A few nights ago when I was reading with my almost sixth grader before bed, he asked me, “Mom, which book are we going to read next?” I started laughing and he asked why – until he remembered the name of my blog and cracked a smile.

With summer getting underway, it’s a great time to have a few books handy for you to read out loud with your kids and for their independent reading. Check out your local library’s amazing summer reading programs. You will find fresh book ideas and your kids can often earn prizes for their hard work. Tell your local librarian what your kids are into and he or she will have wonderful suggestions for you! 

It always helps when your kids have a particular interest you can build upon when selecting books. My oldest picked up 42 is Not Just a Number by Doreen Rappaport at our school’s book fair this spring. He is a huge Jackie Robinson fan and really got into it. A couple of years ago we loved reading Honus & Me by Dan Gutman together, per my sister’s recommendation. Gutman has a series of similar books I’m going to suggest as options for my son’s independent reading this summer. 

My youngest recently studied the solar system at the end of first grade and it became a new obsession. So he now has a stack of books about planets that we picked up from our local library’s broad collection. And, like his brother, he loves also baseball, so together we are currently reading the Magic Treehouse book, A Big Day for Baseball, in which the main characters travel back in time to the days of Jackie Robinson. His brother no doubt is a good influence!

We are a bit spoiled when it comes to selecting books since my sister is a youth librarian and knows my boys and their interests so well. I also love to poke around library and book store displays, talk with our local librarians and friends, and reference other resources and programs like “Battle of the Books.” I’m grateful for all of these wonderful outlets so I can be ready when my kids ask, “Mom, which book is next?”

As for me? I just finished reading Sold on a Monday by Kristina McMorris and found it hard to put down. I am just starting Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.

I hope everyone has a wonderful summer!  

If you want a laugh-out-loud book to read with your kids, this is it. It’s hilariously written and perfect to pass around a Thanksgiving table and let each person take a page or two. We introduced it to my in-laws and extended family last December and it left everyone in stitches! For a preview, look for the YouTube video of a grandma barely making it through this book as she reads it to her grandchildren.

One excerpt: “I was walking down the road and I saw a donkey, Hee Haw! He only had three legs, one eye…and he liked to listen to country music. Yee Haw! He was a honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” 

Sometimes you just need good laugh!

My parents recently gifted this beautifully written and illustrated book to my boys, and it was such a touching and important read-aloud that I wanted to feature it as soon as possible.

Dear Boy uses simple, kid-friendly language in the form of a letter, teaching kids lessons they can carry with them for a lifetime. As you read the book with your boys, you are telling them it’s ok to feel cloudy and “let the rain fall,” that they should always believe in themselves, and “yes means yes” but “anything else means no.”

The book is a companion to the bestseller Dear Girl, which in the same style tells girls they are smart, that they should seek out people who are both like and unlike them, and “if (their) instinct is telling (them) to say no, say no.”

The story behind the books is touching as well. Dear Girl was written by the late children’s author Amy Krouse Rosenthal and her daughter, Paris Rosenthal. Amy passed away from ovarian cancer in March 2017, shortly after famously publishing her essay, “You May Want To Marry My Husband,” in the New York Times.  Amy’s husband, Jason, and their daughter, Paris, later teamed up to write the recently released Dear Boy.

The books are sweet reads with kids of any age. Both my fifth grader and first grader enjoyed them – and when I borrowed Dear Girl from the library to write this review, I read that to them as well. These books have such important lifelong messages that I may start including them with graduation gifts.