Our middle grade book spotlight this week is all about Tales of Summer Adventures!!! The titles for this week are to help you get ready to kick off your summer adventures as well as to jump start our Summer Reading Program! All of these stories take place during the summer months but each are unique in their adventures. Some of our characters are away at various camps having traditional summer adventures while others are trying to figure out who they are and what they want out of life or reminiscing on how their past summer has just changed them forever. We have mysteries, thrillers, realistic, romantic, historical and more so there is something for everyone to kick off their summer adventures and reading. These books and more can be found by searching the catalog using the search tag #youthsummervacay as well as on Libby and Hoopla.
The 2021 Summer Reading Program takes place from June 5th-August 11th with a new theme and badge activities every week. Make sure to watch the Middle Grade Book Spotlight book talk video for this week as it counts towards your badge activities for the week; if you read one of the titles featured or on the tagged list, that counts as another activity as well!!! Earn the weekly themed badges to get your virtual tickets which can be turned into opportunities to win prizes! For more information--such as to sign up or to sign in to your account in order to track your books and activities--visit our Summer Reading page and click “LOG IN NOW”.
Check back next week for a new middle grade book spotlight and if you have any book suggestions, please let us know!!
Any Day With You by Mae Respicio--The summer before seventh grade, Kaia, who enjoys living in Southern California, visiting the beach with her family, and creating movie make-up effects, makes a film with her friends to win a contest and hopefully prevent her beloved great-grandfather from moving back to the Philippines.
Here In the Real World by Sara Pennypacker--Immersing himself in a fantasy world of knights and chivalry, introverted Ware is sent to a summer camp designed around social interactions and begins building a castle-like private space while clashing with a fellow misfit.
A Clatter of Jars by Lisa Graff--At Camp Atropos, many of the children have superhuman abilities, otherwise known as "Talents." Liliana isn't happy to be stuck spending the summer there with her stepsister Hannah and without her brother Max. But when a jar filled with a mysterious Talent drops to the bottom of the lake, things get weird. And the camp director's secret could take things from weird to dangerous.
Sunny Side Up by Jennifer Holm--It's the summer of 1976, and nothing in 10-year-old Sunny's life seems to be going right. She was supposed to go on a vacation with her best friend, but instead she's stuck in a retirement village in Florida visiting her grandfather, and her Dorothy Hamill haircut request has resulted in a perpetual bad hair day. But by focusing on these daily disappointments, Sunny deflects her attention from an even bigger concern—her older brother's destructive drug and alcohol addictions. When Sunny meets a new friend who introduces her to comic books, she starts to see metaphoric parallels in the struggles the superheroes must face to the obstacles in her own life, giving her renewed strength and courage to meet her challenges.
Half a Chance by Cynthia Lord--After moving to a small cottage in New Hampshire, 12-year-old Lucy Emery is left to her own devices when her photographer father leaves on another assignment. Lucy, a photographer herself, signs up for a local youth photography contest her father will be judging. Over the course of the summer, Lucy searches for subjects to capture with her lens, and ends up forging a friendship with her new neighbor, Nate. Nate is dealing with his own familial issues, particularly an aging grandmother deep in the throes of dementia. When Lucy takes a moving picture of his grandmother that she knows would do well in the contest, she struggles over whether to submit it and how to help Nate through this difficult time.
Charlie Joe Jackson’s Guide to Summer Vacation by Tommy Greenwald--When middle school student Charlie Joe Jackson has to go to academic summer camp, he tries to make the other kids hate reading and writing as well. But at the end of the camp, he has to admit that it wasn't so bad after all.