Must-Haves for Your Tween's Summer Reading List
Summer reading is all about adventures – whether it be to times long gone or another town where a great story lives that your kids can totally relate to. Some of this year’s hottest reads for young adults definitely fall into that category of “disappear for a while,” perfect for the occasional rainy day, a laid back afternoon or a long car trip.
Here are a few of our favorites.
The Our Canadian Girl series, pulled together by a great collection of Canadian women writers, has just released a full collection of anthologies for the entire series based on girls including Emily – a girl from Victoria who grew up in the late 1800s.
This incredibly popular series is selling off the shelves like crazy right now and is getting young girls back into historical fiction like never before. I have to admit that I have spent recent hot afternoons completely absorbed in Emily and Marie-Claire’s stories and am completely in love.
Cathy Cassidy is one of my favorite YA writers right now and she steps up her game with the fun story of loyalty and friendship Shine On Daizy Star. This quick, light read is quirky and makes you smile from the start. A great one for summer road tripping.
Vancouver’s own Winnie Mack knocks one out of the park in the teen angst department with After All, You’re Callie Boone. I LOVED this tale about summer gone bad, the struggle with young friendships and a necessary coming of age.
Mack is a genius storyteller and seems to live in a tween’s head, perfect for the kid who wants something to fret over this summer and needs to rechannel it to someone else.:)
Cartoonist Raina Telgemeier’s latest, Smile, is a fantastic graphic novel about life as sixth-grader in serious need of dentistry work. This autobiographical drama is fun, emotional, a bit of a giggle and great to read – perfect for the tween who loves Bones or other graphic novels and just released to rave reviews.
These titles are definitely some of the hottest of the season, so get them ordered online soon from local bookstores like Laughing Oyster Bookshop in Courtenay to be sure you have copies of these must-reads before the summer disappears.
Photos courtesy of Scholastic Canada and Penguin Publishing.
Category: CREATE & LEARN, Rainy Day Book Club, Youth & Teens
About the Author (Author Profile)
Robin is Our Big Earth’s Executive Editor. A journalist with more than 20 years under her belt, she’s worked for newspapers and magazines across North America. Vancouver Island became her home in 2006 when she and her husband ditched big-city life to raise their daughters close to familySubscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
Although ours isn’t a tween, we have been totally engrossed in Rick Riordan’s “the Lightning Theif” Book one of Percy Jackson’s adventures. I know it’s a bit old (2005) and has Disney’s name on it, but W has been loving it and so have I! The thrills, non-stop action and hip-ness (is that a word?) totally hooks W.
My son read ‘The Lightning Thief’ a year or so ago and STILL raves about it! He can’t wait to see the movie (thankfully he read the book first!) and read more of the series. But finding books for tween boys (who are really into trivia and video games) is a gift so I guess Disney can stamp there name all over it (after the fact) if they must as long as he READS!
Hear, hear Ruth!
I love seeing my kids love reading! They have both jumped right into summer with a book in hand. My son (8) loved all three of the Percy Jackson Adventure stories. Another series he loved was Ranger’s Apprentice by John Flanagan which is set in the time of knights. And he just picked up Eye of the Crow by Shane Peacock – about a boy detective (Shelock Holmes like). My daughter (10) just read Alexandria of Africa by Eric Walters – she loved it. She also enjoyed books by Michael Morpurgo(The Butterfly Lion), Alison Lister (The Quicksand Pony) and is loving the Lightening Thief. Happy reading everyone!
Alix and Ruth. You are the random winners! Congratulations.