives in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.