The Perfect Summer Book

Ahh summer, time for water sports, ice cream, fireworks, and long afternoons spent swinging in your hammock.  If you are like me, one of the greatest joys of summer is looking for a book to read that is not required by your school. Summer reading is something that we all did, and so when it comes time to pick a book that you will not have to write a report about, you want to know you will enjoy it! The topic of this blog is summer reading, but what I mean by that is that the below listed books are a few of the ones that I loved the most. They offered my both enjoyment and escapism. I do not remember a single summer where I was not eagerly awaiting the next great book to surprise me, and every one of the titles mentioned here did just that, and the great thing about these books is that most of them are just as suitable for young readers as for older ones. As always I recommend parental preference, reading the books before handing them off to younger readers! Also many of these books have sequels, so don’t stop after just the first one!

 Adventure

These are those wonderful books that kept me reading till the very last page, I was  never without at least one adventure story growing up and these are some of my very favorites, the kind that you remember fondly and want to read again and again.

Shakespeare’s Secret: Elise Broach

Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library: Chris Grabenstein

Chomp: Carl Hiaasen

A Wrinkle in Time: Madeline L’Engle

The False Prince: Jennifer Nielsen

Fantasy

Although not everyone likes a fairytale, I will recommend these titles to almost anyone. The Princess Bride is a classic that most remember as a film, but the book is equal, if not greater in terms of entertainment value. Cinder is a very recent book, but one that won my heart after the very first chapter, for its amazing weaving of a classic tale with a modern setting, someone looking for an epic will love this amazing twist on a tale we all know. The Blue Sword is not very well known any more, but it is a classic in its own right, winning the Newberry Honor and ALA notable and best book award. It is the sequel to the Hero and the Crown, itself a Newberry award winner, and an epic to not be missed.

The Princess Bride: William Goldman

The Blue Sword: Robin McKinley

Cinder: Marissa Meyer

Ella Enchanted: Gail Carson Levine

 

 

Historical Fiction

I have always loved books set in far away times and places. Through books I have been able to travel and visit all corners of the earth, and with historical fiction, I get to be both time traveler as well as globe trotter.  I prefer English historical fiction, but there are almost as many time periods to chose from as there are geographic locations.

Emma: Jane Austen

Frederica: Georgette Heyer

Carney’s House Party: Maud Hart Lovelace

An Accomplished Woman: Jude Morgan

 
Mystery

While mystery is not everyone’s cup of tea, and the many sub genres of mystery make it almost impossible to chose, there are many excellent choices, from the Victorian police and Agatha Christie mysteries, to the modern day Nancy Drew or food themed mysteries. Listed below are three of my favorites, with each being part of a series, there are many more to come if any of these titles earn your favor.

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice: Laurie King

The Daughter of Time: Josephine Tey

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie: Alan Bradley

Behold here’s Poison: Georgette Heyer

 

 

 Fiction

These are those stories that don’t quite fit in anywhere else. These are those nice books that you can pick up at any time and not worry about the climax, or having to put the book down at a vital part. The books mentioned below are almost all appropriate for both boys and girls, and I have found that although most of these books come under the teen classification, they are all appropriate for younger readers with an advanced reading comprehension. As always, I prefer parental preference over my own, parents have the right and responsibility to choose their younger children’s reading material.

Heist Society: Ally Carter

The View from Saturday: E.L. Konigsburg

Henry Reed’s Journey: Keith Robertson               

Flipped: Wendelin Van Draanen

Adventure Series for Young Readers and Teens

Adventure Series for Young Readers

For young readers who love a good adventure story, there is nothing more exciting than starting a new series. Although there is almost no limit to new series coming out, it can be challenging for both young readers and their parents when it comes to finding a new series. The below series are all series that I feel are appropriate for both middle lever readers and also teenagers, all series mentioned here are high octane adventures without any mention of magic or superpowers, rather they are adventures that revolve around central characters that are facing conflict that must be overcome with intelligence and training.

                                                 The Ascendance Trilogy: By Jennifer Nielsen

This series caught me by surprise, the first in the series was nominated for a Nutmeg Award this year, thus I came to the series knowing that the writing would be top quality, but I was wary, thinking it would be a fantasy series, rather than a epic quest of sorts. This is a series I strongly recommend for its fast paced writing, its clever writing and memorable characters. This series deals with the death of a royal family, and the training of three orphans, one of whom will be chosen to take on the role of the missing prince. Think “The Man in the Iron Mask” meets “Prisoner of Zenda”.

The False Prince

The Runaway King

The Shadow Throne

 

                                      The Knightley Academy: By Violet Haberdasher

This series unfortunately has only two books in it, but both are self containing, and hopefully the author will be writing another one soon. This series focuses on the education of a boy names Henry Grimm, his challenges to get an education in spite of his unusual background. This is not your typical boys school story.

The Knightley Academy

The secret Prince

The Alex Rider Series: By Anthony Horowitz

Think young James Bond, Alex is a fourteen year old boy with an uncanny ability for getting himself into challenging situations and using innovative methods that get him noticed by both good and bad alike. I recommend this series for readers thirteen and up, some of the situations can be a little tense for young readers; I recommend that parents or older readers read the first few books before deciding if their young readers are ready for the escapades of Alex Rider.

Stormbreaker

Point Blank

Skeleton Key

Eagle Strike

Scorpia

Ark Angel

Snakehead

Crocodile Tears

Scorpia Rising

                                                           

 

                                                                      Heist Society: By Ally Carter

 

This is a series more appropriate for girls, still just as clever as the above mentioned series. The protagonist in this series is a young thief names Cat Bishop, a girl no longer satisfied with her life as a thief and professional con artist. This series deals more with mental challenges than physical ones, think Oceans 11 with teenagers.  

Heist Society

Uncommon Criminals

Perfect Scoundrels

 

 

 

 

                                                        Gallagher Girls: By Ally Carter

This is one of the most entertaining teen girls’ series I have found yet. The protagonist is Cammy Morgan, a teen girl who goes to a private girls’ school that is in actuality a school for training spies. Cammy and her friends spend most of the series doing extracurricular activities such as bringing down terrorist groups and uncovering political assassination attempts. I loved this series for its fast paced action sequences, its clever dialogue and its central character, through whom every event is seen. Probably better suited for girls age 14 and up depending on the reading level and parental preference. As always I recommend reading the first few books before deciding if your young reader is ready for this series.

I’d Tell You I Love You but Then I’d Have to Kill You

Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

Don’t Judge A Girl by her Cover

Only the Good Spy Young

Out of Sight Out of Time

United We Spy

As always, this is not an exhaustive list, there are new books coming out all the time, and some are better suited than others, but there is an almost endless list of titles coming out every month.  I hope you have found this post both informative and useful.

“A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.”
― William Styron, Conversations with William Styron

Chapter Books Series for Young Readers

Contemporary Series for Young Readers.

With so many series out there, it can often prove difficult for children to find just the right one. Nobody knows the frustration of finishing a wonderful series like me, especially when you realize that you want a new series along the same lines, so for this blog entry I will try to suggest some series for each category (fantasy, younger readers, classics etc…) For the purpose of this blog, this will probably take several entries, since there are so many series out there for so many different interests!

Early Readers Chapter Books

For those not familiar with the chapter books, these are simply books for children going into grades 1-3, they offer new vocabulary words, and help readers become comfortable with concepts like plot and continuing stories.

Magic Tree House:  This series has over 50 books in it, not to mention fact trackers and puzzle and game books. I like this series because you do not necessarily have to read them in order, although it does help if you want to keep track of what your young reader has already read. Parents should be warned that as the name suggests, there is a magical tree house that is their means of transportation, so if you are not comfortable with your children reading books with magic in them, it would probably be best to skip this series.

This series can be best split into three categories, early chapter books, each of which takes Jack and Annie on an adventure to a specific time and place in history, where they must complete a mission and find something or someone significant. The next set is called the Merlin missions, these are the next level up and offer young readers more advanced story line, a little more plot, and a higher level vocabulary. Fact trackers are books which are more non-fiction than fiction. This set help the young reader to learn about the specific time and place talked about in each story, I like to suggest these for young readers who make have very little interest in non-fiction, since it sometimes help to have a favorite character added to the mix. So if for example your young reader has just read the magic tree house book about the Knights, there is a fact tracker dealing with medieval history, with a child appropriate introduction to facts like who wore what, building design, and food.

Disney Fairy Series: This series has only a few books in it, but it was one of the better written chapter books out there, so if parents or guardians out there are doing most of the reading, this will not be as tough to get through as the Candy Fairies or Captain Underpants, both series I find strongly lacking in both plot and appropriate context for children. This series is a good one for girls because if they like fairy stories, this is an excellent way to sneak in an extra lesson in with the story. Each book deals with a specific fairy and a problem they face, with the ending always being about taking responsibility for your actions.

Ivy and Bean: This is a series about two little girls and the adventures they go on. Another series that is probably more appropriate for girls than boys, but unlike the above two series, has not magic at all. There are ten books in the series at this point, and it does make sense to read them in order, however, it is not absolutely necessary since there are no drastic changes between books.

Nate the Great: This is a series better suited towards boys, but both boys and girls can read them if the parent approves. This is an introduction to mystery for young readers, each story finding Nate given a mystery to solve and clues to follow. I found this to be a nice introduction to the mystery genre, not too scary or confusing, and an excellent series if you find your young reader wanting something a little more challenging than My Weird School or Flat Stanly.

There are certainly more series out there, however, this are the few that most libraries and bookstores are going to have in stock at the moment, I found these series to be the most manageable for both parents and young readers, in addition to being series with limited problem areas, like children rebelling against authority or using made up words that case nothing but confusion for young readers. I hope you find something new and exciting for your young readers this week!

The Trouble with Teen Books.

Where is the Trouble?

I have heard some people say that children should play violent games on the computer and the internet rather than try the real thing, but I have to wonder if so many violent things would be happening today without the assistance of these games? Where is the glory of fighting a battle with no clear objective? Today’s games are not even proper battles over things like land or food. In many cases, these fights seem to have no apparent goal other than physically beating the life out of other characters. The bookstore I work in has divided the teen department into three categories, regular teen fiction, fantasy and adventure, and romance. I would like to discuss just a few of the problems associated with each category, however, please do not think that I am dismissing the classes as a whole, it is simply that there is an over abundance of the wrong kind of book populating these categories.

Generic teen fiction:

This section deals with those teen books not necessarily based in an alternate universe, high octane adventure, or overly romantic. Of the three categories being discussed, this one is the tamest because there is less violence than in the adventure category, and less in the way of physical relationships than found in the romance section. The faults I find with these books are no less damaging however; there is often graphic language, no limit to the vulgarity used in daily conversation between characters, and often limited or no control displayed between the characters when making decisions. The average hero or heroine of this genre is almost always a misunderstood teen living in a location that often becomes part of their story to a large extent, big city, a small town, high school, etc.... What often starts as a simple story about one individual (either with their posse of friends or all alone) often becomes about some struggle that only a teen can fix, no matter how small or big. These books almost always focus on the issues the teen is facing, these are stories made for the sole purpose of making teens feel as they alone are responsible for the saving of mankind, but if they fail, they can always blame someone else! My main problem with this kind of story is that it is not truly realistic, and it gives teens all the wrong ideas about things like drugs, smoking, obeying their authorities etc…!

 I am not saying that every book in this category falls into this mix of crude language and lifestyle choices, however, parents should not think that just because a book is “regular teen fiction” it is appropriate for their teen to read.

Teen Fantasy and Adventure:

This type of story is for people who want escapism, worlds where good always wins against astonishing odds. Good defeating evil is not wrong, but a new theme is emerging in the field of teen fantasy that I find disturbing, the misunderstood hero. Twenty or so years ago, this type of character would simply be called villain, with good reason. These are the characters that have done wrong things, from petty thievery to large scale destruction. In these stories, the authors use clever wordplay and the readers forgive even the most violent crimes! Can you imagine if our society today worked like that, letting a man who murdered six or seven people go simply because he “didn’t realize” how wrong his actions were? So why do such books bother me? Because these characters often comes under no set of guidelines other than their own, making it possible for teens reading them to build their own conceptions about things that should never come into question such as being courteous, or thinking about the needs of others. These books make daemons the hero, and evil the right side, simply by cleverly changing the perspective. With this genre, I always beg the parents to proceed with caution, making sure that they are fully aware of what content their young reader is going to be exposed to, because once an idea is in their mind, it is almost impossible to remove.

Teen Romance:

This genre is similar to both of the above genres, where it compiles both the fantasy element and reality depending on the story. The focus of every one of these stories is the relationship. I am most certainly an advocate for the romantic relationship, however, I believe what this genre can offer does not always have the same goal in mind. In almost every one of these novels, you find young people willing to, and often doing, anything to be together. These stories always find their focus on the relationship, no matter who gets hurt in the process. What I find so unsettling about these relationship stories, is that they are not realistic, even in the beginning, and I worry about the effects such perfect, even during the traditional misunderstanding in the middle, stories will have in the mindset of the teen reader. The targeted audience for this genre is the teenage female, at this stage of development; the teen girl mind already focuses on the opposite gender. Thus, I do not see how adding to her confusion, or making her wonder if she will always be single (when only 15 or 16!), rather than reading books that she will enjoy, and find encouraging!

I am sorry if readers find this post to be darker than my general one, but I honestly worry about the teen years, have so recently emerged from them myself. I admit that I often read the wrong material, material that moved my thoughts in directions that it should not have moved for several years, and possibly made my transition into a young adult a bit harder than it needed to be. If readers get anything out of this post, please let it be this, read the best books now, develop your mind, and enjoy books. Not all books are bad for a young readers mind, but a steady stream of bad books is like a steady diet of junk food. Parents, please read all books before giving them to your teens, make sure that you are ready to answer and questions they might have about the content or some of the words or phrases used.