Even when life is (relatively) more normal, helping keep your students and/or kids current with their reading skills over summer break can be a challenge! We’ll share some ideas here and link to articles with helpful suggestions. When all else fails, maybe suggest a reading picnic, with treats involved! 😊📚🌳
Some favorite ideas:
Of course, your local library probably usually has a great summer reading program. Check with them to see if they have made alternative plans for this year.
Write a letter to your child, student, or young reader in your life and send it in the mail! Getting mail is exciting!
Family reading time (can do this over Zoom, too!) Everyone grab a book or magazine and spend 10-30 minutes reading together. Or, if you have very small readers, let them see you reading. They will probably want to “borrow” the book you are finding so interesting.
Build a book nook! Use pillows, blankets, a real tent, whatever you can find, to create a cozy fort just for reading!
Links to helpful articles:
This one from Reading Rockets about encouraging summer reading
Each week we assemble a collection – a bouquet, if you will – of books you can read for yourself, or use to build into a display in your library. As always, the books we link to have info from Amazon.com. If you click a link and then buy anything at all from Amazon, we get a small percent of their profits from your sale. Yay!!! Thanks!!! We really appreciate the assistance! 💕😊
I’ve been looking forward to reading chapter books out loud to my son since he was born! I was not expecting his first pick to be I Was an Outer-Space Chicken but it encourages math skills, so we’re making it work! 🛸Whether you are reading with a partner, spouse, many children, or your whole family, here are some suggestions of books that are great to read together:
Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story by Kevin Noble Maillard, illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal “Fry bread is food. It is warm and delicious, piled high on a plate. Fry bread is time. It brings families together for meals and new memories. Fry bread is nation. It is shared by many, from coast to coast and beyond. Fry bread is us. It is a celebration of old and new, traditional and modern, similarity and difference.”
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin “In the valley of Fruitless Mountain, a young girl named Minli spends her days working hard in the fields and her nights listening to her father spin fantastic tales about the Jade Dragon and the Old Man of the Moon. Minli’s mother, tired of their poor life, chides him for filling her head with nonsense. But Minli believes these enchanting stories and embarks on an extraordinary journey to find the Old Man of the Moon and ask him how her family can change their fortune. She encounters an assorted cast of characters and magical creatures along the way, including a dragon who accompanies her on her quest.”
The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henriquez “A dazzling, heartbreaking page-turner destined for breakout status: a novel that gives voice to millions of Americans as it tells the story of the love between a Panamanian boy and a Mexican girl: teenagers living in an apartment block of immigrant families like their own.”
The Truffle Underground: A Tale of Mystery, Mayhem, and Manipulation in the Shadowy Market of the World’s Most Expensive Fungus by Ryan Jacobs “Beneath the gloss of star chefs and crystal-laden tables, the truffle supply chain is touched by theft, secrecy, sabotage, and fraud. Farmers patrol their fields with rifles and fear losing trade secrets to spies. Hunters plant poisoned meatballs to eliminate rival truffle-hunting dogs. Naive buyers and even knowledgeable experts are duped by liars and counterfeits.”
Each week we assemble a collection – a bouquet, if you will – of books you can read for yourself, or use to build into a display in your library. As always, the books we link to have info from Amazon.com. If you click a link and then buy anything at all from Amazon, we get a small percent of their profits from your sale. Yay!!! Thanks!!! We really appreciate the assistance! 💕😊
We may not be following maps to hidden treasure anytime soon, but we can at least read about it! This week, enjoy books that feature maps!
Henry’s Map by David Elliot “Henry is a very particular sort of pig. “A place for everything and everything in its place,” he always says. But when he looks out his window he is troubled. The farm is a mess!  Henry is worried that nobody will be able to find anything in this mess. So he draws a map showing all the animals exactly where they belong.  And Henry embarks on a journey through the farm, his friends tagging along as he creates his map: sheep in the woolshed, chickens in the coop, the horse in the stable. After the map is complete, Henry uses it to bring himself back home, where he is relieved to know that he is exactly where he belongs. A place for everything and everything in its place, indeed.”
My Map Book by Sara Fanelli “In each spread of this bold and humorous picture book, children can examine their place in the world around them through detailed and engaging maps that are drawn from a child’s perspective. Twelve beautifully illustrated maps, such as Map of My Day and Map of My Family, will fascinate children, teaching about both mapping and telling one’s story.”
Heart of Thorns by Bree Barton “In the ancient river kingdom, touch is a battlefield, bodies the instruments of war. Seventeen-year-old Mia Rose has pledged her life to hunting Gwyrach: women who can manipulate flesh, bones, breath, and blood. Not women. Demons. The same demons who killed her mother without a single scratch. But when Mia’s father suddenly announces her marriage to the prince, she is forced to trade in her knives and trousers for a sumptuous silk gown. Only after the wedding goes disastrously wrong does she discover she has dark, forbidden magic—the very magic she has sworn to destroy.”
A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer “Cursed by a powerful enchantress to repeat the autumn of his eighteenth year, Prince Rhen, the heir of Emberfall, thought he could be saved easily if a girl fell for him. But that was before he turned into a vicious beast hell-bent on destruction. Before he destroyed his castle, his family, and every last shred of hope. Nothing has ever been easy for Harper. With her father long gone, her mother dying, and her brother constantly underestimating her because of her cerebral palsy, Harper learned to be tough enough to survive. When she tries to save a stranger on the streets of Washington, DC, she’s pulled into a magical world.”
The Map As Art: Contemporary Artists Explore Cartography by Katherine Harmon “Maps can be simple tools, comfortable in their familiar form. Or they can lead to different destinations: places turned upside down or inside out, territories riddled with marks understood only by their maker, realms connected more to the interior mind than to the exterior world. These are the places of artists’ maps, that happy combination of information and illusion that flourishes in basement studios and downtown galleries alike. It is little surprise that, in an era of globalized politics, culture, and ecology, contemporary artists are drawn to maps to express their visions. Using paint, salt, souvenir tea towels, or their own bodies, map artists explore a world free of geographical constraints.”
The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic and How it Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson “From Steven Johnson, the dynamic thinker routinely compared to James Gleick, Dava Sobel, and Malcolm Gladwell, The Ghost Map is a riveting page-turner about a real-life historical hero, Dr. John Snow. It’s the summer of 1854, and London is just emerging as one of the first modern cities in the world. But lacking the infrastructure—garbage removal, clean water, sewers—necessary to support its rapidly expanding population, the city has become the perfect breeding ground for a terrifying disease no one knows how to cure. As the cholera outbreak takes hold, a physician and a local curate are spurred to action—and ultimately solve the most pressing medical riddle of their time. In a triumph of multidisciplinary thinking, Johnson illuminates the intertwined histories and inter-connectedness of the spread of disease, contagion theory, the rise of cities, and the nature of scientific inquiry, offering both a riveting history and a powerful explanation of how it has shaped the world we live in.”
We miss chatting about books with you, so we’ve decided to bring the book group to you!
Last week we had our first Virtual Book Happy Hour and it was just the sort of end-of-week fun we needed!!
We shared books for all ages (some introduced by very young fans of CMLE) and even got to take a look at some of the creative projects our library friends are working on!
Can you join us?? We’d love to “see” you! Bring a book or a craft to share, or just get ready to chat about how things are going for you. We will be holding these Virtual Book Happy Hours via Zoom this Thursday, April 23rd and next Thursday April 30th starting at 4:30pm. These are casual events so if you arrive later or have family members/pets/quarantine distractions, that is completely OK!
Staying safe at home also means missing family. Maybe you (or your kids) wish you could connect with older family members you’re used to seeing regularly! We have some reading suggestions all about grandmothers:
As always, the books we link to have info from Amazon.com. If you click a link and then buy anything at all from Amazon, we get a small percent of their profits from your sale. Yay!!! Thanks!!! We really appreciate the assistance! 💕😊
Nana in the City by Lauren Castillo “In this magical picture book, a young boy spends an overnight visit with his nana and is frightened to find that the city where she lives is filled with noise and crowds and scary things. But then Nana makes him a special cape to help him be brave, and soon the everyday sights, sounds, and smells of the city are not scary—but wonderful. The succinct text is paired with watercolor illustrations that capture all the vitality, energy, and beauty of the city.”
How to Babysit a Grandma by Jean Reagan “When you babysit a grandma, if you’re lucky, you’ll have a sleepover at her house! And with the useful tips found in this book, you’re guaranteed to become an expert grandma-sitter in no time. (Be sure to check out the sections on: How to keep a grandma busy; Things to do at the park; Possible places to sleep, and what to do once you’re both tucked in for the night.) From the author-illustrator team behind the New York Times bestselling HOW TO… books comes a funny and heartwarming celebration of grandmas and grandchildren”
The Hello Goodbye Window by Norton Juster illustrated by Chris Raschka “A little girl visits grandparents Nanna and Poppy and waves greetings through their magical window. They lovingly watch stars, play games, work in the garden, and listen to Poppy play the harmonica. Bright simple illustrations.”
Listen, Slowly by Thanhha Lai “A California girl born and raised, Mai can’t wait to spend her vacation at the beach. Instead, though, she has to travel to Vietnam with her grandmother, who is going back to find out what really happened to her husband during the Vietnam War. Mai’s parents think this trip will be a great opportunity for their out-of-touch daughter to learn more about her culture. But to Mai, those are their roots, not her own. Vietnam is hot, smelly, and the last place she wants to be. Besides barely speaking the language, she doesn’t know the geography, the local customs, or even her distant relatives. To survive her trip, Mai must find a balance between her two completely different worlds.”
The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant “From the New York Times bestselling author of The Red Tent and Day After Night, comes an unforgettable coming-of-age novel about family ties and values, friendship and feminism told through the eyes of a young Jewish woman growing up in Boston in the early twentieth century. Addie Baum is The Boston Girl, born in 1900 to immigrant parents who were unprepared for and suspicious of America and its effect on their three daughters. Growing up in the North End, then a teeming multicultural neighborhood, Addie’s intelligence and curiosity take her to a world her parents can’t imagine – a world of short skirts, movies, celebrity culture and new opportunities for women. Addie wants to finish high school and dreams of going to college. She wants a career and to find true love. Eighty-five-year-old Addie tells the story of her life to her twenty-two-year-old granddaughter, who has asked her “How did you get to be the woman you are today?” She begins in 1915, the year she found her voice and made friends who would help shape the course of her life. From the one-room tenement apartment she shared with her parents and two sisters, to the library group for girls she joins at a neighborhood settlement house, to her first, disastrous love affair, Addie recalls her adventures with compassion for the naïve girl she was and a wicked sense of humor.”
The Mermaid’s Daughter by Ann Claycomb “A modern-day expansion of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, this unforgettable debut novel weaves a spellbinding tale of magic and the power of love as a descendent of the original mermaid fights the terrible price of saving herself from a curse that has affected generations of women in her family. Kathleen has always been dramatic. She suffers from the bizarre malady of experiencing stabbing pain in her feet. On her sixteenth birthday, she woke screaming from the sensation that her tongue had been cut out. No doctor can find a medical explanation for her pain, and even the most powerful drugs have proven useless. Only the touch of seawater can ease her pain, and just temporarily at that. Now Kathleen is a twenty-five-year-old opera student in Boston and shows immense promise as a soprano. Her girlfriend Harry, a mezzo in the same program, worries endlessly about Kathleen’s phantom pain and obsession with the sea. Kathleen’s mother and grandmother both committed suicide as young women, and Harry worries they suffered from the same symptoms. When Kathleen suffers yet another dangerous breakdown, Harry convinces Kathleen to visit her hometown in Ireland to learn more about her family history. In Ireland, they discover that the mystery—and the tragedy—of Kathleen’s family history is far older and stranger than they could have imagined. Kathleen’s fate seems sealed, and the only way out is a terrible choice between a mermaid’s two sirens—the sea, and her lover. But both choices mean death…”
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