Dear Incoming Science Leadership Academy Ninth Graders,

Welcome to SLA! Your summer reading is The House of the Scorpion, by Nancy Farmer.  This is an exciting and timely story that we believe you’ll enjoy.  It is a National Book, Newberry Honor, and Printz Award winner for excellence in young adult literature.  It’ll haunt you and make you think about larger issues long after you put the book down---and we bet that you WON’T be able to put it down!  It’s that good. Here’s the Amazon.com description, followed by the testimonials of some readers:

"Fields of white opium poppies stretch away over the hills, and uniformed workers bend over the rows, harvesting the juice. This is the empire of Matteo Alacràn, a feudal drug lord in the country of Opium, which lies between the United States and Aztlàn, formerly Mexico. Field work, or any menial tasks, are done by "eejits," humans in whose brains computer chips have been installed to insure docility. Alacran, or El Patrón, has lived 140 years with the help of transplants from a series of clones, a common practice among rich men in this world. The intelligence of clones is usually destroyed at birth, but Matt, the latest of Alacrán's doubles, has been spared because he belongs to El Patrón. He grows up in the family's mansion, alternately caged and despised as an animal and pampered and educated as El Patrón's favorite. Gradually he realizes the fate that is in store for him, and with the help of Tam Lin, his bluff and kind Scottish bodyguard, he escapes to Aztlán. There he and other "lost children" are trapped in a more subtle kind of slavery before Matt can return to Opium to take his rightful place and transform his country."                      –Amazon.com

“Air was sucked into growth chambers. A dull, red light shone on the faces of the workers...." With this line in the second
paragraph of the first page, Farmer begins to weave her mood of dread, of science run amok, of humans on the short, fast
road to the loss of their humanity. And all the while, she builds characters with whom we empathize, in whose existence we can see our own lives. This is a book that teaches the great lessons literature needs to teach, and ought to teach, our youth.

–Douglas Arvidson

"This realistic fiction/fantasy novel will keep readers at the edges of their seats. This book stars a boy named Matt who finds out he's a clone,  has a terrible life because  people treat him like a “thing”, and tries to win a girl from an evil boy.  This book will keep the lights on under your covers until you finish it. I LOVE THIS BOOK!  It has all the elements of a wonderful book: betrayal, deception, love, EVERYTHING. If you were to read this book, you would get lost in its pages the first time you read it."

-- Anonymous

While you may get the book from the library (there are 25 copies of it citywide), we strongly suggest that you purchase the text, as we will be using it in class and advisory in September.  Below are some questions to help you navigate the novel and help you prepare to discuss it with your classmates and teachers. As you may already know, SLA utilizes guiding questions that help focus our studies and make learning more meaningful for us all.

As you read, think about the following larger questions as they apply to the characters, action, conflicts, and resolutions in The House of the Scorpion and also as they apply to your life. Prepare to hand in a journal (at least eight entries, each one longer than a half page). Your journal should contain personal responses and thoughts to the about the book in addition to answers to some of the questions below. This will be collected in September.

• What is family?
• What is the power of friendship?
• What does it mean to be a caregiver/mother/father?
• What is education and where can it exist?
• What is love?
• How does a person become evil? In what ways can the line between good and evil be blurred?  How do you justify the idea that a person can be both good and evil at the same time?
• Who is a survivor?  Why?
• What does it mean to be human?

We wish you a relaxing and fun summer.  We’re looking forward to seeing you at orientation week from August 18-22.

Sincerely,  
The SLA Faculty