Seven Reads

We are proud to announce the fifth year of Spartanburg High School's summer reading program, now called Seven Reads. The purpose of this program is to bring the school and community together, to have authors visit the campus and interact with the students, and to encourage a life-long love of reading. By giving every SHS student and key community leaders a nationally-acclaimed novel to read over the summer, we hope to encourage school-wide and community-wide participation in this program. We look forward to Sharon Draper, author of three of our selected books, visiting the campus this school year on September 17, 2010. We invite the parents and the community to participate with us in this program by reading along with us, and we welcome all to come and meet the authors on the designated Seven Reads day.

This year, our teachers, administrators, and guidance counselors helped to select a group of seven students from each grade to become Seven Reads Ambassadors for this program. The Ambassadors will be responsible for encouraging their peers to read, helping with the author visits, and planning exciting activities around our chosen books. By making this more of a student-led initiative, we hope the program will better meet the needs and desires of our youth. Along with our teachers' continued support, our parents' encouragement, and Spartanburg's community interest, we hope not only to provide the students with a good read, but also to encourage life-long reading and learning. Students who participate in the book chat and read their books will have an opportunity to win cash/incentive prizes. We will not have a point system for completing projects, but instead students will be asked to answer a simple (non-graded) in-class prompt for assessment.

Please contact Cara Lynn Cannon (680-9534), Seven Reads Committee Chair, with any questions or suggestions. We enjoy hearing from you!

Book List

• The Battle of Jericho by Sharon Draper (author visiting): What would you be willing to do to gain acceptance by the most popular group of kids at school? Would you do what you know is right, or would you do the things that would make you popular? Jericho Prescott, a junior at Frederick Douglass High School, is offered the opportunity to pledge the most popular club at the school--the Warriors of Distinction. On the surface the club seems to be wonderful--it's been around for almost fifty years and is highly respected by the community. But under the surface, the club has many undisclosed activities, known only to those who go through the secret initiation rituals. The Battle of Jericho is about the power of peer pressure, and making decisions which might affect the rest of one's life.
• November Blues by Sharon Draper (author visiting): When November Nelson loses her boyfriend, Josh, to a pledge stunt gone horribly wrong, she thinks her life can't possibly get any worse. But Josh left something behind that will change November's life forever, and now she's faced with the biggest decision she could ever imagine. How in the world will she tell her mom? And how will Josh's parents take the news? She's never needed a friend more. Jericho Prescott lost his best friend when he lost his cousin, Josh, and the pain is almost more than he can bear. His world becomes divided into "before" and "after" Josh's death. He finds the only way he can escape the emptiness he feels is to quit doing the things that made him happy when his cousin was alive, such as playing his beloved trumpet, and take up football, where he hopes the physical pain will suppress the emotional. But will hiding behind shoulder pads really help? And will his gridiron obsession prevent him from being there for his cousin's girlfriend when she needs him most?
• Copper Sun by Sharon Draper (author visiting): From the opening pages, readers become engrossed with the heartbreaking journey of Amari, a 15-year-old African girl captured and enslaved in 1738. The horror begins quickly. Infiltrated by slave dealers, Amari's village is destroyed and survivors are chained together by iron neck bands and marched to the sea. Advised to find something of beauty in any hostile place, Amari gazes at a copper-colored sunset, realizing the same sun shone on her beloved, decimated village.
• A Pearl in the Storm by Tori Murden McClure: The true story of Tori Murden McClure, the first woman to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean. McClure's memoir, subtitled, "How I Found My Heart in the Middle of the Ocean," is more than a woman-against-the-elements adventure tale; it is, in the words of actress Candice Bergen, "a story of courage, adventure, and personal discovery that will appeal to women and men of all ages."
• Abundance of Katherines by John Green: When it comes to relationships, everyone has a type. Colin Singleton's type is girls named Katherine. He has dated--and been dumped by--19 Katherines. In the wake of The K-19 Debacle, Colin--an anagram-obsessed washed-up child prodigy--heads out on a road trip with his overweight, Judge Judy-loving friend Hassan. With 10,000 dollars in his pocket and a feral hog on his trail, Colin is on a mission to prove a mathematical theorem he hopes will predict the future of any relationship (and conceivably win the girl).

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