Summer Reading List
By Paul Hobday / July 14, 2021
While summer is the perfect time to get outside and explore with your kids, there’s no reason they can’t keep reading too!
Your kids certainly deserve to have fun this summer. Just don’t let that be an excuse to skip summer learning activities! Even if summer reading lists started as a way for educators to help kids keep learning, if your kids love to read, it won’t feel like a chore.
Helping Kids Find The Right Books
Of course, it’s great if you can take your kids to the library and let them pick out books. That’s not always an option though. Luckily, the Scholastic site has a terrific guide to help you pick out the right books for your young readers!
When shopping for books online, always look for information about the intended age range. Most children’s books will state this in the description or display it on the cover. You can also check reviews to get a sense of how age-appropriate the book is.
It’s also valuable to think about what lessons the book teaches. Make certain the books on your child’s reading list reinforce important and timely lessons. For example, if your child is working on their alphabet, a book like A is for Alligator might be a perfect choice!
Keeping A Summer Reading Log
Do you meticulously track your books using Goodreads or StoryGraph? Tracking what you read is a great way to set reading goals for yourself and share your favorites with your friends.
Help your kids learn about tracking their own reading with a reading log! I suggest this amazing reading log from ReadWriteThink, an organization loaded with free learning tools. Definitely worth checking out their downloadables.
Featured Summer Reading List
To help kick off your kid’s summer reading, we’ve got a few books from the Lulu bookstore your kids will love.
Unicorn Coloring Book
50 completely unique unicorn coloring pages for kids ages 4-10! Unicorns are so much fun to color because they lead such interesting, magical lives! They meet princesses, dragons and mermaids. They visit castles and enchanted woodlands, fly through stars and rainbow skies and even wind up in the Land of Sweets! Share the fun and magic of unicorns with a special child! This coloring book is a great non-screen activity to stimulate a child’s creativity and imagination. It makes a perfect gift! About this unicorn coloring book: • The pages are single-sided to prevent bleed-through, and so that pages can be removed and displayed. • We have carefully designed each page to be entertaining and suitable for children in the 4 to 10 year-old age range. We have avoided overly-intricate designs as well as overly-simplistic ones. We believe children of this age love coloring fun scenes that fire up their imaginations, not a book full of simple shapes. • The pages are a nice, large 8.5x11 size.
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I Turned Into A Zombie
My name is Wil. On my eleventh birthday, I turned into a zombie. One moment, I was enjoying video games. The next my skin was turning green. I even wanted to eat brains! There's only one thing that can save me. Junk food. Lots of junk food. You can read about the strange, gross and funny things that happened to me and my friends in my diary. I Turned Into a Zombie is a fun, engaging chapter book for kids that love stories where weird things happen.
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Let's Go For A Run
Come join the Beehealthy children on a running adventure you will never forget. Treading through mud, slipping on ice, hopping onto rocks, crawling through branches in the forest. The adventure is endless! Do your best to spot the bear and beware of the GREAT BIG FOREST DOG!!! In this unique, interactive book, the BeeHealthy children embark on an epic journey that utilises their fundamental movements to overcome a range of obstacles on the way.
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Pork Buns and High-Fives
This is a story of an Asian boy growing up in Silicon Valley, California. It is a wonderful coming-of-age true story that shares a powerful theme of overcoming differences, and rising above personal challenges. This inspiring story includes parental wisdom, direction and love. The chapters convey various situations that many children face today. The reader will get a glimpse of Chinese culture. It is a real page turner recommended for children and adults.
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Sometimes a Shoe is a Shoe
We wear our shoes on our feet, but what would a frog do with our shoes? With simple rhyme and colorful pictures, we'll discover shoes being put to use by our animal friends, can you think of how? I'll give you a hint: they're not on their feet!
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I Want to Dance like a Koala Bear
Told in cheerful rhymes and lively illustrations, "I Want to Dance like a Koala Bear" celebrates our desire to dance. A perfect read-aloud book to remind everyone that life is better when you dance your heart out! Parent resource included: Child-friendly definitions to describe the meaning of sophisticated vocabulary words used in the book. Con rimas alegres e ilustraciones vibrantes, "Quiero bailar como un koala" celebra nuestro deseo de bailar. Un libro perfecto para leer en voz alta que nos recuerda que la vida es mejor cuando bailamos con el corazón. Se incluye recurso para padres: Explicaciones sencillas para describir el significado de palabras sofisticadas utilizadas en el libro.
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A Is For Alligator
A Is For Alligator is a fantastic teaching tool! Each page of this delightful book is full of bright and cheerful original watercolor artwork accompanied by a catchy rhyme for each letter of the alphabet. Children will enjoy learning their letters while flipping through the colorful pages again and again!
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Bucky & Daisy's Moody Adventures - Discover: Health & Wellness
Donna Fatigato brings her characters to life to teach the future generations about health, wellness, and nutrition in a unique and fun way! In this edition of The Bucky & Daisy's Moody Adventures Book Collection - Bucky & Daisy discover the importance of health and wellness after feeling ill. As with most children, Bucky and Daisy love to play - but while playing . . . they discover that their moods changed suddenly one day. Their parents tuck them in bed and teach them healthy habits when they awaken! Their adventures continue as they discover the importance of self-love and self-care, in turn they discover the positive affect on their mood, health and well-being. This book contains a bonus parent's corner where there is a guide to assist your children to apply great habits early in life for optimal mental and physical well-being. Enjoy this fun, easy reader, and educational book from Donna the Wellness Builder - assisting all generations to live a great quality of life!
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Super Mom: A Children's Story About The Litter Monster (For Kids Ages 4-6)
ALL MOMS ARE HEALERS, TEACHERS, AND SUPERHEROES
Jimmy and Lily have a Super Mom, and every day with her is wonderful! She cooks pancakes, cures brain freezes, and makes sure they feel safe.
But what happens when Lily makes a bad decision, and it comes back in the form of a giant, magical monster?
SUPER MOM tells the story of a small family full of love and superheroes. It’s a kid’s adventure book, a story about growing up with everyday lessons.
On a regular day out around town, Lily litters without thinking anything of it, and her actions have consequences. The next day, Lily’s birthday, Super Mom will have to defeat the Litter Monster to get everyone home safe and sound – just in time to have birthday cake!
This book will inspire children while teaching them to pay attention to the world around them! It highlights the strengths of all moms out there and asks important questions to teach kids about what is right and wrong.
Lessons include:
-- Being socially conscious
-- Having good manners
-- Making good choices
-- Being healthy
-- Working together to make the world a better place
A perfect bedtime story for children, Super Mom is full of beautiful illustrations that tell the story of Lily’s birthday and her superhero mom keeping the family safe.
Jimmy and Lily learn quite a few things along their journey, including how to stay healthy, why a clean world is a good world, and how moms can do anything when they put their minds to it!
Perfect for kids age 4-6, this is a great book for both teachers and parents to teach kids how to make good decisions as they grow up. A thrilling story full of emotional learning, Jimmy and Lily figure out that all moms are healers and superheroes.
Join this family on their thrilling adventure, and remember to thank your mom for being super!
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The Tree Across the River
The young tree thought he was happy with his side of the river, with his critter friends, and the warm sunshine all around. He thought he had everything he could want, until one day the sunshine lit up a whole world he didn’t even know he needed. That world was the tree across the river. Once his source of life, the river was now his biggest enemy. A barrier so small, yet so impossible to cross, kept him from the love he knew he couldn’t live without.
Love can move mountains. It can make you want to rip up your roots and settle in a new land.
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Rainy the Little Raincloud
Rainy is a little raincloud who thinks he is not important like his friends. Take a ride with him to discover how special he really is.
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Whether you read on a rainy day or as part of your summer schedule, every book is a new opportunity to learn, grow, and explore. Happy Reading!
