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Summer Reading

We have compiled a recommended summer reading list for our incoming scholars. Scholars who read some of the books recommended for the grade level they are entering will be well-prepared to enter JXC’s rigorous classical curriculum in August.

Incoming Kindergartners

This should be a time of read aloud by adults to children. Picture books, fairy tales, Aesop’s Fables, Dr. Seuss books, and folk tales of any sort should be read aloud. If your child is already proficient in reading, have her read aloud to an adult, brother, or sister. Daily reading of at least 20 minutes and discussion about the story should be the goal.

Incoming 1st Graders

Mother Goose and other traditional poems such as A Dillar, A Dollar; Baa, Baa, Black Sheep; Diddle, Diddle, Dumpling; Early to Bed; Georgie Porgie; Hey Diddle Diddle; Hickory Dickory Dock; Hot Cross Buns; Humpty Dumpty; It’s Raining, It’s Pouring; Jack and Jill; Jack Be Nimble; Jack Sprat; Little Bo Peep; Little Miss Muffet; London Bridge is Falling Down; Old King Cole; Simple Simon; Three Blind Mice; Assorted Aesop’s Fables

Some books to read together:

  • When We Were Very Young by A.A. Milne
  • Mad About Madeline: The Complete Tales by Ludwig Bemelmans
  • Can’t Catch Me! by Timothy Knapman and Simona Ciraolo
  • Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen
  • Virginia Wolf by Kyo Maclear and Isabelle Arsenault

Incoming 2nd Graders

  • The Frog Prince
  • Hansel and Gretel
  • Jack and the Beanstalk
  • The Pied Piper of Hamelin
  • Pinocchio
  • The Princess and the Pea
  • Puss-in-Boots
  • Rapunzel
  • Rumpelstiltskin
  • Sleeping Beauty
  • The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter

Incoming 3rd Graders

  • Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
  • The Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen
  • Assorted Brothers Grimm’s Fairy Tales
  • How the Camel Got His Hump by Rudyard Kipling
  • Assorted fables such as The Blind Men and the Elephant
  • Assorted fables such as The Magic Paintbrush, El Pajaro Cu, and The Tongue-Cut Sparrow
  • Stories from Greek Mythology including Pandora’s Box; Oedipus and the Sphinx; Theseus and the Minotaur; and Daedelus and Icarus

Incoming 4th Graders

  • Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
  • Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder
  • Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman
  • Tales from The Arabian Nights (Aladdin and the Lamp; Sinbad the Sailor; Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves)
  • Stories from The Jungle Book: “Mowgli’s Brothers”; “Tiger, Tiger”; “Rikki-tikki-tavi”

Incoming 5th Graders

  • Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
  • Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
  • A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle
  • Legend of Sleepy Hollow, “Rip Van Winkle,” and other tales by Washington Irving
  • Stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (for example, King Arthur by Alice M. Hedfield)
  • Stories of Robin Hood (for example, Robin Hood by J. Walker McSpadden)

Incoming 6th Graders

  • The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
  • Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Louis Carroll
  • The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
  • Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb (“Much Ado About Nothing,” “Macbeth,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “Hamlet”)
  • Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
  • Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
  • Old Yeller by Fred Gipson
  • Poetry: “O Captain! My Captain!” and “I Hear America Singing” by Walt Whitman, “I, Too” by Langston Hughes, “Narcissa” by Gwendolyn Brooks, “The Tyger” by William Blake, “The Eagle” by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Incoming 7th Graders

  • Children’s Homer by Padraic Colum
  • The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
  • The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain
  • The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
  • Poetry: “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” by James Weldon Johnson, “I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud” by William Wordsworth, “If” by Rudyard Kipling, “Woman’s Work” by Maya Angelou, various poems by Langston Hughes, Robert Frost, and Emily Dickenson