H-F Reads

     The Homewood-Flossmoor High School community is pleased to announce the selections for the 09-10 all-school reading initiative, H-F Reads.  The mission of H-F Reads is the unification of a community of readers and lifelong learners through the sharing of books, ideas, and opinions.

     The philosophy behind this mission is that when people get together to discuss books, they inevitably reveal their own perspectives, experiences, and feelings.  This sharing results in the building of understandings and relationships across ages, sexes, cultures, and backgrounds.  By promoting the reading of quality books chosen around a common theme, H-F Reads can assist in building the rigor, relevance, and relationships that underscore our H-F school mission, which recognizes and celebrates the “diversity of backgrounds, abilities, beliefs, and aspirations” of all people in the effort to “improve the quality of each student’s life…in an expanding global society.”

     In honor of H-F's 50th Anniversary, H-F Reads invites community members to read a selection of books which all explore this year’s theme of School Days Then & Now. The book for 1st Quarter is A Separate Peace by John Knowles.

        First published in 1959 (the same year H-F opened), this classic is told through the eyes of Gene Forrester who looks back fifteen years to a time in which he and his best friend Phineas were roommates in a New Hampshire boarding school. Their friendship is marred by Finny's crippling fall, an event for which Gene is responsible and one that eventually leads to tragedy.

        Featured for second quarter are the works of Sharon Draper. Ms. Draper is a nationally award-winning teacher and writer whose books include the “Hazelwood High” and  “Jericho” trilogies, and the Coretta Scott King Award-winning Copper Sun. Reading, teaching, and writing are all connected for Draper, who wanted to be a teacher since childhood. As she once told an interviewer, "I was an avid reader. I read every single book in the elementary school library, all of them. I did not plan to be a writer until much, much later. I tell students all the time that in order to be a good writer it is necessary first to be a good reader. You need some information in your head. Reading is input. Writing is output. You can't write without input."

        Our third quarter selection is The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. After being diagnosed with terminal cancer, Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, gave his last lecture. But the lecture he gave--"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"--wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have...and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.