Registration for this year’s ReCreate Reading program, featuring 63 titles and five visiting authors, opens this Thursday and continues into next week.

Rising seniors register first on March 8 during office hours, rising juniors second on March 12 during office hours and rising sophomores last on March 13 during class meeting. A registration email with the subject line “Register for ReCreate Reading 2018” will be sent out later this week before March 8.

As a supplement to required summer reading assignments for English classes, ReCreate Reading was first introduced in the 2008-2009 school year to promote reading for pleasure. The program groups students together with a faculty sponsor to form reading roundtables capped at 16 students using a submission form asking students to rank their top three title selections.

“The primary purpose of ReCreate Reading has never really changed, but it was a pretty radical idea when it first got here—and I think it’s still a pretty radical idea in terms of most summer reading programs at any school and certainly at any college preparatory school are not based on entertainment. They could care less if you like the book or not,” upper school librarian Lauri Vaughan said. “They’re really doing it to edify, to make you a better person; this is going to be good for you, take your medicine. ReCreate Reading just takes a complete left turn.”

Faculty sponsors were given the option of either writing a short review for their title or filming a short promotional video describing the work. Each faculty member’s title hub also includes a list of the titles they’ve sponsored in past years.

Pre-summer reading meetings will be held on March 22 following a school meeting of ASB candidacy speeches, and the post-summer reading meetings will be held on August 30 at the beginning of the next school year.