Upper School

Doug E. Fleming: Headmaster

Thornton Donovan’s academic program is unique, a level up from the curricula available in neighboring schools.

Upper School at T-D

Thornton-Donovan offers various courses in all the common branches and numerous world languages. Each year, thematic courses are designed to reflect a theme as the school celebrates a different country, culture, or historical character, which is an integral part of the program. Then, in the spring of the school year, Thornton-Donovan will visit, tour, and embrace the country, culture, or historical figure being saluted academically.

*Please note that as there is no “typical” at Thornton-Donovan, many courses reappear every year or every other year, but not all courses do return.
**Please visit the office if interested in APs.

Explore available courses.

Thornton-Donovan Middle School

Summer Reading Assignments

Select TWO books that you haven't read before from our suggested list.

  • You must select at least ONE of the green books.

  • For your second book, you may pick anything from the list, including a second green book!

    You can check many of these books out from a public library. Be thoughtful about your selection. Choose something of personal interest and something that will push you as a reader and thinker. You are free to read from any grade level.

All assignments must be submitted by Monday, September 16, 2024

Guidelines to consider:

  • The spirit of this assignment is to encourage curiosity and thoughtfulness about books and the world. Be original, be creative, have fun! Please, please, please don't be boring. We are interested in your opinions, reactions, and responses to the book. No summaries, please; we can read those online, too.

  • Save your work digitally to easily upload your writing/artwork to Google Classroom by Monday, September 16th, in the fall.

  • Find the reading list below.

Choose ONE of the following prompts to complete.

  • Write a personal response to your chosen books. What did you find relatable / compelling / infuriating / thought-provoking / problematic and why? How do the issues and themes these books raise relate to your life? Dig into some specific ideas and moments that got you thinking. (500 words)

  • Create a piece of visual art that explores an important idea from the books you read. The piece should delve into your response to the books, not just provide an illustration. It may be any size or medium, but it must be your original artwork. Include a caption that explains your intentions and choices. (150-300 words)

  • Compose a letter to the author of your chosen books OR a letter to a character in them. In your letter, bring up the ideas and questions that the book raised for you. Consider offering your personal reactions to specific moments in the books. Write like it's a conversation, not an essay. (500 words)

The first four texts are all related to the color green! Taken from “The Green Book List,”

a poignant selection from Penguin Random House.

  • Spring, by Ali Smith

    With an eye to the migrancy of story over time and riffing on Pericles, one of Shakespeare's most resistant and rollicking works, Ali Smith tell the impossible tale of an impossible time. In a time of walls and lockdown, Smith opens the door.

  • Sula, by Toni Morrison

    In this brilliantly imagined novel, Toni Morrison tells the story of Nel Wright and Sula Peace, who meet as children in the small town of Medallion, Ohio. Their devotion is fierce enough to withstand bullies and the burden of a dreadful secret. It endures even after Nel has grown up to be a pillar of the black community and Sula has become a pariah. But their friendship ends in an unforgivable betrayal-or does it end? Terrifying, comic, ribald and tragic, Sula is a work that overflows with life.

  • Bangkok Wakes to Rain, by Pitchaya Sudbanthad

    Time collapses as these lives collide and converge, linked by the forces voraciously making and remaking the amphibious, ever-morphing capital itself. Bangkok Wakes to Rain is an elegy for what time erases and a love song to all that persists, yearning into the unknowable future.

  • The Only Story ,by Julian Barnes

    Paul looks back at how he and his wife fell in love and how-gradually, relentlessly-everything fell apart. As he turns over his only story in his mind, examining it from different vantage points, he finds himself confronted with the contradictions and slips of his own memory-and the ways in which our narratives and our lives shape one another. Poignant, vivid, and profound, The Only Story is a searing novel of memory, devotion, and how first love fixes a life forever.

General Selection

  • The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

    Henrietta Lacks was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge in 1951—became one of the most important tools in medicine…

  • This Boy's Life A Memoir by Tobias Wolff

    Meet the young Toby Wolff, by turns tough and vulnerable, crafty and bumbling, and ultimately winning. As Toby fights for identity and self-respect again…

  • Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan

    This is a compelling novel about a young heroine, Anna, who works at the Brooklyn Navy Yards during WWII and becomes one of the first woman divers while dealing with her elusive gangster father and other colorful characters.

  • Code Girls The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers Who Helped Win World War II by Liza Mundy

    This year's Greenwich Reads Pick is a good one, More than ten thousand women were recruited by the U.S. Army and Navy from small towns and elite colleges...

  • The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

    Cora: a young slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. When a fellow slave convinces her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunities…

  • Notes of A Native Son by James Baldwin

    Powerful work written during the 1940s and early 1950s, when Baldwin was only in his twenties, the essays collected in Notes of a Native Son capture a view on the racist landscape of the United States…

  • Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor

    First, in a new fantasy series, this installment introduces the reader to Lazlo Strange, a war orphan and junior librarian who has always feared that his dream…

  • Seveneves by Neal Stephenson

    A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise a plan…

  • Born A Crime Stories From A South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

    "Daily Show" host & comedian Trevor Noah shares funny yet poignant tales about growing up in South Africa and how, with his mother's help, overcame prejudice and set out on a path of his own making.

  • All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

    When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the “nature…”

  • The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

    Lenora Allbright is 13 when her father convinces her mother, Cora, to forgo their inauspicious existence in Seattle and move to Kaneq, AK. It's 1974…

  • Just Mercy A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson

    Bryan Stevenson was a gifted young attorney when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending the poor…

  • The History of Jane Doe by Michael Belanger

    Fans of John Green should check out Michael Belanger’s recently published first novel, The History of Jane Doe.