Summertime and the living is easy, fish are jumping and the cotton is high . . .

Ah, my dear incoming freshman – I hope you have a summer filled with joy, relaxation, fun, and wonder.  May each day be an opportunity for you to stretch, learn, grow, and mature.  There may be many worlds for you waiting between the reading of this letter and the morning you walk into my room in September.  To help you in all these endeavors, I have chosen the novel The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho as your summer reading book. If read with an open mind, this book can open the doors to infinite possibilities. I would like you to read this story as if it was written just for you, for in some way, it was.  Let Santiago’s joys be your joys and his sorrows be your sorrows.  If you read in this frame of mind, you will get more from the reading experience.  Below is a brief description of the book I have included from Publishers Weekly.

From Publishers Weekly
This inspirational fable by Brazilian author and translator Coelho has been a runaway bestseller throughout Latin America and seems poised to achieve the same prominence here. The charming tale of Santiago, a shepherd boy, who dreams of seeing the world, is compelling in its own right, but gains resonance through the many lessons Santiago learns during his adventures. He journeys from Spain to Morocco in search of worldly success, and eventually to Egypt, where a fateful encounter with an alchemist brings him at last to self-understanding and spiritual enlightenment. The story has the comic charm, dramatic tension and psychological intensity of a fairy tale, but it's full of specific wisdom as well, about becoming self-empowered, overcoming depression, and believing in dreams. The cumulative effect is like hearing a wonderful bedtime story. . .

Assignment
Your assignment for the summer reading project is two fold.  First, you need to collect ten of the most important quotes from the book, copy them down w/ page #, and bring them to class.  They need to be from all parts of the book (beginning, middle, end).  Secondly,  write me a letter, a nice long letter, telling me all about yourself and your thoughts on The Alchemist.  Of course you will not summarize the books, but instead tell me your thoughts on the culture, the story, the characters and the writers’ abilities.  The letter is due in class on Friday after we come back to school.  I will complete this assignment also and give you my letter on that Friday.  I look forward to meeting you!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                   - Mr. Ubriaco