Next week, freshmen, sophomores, and juniors will select which Recreate Reading group they will join for their free choice summer reading assignment.

Recreate Reading is a program organized by the library that allows students to choose a book to read over summer instead of assigned summer reading. Each book has a faculty sponsor who leads a group of students in discussion at the start of the school year.

“You get to choose what you like to read,” Jacqueline Chen (9) said. “You have more options, so it’s not like you’re forced to read a book you’re not really interested in.”

Unlike previous years, students will not have the option of choosing a literature genre but can pick one out of 69 individual books. This year’s selection offers a wide variety of books, both fiction and nonfiction, from well known contemporary novels such as The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky and The Fault in Our Stars by John Green to specified nonfiction titles such as How Old is the Universe? by David A. Weintraub and Peddling Prosperity by Paul Krugman.

“I don’t think the list of books is something that any one person could create,” said librarian Lauri Vaughan, who has read about a third of the books offered this year. “This is such an incredibly eclectic [group of books].”

In addition to traditional fiction and nonfiction, unique choices for Recreate Reading will be available this year. For example, Dean of Studies Evan Barth will be leading a group of students in reading a summer’s worth of columns from TIME magazine weekly columnist Joel Stein.

Vaughan commented that the inclusion of a column option in this year’s recreate reading “is a great opportunity to sort of legitimize that choice of pleasure reading to read magazines.”

She further mentioned that she is most excited about the book Spillover sponsored by Dr. Kate Schafer. Students in this group will have the chance to Skype with science journalist and adventure writer David Quammen.

“[Recreate Reading] is nice because we get to read a book we wouldn’t normally read in school,” Kailas Vodrahalli (10) said.

All the selections are accessible on harker.libguides.com/read, accompanied by short videos by the faculty sponsor, as well as on display in the library for students to peruse. Next Tuesday, rising seniors will make their choices, followed by rising juniors on Wednesday and rising sophomores on Thursday.

Upon returning to school next September, students will meet in groups to discuss their experience with the book.