Recommended Summer Reads

Relaxing in the backyard with a good book while the warm summer sun comforts you is a great summer activity. The only question now is, what will my kids be reading? Every parent of an avid reader knows how difficult it can be to keep up with book screening when their child is going through them as if they are going out of style. Book lists are great resources for parents who want to let their child read safe and trusted books. “Read for the Heart”, “The Hand that Rocks the Cradle”, “Honey for a Woman’s Heart”, “Honey for a Teen’s Heart” and “Honey for a Child’s Heart” are four that we highly recommend. Speaking to other trusted Mom’s and asking their opinions can be another good way to find some gems for your reader. Here is a booklist of novels that we have fallen in love with.

Very Young Readers

The Story of Ferdinand

The White Stone in the Castle Wall

The Magic Schoolbus Series

How to Make Apple Pie and See the World

If you Give a Moose a Muffin

*Three Weavers

Young Readers

The Tales of Old Mother West Wind (A series of book that teach various morals through a cast of loveable animal characters)

*Sarah, Plain and Tall (A Prairie tale about a widower who sends for a mail order bride to become a mother for his children)

*Courage of Sara Noble

The Littles (A series about a family of people the size of mice and about their everyday life under the floorboards of a regular size family)

*Boxcar Children (A series about four orphans who solve mysteries from their boxcar in their backyard)

*The Bridge (A medieval triology about the royalty of a fictional kingdom at war)

Middle Readers

*Hatchet by Gary Paulsen (About a boy surviving in the wilderness with just a hatchet.)

The Kingdom Series by Chuck Black (A medieval retelling of popular bible stories)

I Am David (A drama involving a 12-year-old boy who escapes from a prison camp and survives on his own in Europe)

*Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (A heartwarming tale about a mountain boy who loves his dog)

*Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maude Montgomery (An endearing tale of the everyday life of an everyday school girl growing up on PEI)

*Marguerite Henry Books (For horse lovers everywhere)

*Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (A Southern classic of a boy who would rather spend weeks rafting down a lazy river than wearing starch collars and attending school)

*Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder (A prairie saga based on the everyday life of a contented farming family)

*The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis (A fantasy analogy about the world of Narnia, where Aslan the Lion and the White Witch constantly clash)

Ella Enchanted (A fictional novel of a girl who must obey everything she is told)

Older Readers

(May include mature content)

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (A suspense novel written by one of the great creators of science fiction)

*Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (A Gothic romance of a young governess and her experience with the world)

*The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (A novelette presenting the concept of a man of pure good who can turn in to a man of pure evil)

*A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (A long story about a boy who becomes a gentleman)

The Mark of the Lion Series by Francine Rivers (A story of a Christian living in Rome and her journey through the trials and tragedy that find her)

*Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (An epic fantasy story in the world of Middle Earth)

*Study guides can be purchased for these books

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