In the summer of 1998, Central Catholic instituted an optional, for-credit, summer reading program. This program was designed to encourage students to develop a love of reading with all of its attending benefits, both academic and personal. The program seeks to avoid the flaws of mandatory summer reading programs that stress the classics and can make reading during the summer a chore that only Cliffs Notes and Blockbuster Video can obviate. The books in this program are chosen with pleasure reading in mind. Well-written books from popular genres will provide summer reading pleasure and accomplish the goals of increasing passive vocabulary and the students'ability to appreciate plot, characterization, theme, imagery and symbol, and style.

This program is offered through the summer school at Central Catholic. Students who choose to participate are required to read three books and to complete a reading response journal to be submitted in August to the summer school office. Satisfactory completion of the journal will earn the student one-quarter credit and an exemption from the midterm examination in English. We offer optional discussion groups for each book for those students who would like to come in to school to meet in an informal setting with a teacher/moderator and other students who have read the books. These discussion groups are not required; only the journal is required for credit.

Titles have included the following:

For Incoming Freshmen and Sophomores: The Hobbit, Friday the Rabbi Slept Late, Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories, Murder in the White House, October Sky, The Runaway Jury, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, You Belong to Me, The Street Lawyer, Holes, The Pearl, Walking Across Egypt, Tangerine, The Golden Compass, Ultimate Sports, Monster, Gathering Blue, A Separate Peace

For incoming Juniors and Seniors: In These Girls Hope is a Muscle, Post Mortem, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe, A is for Alibi, The Perfect Storm, Airframe, The Testament, Contagion, To Dance with the White Dog, Tuesdays With Morrie, All That Remains, Isaac's Storm, Who Killed Roger Ackroyd, Who Do You Think You Are, The Brethren, Ender's Game, The Alchemist