By Emma Barhydt
School is out, days are long, and the ocean is singing my name. In my opinion, this is the best time of the year. While I might not be in school anymore, summer is still a time of transition, growth, and reading. Long weekend days on the beach and firefly spotted evenings on my porch both provide magical places to conquer the my ever growing to-read pile on my bedroom floor. What better way to celebrate the wonderful world of summer than with books all about it? Enjoy this month’s beach reads and hazy vignettes. And don’t forget your sunblock at home.
7 and Under
Sun – Sam Usher It’s the hottest day of the year, hotter than broccoli soup, hotter than 
the Atacama Desert, hotter than the surface of the sun. It’s just the right kind of day for a boy and his granddad to go for a picnic. But as the sun beats down, Granddad keeps having to stop for a rest, and by the time they find the perfect picnic spot, some pirates have beaten them to it. Good thing they have enough food to share!
The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgen Burnette
When Mary Lennox comes to live at her uncle’s great house on the Yorkshire Moors, she finds it full of secrets. The mansion has nearly one hundred rooms, and her uncle keeps himself locked up. The gardens surrounding the large property are Mary’s only escape. Then, Mary discovers a secret garden, surrounded by walls and locked with a missing key. With the help of two unexpected companions, Mary discovers a way in—and becomes determined to bring the garden back to life.
How I Spent my Summer Vacation – Mark Teague
Most kids go to camp over the summer, or to Grandma’s house, or maybe
they’re stuck at home. Not Wallace Bleff. Wallace insists he was carried off by cowboys and taught the ways of the West–from riding buckin’ broncos to roping cattle. Lucky for Aunt Fern, he showed up at her house just in time to divert a stampede from her barbecue party! Perfect for back-to-school read-alouds, here’s a western fantasy with sparkling illustrations and enough action to knock kids’ boots off!
8 – 13
Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
Treasure Island spins a heady tale of piracy, a mysterious treasure map, and a host of sinister characters charged with diabolical intentions. Seen through the eyes of Jim Hawkins, the cabin boy of the Hispaniola, the action-packed adventure tells of a perilous sea journey across the Spanish Main, a mutiny led by the infamous Long John Silver, and a lethal scramble for buried treasure on an exotic isle.
Confessions of a Dork Lord – Mike Johnston
Meet Wick. He’s the son of the Dark Lord, heir to the throne of black and
broken glass, and next in line to be the leader of the Grim World. Too bad he’s stuck in Remedial Spell Casting (he can barely even cast the fart-revealer spell), he’s allergic to fire and brimstone, and the bullies at school insist on calling him Dork Lord. Full of humor, hijinks, and lively illustrations, Confessions of a Dork Lord follows Wick through the pages of his journal as he comes up with a genius plan to defeat his foes, achieve greatness . . . and survive Middle Ages School.
Echo Mountain – Lauren Wolk
After losing almost everything in the Great Depression, Ellie’s family is forced to leave their home in town and start over on Echo Mountain. Ellie has found a welcome freedom in her new life on the mountain. But a terrible accident leaves her father in a coma. Ellie is a girl who takes matters into her own hands, and determined to help her father she will make her way to the top of the mountain in search of the healing secrets of a woman known only as “the hag.” But the hag, and the mountain, still have many untold stories left to reveal.
14 – 17
The Summer I Turned Pretty – Jenny Han
Belly measures her life in summers. Everything good, everything magical
happens between the months of June and August. Winters are simply a time to count the weeks until the next summer, a place away from the beach house, away from Susannah, and most importantly, away from Jeremiah and Conrad. They are the boys that Belly has known since her very first summer—they have been her brother figures, her crushes, and everything in between. But one summer, one wonderful and terrible summer, the more everything changes, the more it all ends up just the way it should have been all along.
We Were Liars – E. Lockhart
A beautiful and distinguished family. A private island. A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy. A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive. A revolution. An accident. A secret. Lies upon lies. True love. The truth. Read it. And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
Largely set in a futuristic World State, inhabited by genetically
modified citizens and an intelligence-based social hierarchy, the novel anticipates huge scientific advancements in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation and classical conditioning that are combined to make a dystopian society which is challenged by only a single individual: the story’s protagonist.
College
Beach Read – Emily Henry
Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. They’re polar opposites. In fact, the only thing they 
have in common is that for the next three months, they’re living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer’s block. Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.
The Summer of Broken Rules – K. L. Walther
When Meredith Fox lost her sister, Claire, eighteen months ago, she shut
everyone out. The annual family vacation to Martha’s Vineyard seems like the perfect place to reconnect. She’s excited to participate in the traditional Fox family game of assassin that will take place during the week of wedding festivities. Claire always loved the game, and Meredith is determined to honor her legacy. Meredith tries to focus on the game and win it for her sister, but she can’t help falling for the groomsman she made an alliance with.
Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted – Suleika Jaouad
In the summer after graduating from college, Suleika Jaouad was preparing, as they say in commencement speeches, to enter “the real world.” She had fallen 
in love and moved to Paris to pursue her dream of becoming a war correspondent. The real world she found, however, would take her into a very different kind of conflict zone. A few weeks shy of her twenty-third birthday, she received a diagnosis: leukemia, with a 35 percent chance of survival. Just like that, the life she had imagined for herself had gone up in flames. By the time Jaouad flew home to New York, she had lost her job, her apartment, and her independence. She had spent the past 1,500 days in desperate pursuit of one goal—to survive. And now that she’d done so, she realized that she had no idea how to live.
Grown Ups
The Summer Book – Trove Janson
The Summer Book distills the essence of the summer into twenty-two crystalline vignettes. This brief novel tells the story of Sophia, a six-year-old
girl awakening to existence, and Sophia’s grandmother, nearing the end of hers, as they spend the summer on a tiny unspoiled island in the Gulf of Finland. The grandmother is unsentimental and wise, if a little cranky; Sophia is impetuous and volatile. Together they discuss things that matter to young and old alike: life, death, the nature of God and of love. “On an island,” thinks the grandmother, “everything is complete.”
Golden Girl – Elin Hilderbrand
Vivian Howe, author of thirteen beach novels and mother of three nearly grown children, is killed in a hit-and-run car accident while jogging. She 
ascends to the Beyond where she’s allowed to watch what happens below for one last summer. Vivi also is granted three “nudges” to change the outcome of events on earth, she’ll have to think carefully where to use them. Her greatest worry is her final book, which contains a secret from her own youth that could be disastrous for her reputation. But when hidden truths come to light, Vivi’s family will have to sort out their past and present mistakes—with or without a nudge of help from above—while Vivi finally lets them grow without her.
The Country of Pointed Firs and Other Stories – Sarah Orne Jewit
A female writer comes one summer to Dunnet Landing, a Maine seacoast town, where she follows the lonely inhabitants of once-prosperous coastal
communities. Here, lives are molded by the long Maine winters, rock-filled fields and strong resourceful women. Throughout Sarah Orne Jewett’s novel and stories, these quiet tales of a simpler American life capture the inspirational in the everyday: the importance of honest friendships, the value of family, and the gift of community.
