Dear Old Town Academy Students:
Below is a list of Core Knowledge Books for grades K-8.  Please choose and read at least one book from the list for the grade you are entering this September. When we start school you will be take an Independent-Reading-Pie Exam on your book where you sit down with your teacher and answer these questions:

1. What is the title of your book?
2. Who is the author?
3. What is the genre? [for example: Fairy tale, Fable, Science, History, Biography, Short Story?]
4. Did you like the book? [Please rate it from 1 (not my favorite) to  5 (one of the best books I’ve ever read)]  Why or why not?
5. Now your teacher will choose a page from the book, read a passage and ask you to discuss it. If you can do this you’re done!  That’s how you earn credit for your first Independent Reading project this summer. [Note: during the school year longer Independent Reading books will be broken up into smaller “slices” of, e.g. 50 pages]

Your teacher may also give you a chance to write about the book/s you read this August, or illustrate it with your own drawings, or do other summer-reading-related Projects.

AUGUST READING CHOICES

KINDERGARTEN (Read with a parent or guardian or by yourself)

King Midas and the Golden Touch
The Velveteen Rabbit
A Picture Book of Christopher Columbus (Adler)
The Legend of the Teddy Bear (Murphy)

FIRST GRADE (Read with a parent or guardian or by yourself)

Hansel and Gretel
Rapunzel
A Picture Book of Paul Revere (Adler)
Red, White, and Blue: Story of the American Flag (Herman)

SECOND GRADE (Read with a parent or guardian or by yourself)

Beauty and the Beast
Peter Pan
Coming to America (Maestro)
The Story of the Statue of Liberty (Maestro)

THIRD GRADE

Alice in Wonderland
The Little Match Girl
Life in a Colonial Town (Isaacs)
A Day in the Life of a Colonial Indigo Planter (Krebs)

FOURTH GRADE

Robin Hood
Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
In Their Own Words: Paul Revere (Sullivan)
In Their Own Words: Sojourner Truth (Pope)

FIFTH GRADE

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
A Slave Family (Kalman)
Abe Lincoln Goes to Washington (Harness)
Life on a Plantation (Kalman)

SIXTH GRADE

Johnny Tremain (Forbes)
Raggedy Dick and Struggling Upward (Alger)
The Jungle (Sinclair)
How the Other Half Lives (Riis)

SEVENTH GRADE

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (Thurber)
The Call of the Wild (London)
Diary of a Young Girl (Frank)
The Gift of the Magi (O Henry)

EIGHTH GRADE

To Kill a Mockingbird
The Bet (Chekov)
The Open Boat (Crane)
The Good Earth (Buck)

All titles are available at local libraries. Summer readings assignments are optional but we hope all students will try to read at least one book so they can get a head start on this year’s Independent Reading Projects.

—List courtesy of Bob Hamm, OTA’s Core Knowledge consultant.