Summer Reading Lists 2013

Ah, summer. Long days. The beach. Sunburns. Ice cream. And, most importantly, reading whatever you want to read. To help you fill out the satchel, suitcase, or device, here is a list of great books for young readers, categorized by age and genre.

K-2

PICTURE BOOKS

George and Martha books, James Marshall
George and Martha are best friends who have adventures every day. They do everything together - eat, play, share, even fight and make up. Their stories illustrate the wonderful qualities of friendship. MS

Imogene’s Antlers, David Small
Antlers can come in very handy as Imogene discovers when she grows a pair…doughnut holder, clothes drying rack, candelabra. Her mother is not convinced. EJ


When Stella was Very Very Small, Marie-Louis Gay
As a littler girl, Stella enjoys the wonders of creative play. Then she gets bigger, but that’s ok…now she can teach her little brother how to be a snake! EJ


Apt. 3, Ezra Jack Keats
Two brothers investigate the sounds of music coming from somewhere in their apartment building. A simple tale, it starts out dark and scary and ends on a lighter, happy note. SM


Gregory, the Terrible Eater, Mitchell Sharmat
No tin cans and old shoes for Gregory, he prefers his fruits and vegetables! RHS


A Visitor for Bear, Bonny Becker
Oh Mouse, won’t you please just go away! Can’t you see the sign? - NO VISTORS ALLOWED! - Fine, stay for tea. CH

LEVEL READERS

Owl at Home, Arnold Lobel
An adorable collection of 5 stories perfect for beginning readers and parents to share at bedtime! MC


Greek Myths, Deborah Lock
This is a great choice for new readers ready for a more advanced topic, sure to catch kids’ interest. MC

Fox on the Job, James Marshall
Read how Fox outfoxes his way to land the perfect job! This is a clever tale, with hilarious illustrations by Marshall. JJ


Young Cam Jansen and The Lion's Lunch Mystery, David Adler
A great whodunit series that will keep readers guessing until super-sleuth Cam and her friend Danny finally solve the case. CH


Silly Street, Jeff Foxworthy
This fun collection of poems and rhymes for little kids to make them smile and smile. MC


NONFICTION

Castle, How It Works, David Macaulay
Moats, drawbridges, huge stone walls -- castles were built for fighting. Read about attackers, defenders, and the people who lived inside. SR


Jet Planes, How It Works, David Macaulay
It weighs as much as 100 elephants and flys. How? RHS


Mummies, National Geographic Kids
Fascinating, informative and fun, National Geographic makes learning enjoyable. New concepts, new words and a little horror thrown in for good measure! JJ


Ants, National Geographic Kids
Ever wondered what ants were good for? National Geographic Ants takes you through the society and the workings of ants. Enjoy! JJ


Why do Dogs Bark?, Joan Holub
Everything you ever wanted to know about dogs and more! Including fun facts, cute pictures, and even a little section on training. JJ


Why do Cats Meow?, Joan Holub
Fun facts about your cat, including why it meows! RHS


Grades 3-6

EARLY CHAPTER BOOKS

Dirty Bertie Worms, Alan McDonald
Dirty Bertie is a boy just trying to be a boy, a dirty boy. This is a great book for anyone who likes worms, flies, garbage, and other grossness. MS


Aggie and Ben, Lori Reis
Three stories about Ben, his new puppy Aggie, and the beginning of a life long friendship. RHS


The Birthday Ball, Lois Lowry & Jules Feiffer (illustrations)
Bored Princess Patricia Priscilla pretends to be a peasant so she can go to school with the local children. But a birthday ball is planned. A suitor must be chosen. And the princess has to figure out how to thwart her parents' plans for her future. SM


The Cat Who Wanted to Go Home, Jill Tomlinson
Suzy is the beloved cat of a French family. After falling asleep in a “big basket” she finds herself flying to England in a hot air balloon. MS


Houndsley & Catina, The Birthday Surprise, James Howe
Catina may not be the best writer and Houndsley may not be the best under pressure, but they are best at being friends. CH


MIDDLE GRADE

Moon Over Manifest, Clare Vanderpool
This is a lovely, quiet story of the long-held secrets of the town of Manifest. RHS


Sleuth or Dare, Kim Harrington
Two best friends, their loyal dog, and a detective agency. It doesn't get sleuthier than this. RW


My Epic Fairy Tale Fail!, Anna Staniszewski
Ogres, fairies, princesses – Oh My! Enjoy the adventures of Adventurer, Jenny, as she works to save the Magic of the Land of Tales and find her missing parents. JJ


Maggie & Oliver or A Bone of One’s Own, Valerie Hobbs
This is a Dickensian tale of luck lost and found on the harsh streets of historic Boston. A illuminating, and charming read. JJ

Brixton Brothers #1, Mac Barnett
Great fun. Great illustrations. Begin the Brixton Brothers mystery series for great summer reading. RHS


NONFICTION

Knucklehead, Jon Scieszka
If you had five brothers, would you make as much trouble as the Scieszka boys did growing up? SR


Cars on Mars, Alexander Siy
Spirit and Opportunity spent more than four years driving around Mars, making scientific discoveries and becoming Earth's favorite robots. SR


What It’s Like, Jeff Belanger
Real stories about real people having extraordinary experiences - from riding in a rocket to running 50 marathons. Bet you can’t read just one!! CS

GRAPHIC NOVELS

The Doodles of Sam Dibble, J. Press
Fun and just plan silly, this is what a summer read is all about. RHS

Olympians Series, George O'Connor
The great ancient Greek Myths, as exciting as ever in graphic novel form. GC


Timmy Failure, Stephan Pastis
Timmy and his bumbling polar bear partner, Total, are on the case. And they haven’t got a clue. Superbly funny. CH


Grades 6-8

PRE-TEEN

Savvy, Lingris Law
Beaumont’s dad is in a coma and it’s up to her savvy – a special power she gets on her thirteenth birthday – to save him. CH


Breadcrumbs, Anne Ursu
Jack and Hazel are best friends, but when the Snow Queen arrives Jack begins to drift away. Can Hazel save him? CH


Cold Cereal, Adam Rex
Turns out breakfast cereal characters are real . . . and they’ve escaped. Funny with a healthy dose of nuts. CH


Okay for Now, Gary Schmidt
Doug wants so badly for things to be better. Full of heart, hope, and humor, Doug’s story inspires and lingers. CH


Stranded, Jeff Probst
Four kids, 9 to 13, are stranded on an uninhabited Pacific Island. This story is exciting and realistic as they deal with the challenge of survival and each other's personalities. JM


TEEN

The Sky is Everywhere, Jandy Nelson
A simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking story, you will fall in love with Lennie and her story. RW


Out of My Mind, Sharon Draper
Diagnosed with cerebral palsy, Melody Brooks at age eleven speaks her first words with the help of technology. Now not everybody wants to hear what she has to say. RHS


Private Peaceful, Michael Morpur
This is a heartbreaking story of two brothers fighting in World War I. They find the horrors of war are magnified by the injustices of the military. CS


What Happened to Goodbye, Sarah Dessen
Smart, witty, romantic. Dessen’s characters are awesome, as is her writing. Just like John Green, she gets it. JJ


The False Prince, Jennifer Nielsen
Pretending to be Prince isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be; one wrong move and it’s – gulp – death. CH


NONFICTION

Notorious Benedict Arnold, Steve Sheinken
One bad decision is all that separates Arnold from greatest American hero to greatest American traitor. An absolute thrilling read. CH


The Ominvore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan
Did you ever wonder where your hamburger and fries came from? Michael Pollan explains it all. NH


Almost Astronauts, Tanya Lee Stone
Before the first man went into space, NASA trained 13 women to be astronauts -- but none of them ever got to fly a spaceship. SR


Within Reach: Mt Everest Story, Mark Pfetzer
A 16-year-old from Rhode Island climbs Mount Everest during one of the most dangerous seasons on the mountain. SR


GRAPHIC NOVELS

The Odyssey, A Graphic Novel by Gareth Hinds
Dive deeply into the wonderful illustrations and follow the harrowing adventures of Odysseus as he struggles against Poseidon to get home to his wife and family. Gripping and enthralling! JJ

Calamity Jack, Shannon Hale
Jack and the Beanstalk gets a western twist in this rollicking adventure. RW


Drama, Raina Telgemeier
Everybody’s got a little drama in their lives…but really do you need this much? JC

Two Great Reads for This Summer

Since I’ve been out of school, I stopped buying into the whole “Summer Reading” idea. There are books you read to relax, books you read for entertainment, books you read to stretch your intellect... and it’s the use and not the season that determines what book I pick up. That said, the idea of “Summer Reading,” provides a great opportunity for book people to tell the world about the best books out there, and so here are two great books that have come out this summer that make great reading whenever you get to them.

There is No Year by Blake Butler. Told in vignettes and short chapters and using the space of the words on the page to help communicate the story, this is a drifting, imaginative, innovative novel, that often moves with the fluidity of poetry. The characters (if they can be called that) are father, mother, son, and, eventually girl, and the plot, if this book can be said to have one, follows the family’s interactions with the distorted and shifting geography and topography of their new house. The prose is exquisite. This is one of those rare books you can pick up, flip to a page, read for a few minutes, and then set down again to have a sip from your cold beverage and contemplate the view of the world from your porch. This book reminds me of Lydia Davis, Mark Z. Danielewski, and Jesse Ball (more on him in a bit) and sometimes even David Markson and Donald Barthelme. Butler has published two other books Scorch Atlas and Ever and edits HTMLGIANT, Lamination Colony, and No Colony. If you’re interested here is a full review of There Is No Year from my personal blog.

The Curfew by Jesse Ball. I teared up at the end of this book, even though I knew exactly how it was going to end. Part touching story about a father and a daughter navigating an indifferent world, part exploration of resistance to a totalitarian state, part homage to music, puppetry, art, and imagination, this is a stunning mix of emotions and intelligence and innovation and tradition. “The movement” is the most interesting idea I’ve come across recently about radical activism. Furthermore, Ball’s prose is almost folktale or legend-like. There is a timelessness to his style, so that even though his books exist in a time and place, you feel like they’ve always been there and will always be about the human future. Furthermore, this timelessness makes Ball's work accessible to a whole range of ages, so his work is also good for intellectually inclined teens. Jess Ball is the author of two other novels Samedi the Deafness and The Way Through Doors. Fans of his work will be thrilled to know that a collection of his other work has been released called The Village on Horseback. Along with two books of poetry and other prose, it collects the otherwise hard to find Parables and Lies and his Plimpton Prize winning novella The Early Deaths of Lubeck, Brennan, Harp & Carr. He is an assistant professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he teaches classes on lying, lucid dreaming, and general practice. Here is an interview we conducted with him.

Kids Summer Reading Lists

Our kids books experts have put together some great summer reading lists. Stop by the store, check out the display and grab a list. We have lists for three age ranges, K-2nd Grade, 3rd-5th grade and 6th-8th grade. Check out some of the highlights below.

K-2

Bear's Water Picnic, by John Yeoman, Illu. Quentin Blake (Andersen Press) Five forest friends embark on the perfect summer outing, but those noisy frogs won't stop their awrk-awrking. Will the animals find a way to go with the current?

The Big Fat Cow That Goes Kapow!, by Andy Griffiths, Illu. Terry Denton (Feiwel & Friends)
A laugh-out-loud collection of ten, short, easy-to-read stories. Includes characters like “lumpy-head Fred” and “Mike who rides a bike with a very big spike!” ()

3-5

Anna Hibiscus, by Atinuke (Kane Miller)
Anna lives in Africa with her dad’s side of the family. Her mom has told Anna of the snow of her own childhood, and now Anna wants to see it.

Justin Case: School, Drool and Other Daily Disasters, by Rachel Vail, Illu. Matthew Cordell (Feiwel & Friends)
Nothing’s going right for Justin. It’s the beginning of third grade, he has the wrong teacher and he’s lost his favorite stuffed animal. This funny, illustrated diary will appeal to the Wimpy Kid crowd.

6-8

Mockingbird, by Kathryn Erskine (Penguin)
CaitlinAnnSmith has Asperger’s syndrome, and sees the world in black and white. When tragedy strikes her family, however, she is the one who sees the clear path to healing and closure.

Claudette Colvin, by Phillip Hoose (Square Fish)
One year before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on that Montgomery bus, 16-year-old Claudette Colvin did the same, but with very different results. Here is her story.

Ghosts

A partially constructed luxury apartment building in Buenos Aires. The Chilean caretaker and his family. The coming new year. Ghosts . Cesar Aira’s brilliant little novel is the kind of book where you start underlining beautiful, enlightening, funny, philosophically intriguing sentences and end up with nearly the whole book underlined. Packed into this little novel are sophisticated discussions of the relationship between buildings, metaphors, and language; the differences between Argentinians and Chileans; shopping for a New Year's Eve feast; the experience of the sudden thought in the mind of the unthinking person; the use of ghosts as wine racks; class relations between the building builders and the building owners; and, the challenge and need of finding a “real man”. Yet Ghosts doesn’t feel crowded. The prose moves at the pace of a slightly-more-energetic-than-languid hot summer day daydream. The book itself is perfectly sized for sticking in your back pocket and going for a long walk. I can’t think of a better way to spend a summer afternoon than wandering around Mt. Auburn Cemetery wading in and out of Ghosts.