Many NC universities require summer reading for freshmen. Here are the titles used this year:
• Appalachian State: A Home on the Field by Paul Cuadros. A story of perseverance and success by the Latino high school soccer players of Siler City, NC.
• Duke University: The Best of Enemies by Osha Gray Davidson. A portrait of race relations in Durham told through a story of friendship between a black activist and an ex-Klansman.
• Elizabeth City State University: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs. A personal narrative by a North Carolina slave who suffered terribly at the hands of a ruthless owner.
• Elon University: An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore. A collection of pictures and catch-phrases based on Gore’s multimedia presentations on global warming.
• North Carolina State University: Colors of the Mountain by Da Chen. An autobiographical story of the hardships of life in China under communism during Mao’s Cultural Revolution.
• UNC-Chapel Hill: The Death of Innocents by Sister Helen Prejean. An argument on the ways in which the criminal justice system may be killing innocent people.
• UNC-Charlotte: Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson. An autobiographical story of Mortenson’s failed attempt to climb Mt. Everest, seven weeks of recovery in a small Pakistani village, and his return to build a school for the village children.
• UNC-Greensboro: Choice of Farewell, I’m Bound to Leave You by Fred Chappell, Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, Teach Like Your Hair’s On Fire by Rafe Esquith, Cradle-to-Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart, and Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller.
• Western Carolina University: The World Made Straight by Ron Rash. High school dropout Travis Shelton stumbles on a neighbor’s crop of marijuana while fishing in rural North Carolina.
• Wake Forest University: Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi. A blend of memoir and literary criticism about the power of art and its ability to improve people’s lives.