Sharing A Few Good Books

Whether your children are 5 or 15, summer is a great time to read. Less structure and "required" reading from school can leave time to investigate whatever it is that your child is interested in.

Try these:

Can You See What I See? Nature - Read and Seek Book (for early readers)

The Last Golddiggers by Harry Horse (a funny, down under adventure)

The Amazing Flight of Darius Frobisher, by Bill Harley (flying on a bicycle?)

Firefly Mountain by Patricia Thomas (I love the pictures; it reminds me of hunting fireflies in North Carolina when I was a child)

Rocket Man by Ruth Ashby - a biography about a key player in the space race.

The Desperado Who Stole Baseball by John H. Ritter (for upper elementary and middle school kids). I'm in the middle of this one myself and the story is terrific. Set in the wild west (with an unlikely subject matter of baseball - did you know they played baseball in the wild west?)

Gabriel's Horses by Alison Hart (the first in a Civil War trilogy for middle grade kids.

Pepperland by Mark Delaney - a tragic story with a soul that helps understand how to deal with grief and move on.

One for parents of young children,

Einstein Never Used Flash Cards by Drs. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Roberta M. Golinkoff

and just for fun, Harriet, You'll Drive Me Wild! by Mem Fox (ever feel that way?) This book is one of Mem's lesser known books but still delicious!

A NEW ADDITION TO THE POST: I have a new friend who is a member of the National Council of Teachers of English and mom of a son with LD (7th grade). She shared a ton of titles with me and I wanted to pass along a few for you (from lower to higher levels of readability):

King of Shadows by Susan Cooper (anything Susan writes is good)
Gym Candy by Carl Deuker (deals with steroids);
Tangerine by Edward Bloor (harder, and my son says that some kids didn't like it, but we both loved it)
The Wednesday Wars, Gary D. Schmidt (harder, absolutely fantastic)


For even more ideas, check out the summer reading lists below:

The International Reading Association's Reader's Choice Award books (chosen by kids!):http://www.reading.org/General/Default.aspx?page=/resources/tools/choices.html&mode=redirect

The Reading Tub's great book reviews - age specific (the reviews have the voices of the authentic readers who wrote them)

Til next week, happy reading! Stop by my website to read about how to help your children with their reading without creating an academic hothouse environment at home: http://www.readingisforeveryone.org/articles.html (scroll down to the Reading Tub to access this article).