Summer Reading
NEST+m is a community of readers. Each summer, our students receive grade-specific reading assignments. Please see the information below for Lower, Middle and Upper Grades summer reading assignments. All books have been carefully chosen by our ELA teachers.
Before starting your assignment, please read the important information below:
“Books are sometimes windows, offering views of worlds that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange. Readers have only to [look] through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created and recreated by the author.
[A book] can also be a mirror. Literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection we can see our own lives and experiences as part of the larger human experience.
Reading, then, becomes a means of self-affirmation, and readers often seek their mirrors in books…
[We] need books that will help them understand the multicultural nature of the world they live in, and their place as a member of just one group, as well as their connections to all other humans.”
Upper Grades 9-12
Please see our Summer 2025 Reading Assignments:
- Grade 9: The Nickel Boys* by Colson Whitehead SEE ASSIGNMENT
- Grade 10: To Kill A Mockingbird* by Harper Lee SEE ASSIGNMENT
- Grade 11: The Things They Carried* by Tim O'Brien SEE ASSIGNMENT
- Grade 12: How to Read Literature Like A Professor* by T.C. Foster SEE ASSIGNMENT
Books with * are available on the SORA app. Students can log in using their DOE @nycstudents.net student accounts.
Summer reading assignments are due during the first week of ELA class.
Middle Grades 6-8
Please see our Summer 2025 Reading Assignments:
- Grade 6: Seed Folks by Paul Fleishman SEE ASSIGNMENT
- Grade 7: Ender's Game* by Orson Scott Card SEE ASSIGNMENT
- Grade 8: Lord of the Flies* by William Golding SEE ASSIGNMENT
Summer reading assignments are due during the first week of ELA class.
Books with * are available on the SORA app. Students can log in using their DOE @nycstudents.net student accounts.
Lower Grades K-5
Please see our Summer 2025 Reading Assignments:
Grade 1: Choose one book from the following list and VIEW the ASSIGNMENT, due September 22:
- The Year We Learned to Fly* by Jacqueline Woodson
- That's Not My Name!* By Anoosha Syed
- We Are All Neighbors* by Alexandra Penfold
- A Girl Like You by Frank Murphy
- A Boy Like You by Frank Murphy
- The Cool Bean* by Jory John
- Just Like Grandma by Kim Rogers
- This Is Not My Home by Eugenia Yoh and Vivienne Chang
Grade 2: Choose one book from the following list and VIEW the ASSIGNMENT due September 22:
- I'm an American By Darshana Khiani
- The Boy Who Tried to Shrink His Name* by Sandhya Parappukkaran
- All the Way to the Top: How One Girl's Fight for Americans with Disabilities Changed Everything* by Annette Bay Pimentel
- Maribel's Year* by Michelle Sterling
- Plátanos Are Love* by Alyssa Reynoso-Morris
- Grandma's Tipi: A Present-Day Lakota Story* by SD Nelson
- Food for Hope: How John Van Hengel Invented Food Banks for the Hungry by Jeff Gottesfeld
Grade 3: Choose one book from the following list and VIEW the ASSIGNMENT
- Salma Makes a Home by Danny Ramadan* (Grade 3)
- Flipflopi: How a Boat Made from Flip-Flops Is Helping to Save the Ocean by Dipesh Pabari (Grade 3)
- The Tower of Life: How Yaffa Eliach Rebuilt Her Town in Stories and Photographs* by Chana Stiefel (Grade 3)
- Milloo's Mind: The Story of Maryam Faruqi by Reem Faruqi (Grade 3)
- The Yellow Handkerchief by Donna Barba Higuera (Grade 3)
- Ben Yokoyama and the Cookie of Doom* by Matthew A Swanson (Grade 3)
Grade 4: Choose one book from the following list and VIEW the ASSIGNMENT
- Finally Seen* by Kelly Yang (Grade 4)
- Ban This Book: A Novel* by Alan Gratz (Grade 4)
- Cody and the Fountain of Happiness* by Tricia Springstubb (Grade 4)
- Shapes, Lines, and Light * by Katie Yamasaki (Grade 4)
- New Kid* by Jerry Craft (Grade 4)
- The Dreamer* by Pam Muñoz Ryan (Grade 4)
Grade 5: Choose one book from the following list and VIEW the ASSIGNMENT
- Save Me a Seat* by Gita Varadarajan & Sarah Weeks (Grade 5)
- School Trip* by Jerry Craft (Grade 5)
- A First Time for Everything* by Dan Santat (Grade 5)
- Out of My Mind* by Sharon M. Draper (Grade 5)
- Efrén Divided* by Ernesto Cisneros (Grade 5)
Summer reading assignments are due during the first week of ELA class.
Books with * are available on the SORA app. Students can log in using their DOE @nycstudents.net student accounts.