Take a Trip to the Beach in a Book!

Here in Southern California, graduation parties are in full swing and beach weather has arrived. Whether or not you live anywhere near an ocean, nothing screams "summer" more than the thought of the sand and surf! Take a trip to the sea in one of these unique books...

RHINOS WHO SURF, by Julie Mammano (for ages 3-5) A bright picture book, with playful text, and even a surf lingo glossary! Hilarious!

WAVE by Suzy Lee. (ages 3-5) Discover with your child the sense of wonder that the ocean inspires through a little girl's day at the beach in this wordless picture book.

FLOTSAM by David Wiesner. Another beautiful wordless picture book. (ages 4 and up) A boy finds a camera at the beach and the film inside reveals fascinating underwater pictures as well as children around the world, so the boy takes his own picture and returns the camera to the sea where it will journey to another child. (Caldecott 2007)

BATS AT THE BEACH by Brian Lies. (ages 4-8) An unconvential beach story about bats visiting the beach in the moonlight.  This fun picture book is full of stunning illustrations, revealing how the bats travel silently throught the night with picnic baskets, moon-tan lotion, and kites.

KERMIT THE HERMIT by Bill Peet (ages 5-8) Wonderful story told in rhyme (Dr. Seuss style) about a Hermit Crab. Kermit is a "selfish shellfish" who hoards all kinds of unnecessary things. He is saved from a near mishap by a boy and discovers the value of sharing. My kids asked for this story over and over. Mr. Peet was a top writer and illustrator for several of DISNEY'S animated films, before becoming a children's book author/illustrator in the 1960's.

HATTIE AND THE WILD WAVES, by Barbara Cooney (for ages 5-8) Read this picture book about a little girl who lives by the sea, off the New England Coast at the turn of the century. Her dream is to become an artist. You'll love the richly detailed paintings as much as your child will!

ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS, by Scott O'Dell (for ages 10-13) A 1961 Newbury Medal was awarded to this riveting novel. The book was inspired by the real-life story of a 12-year-old American Indian girl, Karana, and her fight for survival on the island of San Nicholas, off the coast of Santa Barbara, CA. Definitely in our Top-Ten-Family-Favorites!  

Do you have a favorite beach book?
You might also like Night of the Moonjellies by Mark Shasha (click the title to read my past post.)

Books Even Busy Boys Will Come Inside For

Look at my muddy sons!  This photo brings back fun memories.  In our family, summertime meant lots of outdoor playtime, swim lessons, and jaunts to the beach.  But we also encouraged trips to the library and summer reading. 

How could books ever compete with sunny days full of bikes and mud??  With choices like the ones below (as promised, I'll be blogging about fun summer reading for the month of June).


Books Even Boys Will Come Inside For...eventually:
The Stories Julian Tells (series) by Ann Cameron. 

I immediately went out and found this book at the library after reading Jim Trelease's summary in his Read Aloud Handbook. "The author takes six short stories involving Julian and his brother and weaves them into a fabric that glows with the mischief, magic, and imagination of childhood. Though centered on commonplace subjects like desserts, gardens, loose teeth, and new neighbors, these stories of family life are written in an uncommon way that will both amuse and touch young listeners." It really engaged our boys' imaginations.


The Great Brain (series) by John D. Fitzgerald. (ages 8-12)

This book was an all time favorite of my oldest son, about the hilarious adventures of an Irish-Catholic family in Mormon Utah in 1896.  Tom - a.k.a. "the Great Brain" - is a 10-year-old genius con man, always interested in making a profit (and always learning a lesson.)


Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl (ages 8-12). 

These books made a huge impact on my oldest son.  Along with Norman Jester's The Phantom Tollbooth, Roald Dahl's books introduced him to imaginative fantasy through quirky humor and fun wordplay. Dahl's books are about childhood justice and delight, full of imagination and the best kind of storytelling. Charlie Bucket lives with his mother and four bedridden grandparents in their one-room home. Charlie wins a trip into the magical, fantastical world of Williy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. A satirical look at want and need, greed and generosity, all remedied through the methods of the eccentric candy maker. Not to be missed!


Maniac McGee, by Jerry Spinelli (ages 9-12). 

This is the story of a 12-year-old runaway boy. As a stranger to the town of Two Mills, he is naively ignorant of the racial divide between the East and West sides of town. He's also unaware that his life will become legend as he performs one amazing feat after another (like running 49 touchdowns in a single game!) You won't believe the miraculous things he does - the most courageous being the healing of the division in the town and the end of the racial prejudice there. Good contemporary fiction.

The Indian in the Cupboard (series), by Lynne Reid Banks. (Ages 8-12) 

Exciting, absorbing, and thought provoking story, alive with magic as two boys discover they can bring their toys to life by putting them in an old medicine cabinet that one of them receives - along with a small plastic Indian - for his birthday. They are faced with the responsibility of this tiny person and the consequences of their actions. Gives new meaning to the phrase, "the dignity of human life".


Summer of the Monkeys by Wilson Rawls.

I guarantee your boys won't be able to put this book down! (If you missed it, you can read my past post here). Independent Readers: grades 5 and up. Family Read Aloud: ages 9 and up.

MAY IS GONE AND IT'S TIME FOR NANCY DREW

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time. ~John Lubbock

Memorial Day weekend is over and June has begun, bringing with it the promise of warm sunny days as the school year winds down.  Mom and Dad's taxi service gets a bit of a rest and there is unscheduled time for kids to be creative, get outdoors, and just lie around reading - for fun!

Starting the summer I was about nine or ten, a search began in earnest for "chapter books" that I could get lost in.  I think it all began with the adventuresome and wacky Pippi Longstocking books, moving on to the Little House series.

Finally, the summer I was eleven or twelve, I was solving mysteries with Nancy Drew. (What is it that we love so much about red-headed heroines? Have you read my post about Lauren Child's illustrations for Pippi Longstocking and Anne of Green Gables?)

Some of my old Nancy Drew books - remember Bess and George,
and Nancy's blue roadster convertible?

As my children became independent readers, I encouraged them to find fun books for summer reading.  It brought me back to my own childhood to see them curled up with a good book on a lazy summer day.

I've decided to dedicate my June posts to reviewing/reposting some of our favorite summer picks for independent readers who want fun chapter books.  I've started a list below - watch for my posts about these great books.  And let me know which of your favorites I've left out!

THE GREAT BRAIN
SUMMER OF THE MONKEYS
THE PENDERWICKS
TOM'S MIDNIGHT GARDEN
PETER PAN
CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY
(and other books by Roald Dahl)

GIVING AWAY FREE BOOKS!

Have you heard? Barnes and Nobel's summer reading program is up and running -- between now and September 4, 2012, they're giving away free books! Read any 8 books, complete your Imagination's Destination Journal, and go to any B&N store to get a free book. (Details are HERE.) 

SOME GOOD BOOK LISTS TO GET YOUR KIDS' SUMMER READING STARTED:
I hope you visit your local library this summer as well - they have lots of fun incentives to get your kids reading.  Not sure what to read?

26 foot tall "READ" Across America sign on the steps of the NYPL, 2011.

Helpful Links:

THE TOP 100 PICTURE BOOK POLL RESULTS These books are for children ages 4-8.  The poll is from 2009.

THE TOP 100 CHILDREN'S NOVELS (CHAPTER BOOK) POLL RESULTS These are books for kids who can read full chapters on their own and who are under the age of 13.  The poll is from 2010.

You might also find these two lists from the NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY website helpful:
100 PICTURE BOOKS EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW (this list of recommended books is in alphabetical order and contains short picture book summaries).
100 FAVORITE CHILDREN'S BOOKS (This reading list allows you to look at the recommended chapter books according to genre).

Do have musically inclined kids?  Check out the CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY'S Noteworthy Books and Music LIST.

WHAT DO I LOVE ABOUT REAL BOOKS?

...from William Lyon Phelps (1865-1943), Lampson Professor of English literature at Yale University, distinguished lecturer, author, critic and ordained minister:

William Lyon Phelps speaks

On Books

(From a radio broadcast on April 6, 1933)

The habit of reading is one of the greatest resources of mankind; and we enjoy reading books that belong to us much more than if they are borrowed. A borrowed book is like a guest in the house; it must be treated with punctiliousness, with a certain considerate formality. You must see that it sustains no damage; it must not suffer while under your roof. You cannot leave it carelessly, you cannot mark it, you cannot turn down the pages, you cannot use it familiarly. And then, some day, although this is seldom done, you really ought to return it.

But your own books belong to you; you treat them with that affectionate intimacy that annihilates formality. Books are for use, not for show; you should own no book that you are afraid to mark up, or afraid to place on the table, wide open and face down. A good reason for marking favorite passages in books is that this practice enables you to remember more easily the significant sayings, to refer to them quickly, and then in later years, it is like visiting a forest where you once blazed a trail. You have the pleasure of going over the old ground, and recalling both the intellectual scenery and your own earlier self.


Everyone should begin collecting a private library in youth; the instinct of private property, which is fundamental in human beings, can here be cultivated with every advantage and no evils. 

Build a child's library one book at a time, starting when they are born.

One should have one's own bookshelves, which should not have doors, glass windows, or keys; they should be free and accessible to the hand as well as to the eye. The best of mural decorations is books; they are more varied in color and appearance than any wallpaper, they are more attractive in design, and they have the prime advantage of being separate personalities, so that if you sit alone in the room in the firelight, you are surrounded with intimate friends. 

My husband and daughter at Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris.

The knowledge that they are there in plain view is both stimulating and refreshing. You do not have to read them all. Most of my indoor life is spent in a room containing six thousand books; and I have a stock answer to the invariable question that comes from strangers. "Have you read all of these books?"
"Some of them twice." This reply is both true and unexpected.


There are of course no friends like living, breathing, corporeal men and women; my devotion to reading has never made me a recluse. How could it? 

Books are of the people, by the people, for the people. Literature is the immortal part of history; it is the best and most enduring part of personality. But book-friends have this advantage over living friends; you can enjoy the most truly aristocratic society in the world whenever you want it. The great dead are beyond our physical reach, and the great living are usually almost as inaccessible; as for our personal friends and acquaintances, we cannot always see them. Perchance they are asleep, or away on a journey.

But in a private library, you can at any moment converse with Socrates or Shakespeare or Carlyle or Dumas or Dickens or Shaw or Barrie or Galsworthy. And there is no doubt that in these books you see these men at their best. They wrote for you. They "laid themselves out," they did their ultimate best to entertain you, to make a favorable impression. You are necessary to them as an audience is to an actor; only instead of seeing them masked, you look into their innermost heart of heart."

(Source: William Lyon Phelps Foundation WEBSITE)

SUMMER READING CELEBRATION AT THE PLACENTIA LIBRARY

My table was full of information about good read aloud books.

I met and talked to at least 200 kids and their parents today that stopped by my table on their way to free pony and train rides, puppet shows, crafts, and free food (snowcones, hotdogs, pizza, and more!)

Marisa Timothy, Administrative Assistant

It's absolutely amazing to me what a good "Friends of the Library Foundation" can accomplish.  In Placentia, California, they were able to donate money to their library -- not only for an awesome computer center, but also to sponsor the library's 3rd Annual Summer Reading Celebration for the community, marking the end of their summer reading program.

The visionary library director, Jeanette Contreras, has a wonderful staff and team of volunteers to thank for all their help in putting together a wonderfully organized day.

Click HERE to read my past post about the Placentia Library and their great storytime for children.

Deep in Summerland

It’s August and deep in Summerland. I’ve been to the Cape and to the
Catskills where our summer cabin is. I just got back from the Jersey shore—Ocean Grove and Asbury Park, that perennially edgy beach town, clawing its way back to respectability. The creepy old Howard Johnson restaurant, built in the early 60’s and made to look like a hokey spaceship, has been renovated with an open bar and palm trees in elephantine-sized wicker pots. The once-abandoned boardwalk that used to have one lone saltwater taffy store is brimming with surf shops and Cuban restaurants. Stay slightly edgy, is my advice! Things change—except the need to get away from it all in the pit of steamy summer. Attention to television series, classes, the hustle in general, turns to nature, sea breezes, fizzy and cold concoctions that can quickly cool. The photos at Idea Farm show our first peaches and Winesaps. Also, my potbellied pig, Thistle, who is an ancient 15 years old and plucky as ever!

Are you still trying to write through it all? Or do you tend to take a break from that too—in order to regroup and rekindle? I finished a 2^nd polish on a manuscript in the first week of August, including a cut of 31 pages—no small feat. And I’m almost finished manuscript evaluation #2 for my clients. And soon, it’ll be time to call a halt for the last two weeks—to everything but reading and conceptualizing (which looks like loafing). So far, I've read two eye-opening books for a course I'm proposing: POINT OMEGA by Don Delillo and THE COLLECTOR by John Fowles (very disturbing but powerful).

How about you? What are your deep Summerland pleasures?

A BOY, A GRANDMOTHER, AND A SCIENCE LESSON!

"This beautifully illustrated picture book evokes the fullness of a New England childhood through descriptions of a single summer day."

—Publishers Weekly

NIGHT OF THE MOONJELLIES by Mark Shasha. This book was inspired by the author's memories of working at his grandmother's hot dog stand by the sea in New London, Connecticut in the 1970s. It features the warm relationship between the main character and his grandmother, along with the hustle and bustle of the busy day at the hot dog stand. Seven-year-old Mark finds "something that felt like jelly" on the beach. After their busy day at work, Gram and Mark take a boat out to sea, where Mark sees an oceanful of shimmering white lights--moonjellies--and returns his to the water.


What exactly are "moonjellies"? Visit Mark Shasha's website to find out.  (Hint:  they're not "jellyfish".)

Many homeschoolers have discovered this story and used it as part of literature-based FIVE IN A ROW cirriculum...look at what this inspired mom did with her kids, while they read and completed activities for NIGHT OF THE MOONJELLIES - click here.

FIREFLIES!

When I was young, living in the South, there was nothing I liked better on warm summer nights than hunting "Lightning Bugs" (which is what we called Fireflies).  Are you lucky enough to live where there are Fireflies? If not, share this wonderfully entrancing video I found on Youtube with your kids and you'll feel like you're there...then go and find today's recommended books!

SAM AND THE FIREFLY, by P.D. Eastman. When Sam, the owl, teaches Gus, the firefly, to write words in the sky, cars crash, movies are free, and hot dogs are cold.

THE VERY LONELY FIREFLY by Eric Carle. The firefly buzzes off in search of companionship, but keeps following other lights by mistake--a candle, a flashlight, a lantern--and these in turn are all leading in the direction of a fireworks display. Finally, the lonely firefly finds the friends it is seeking--a dozen or more other fireflies (you child will love the surprise on the last page!)

SUMMER BEDTIME

Alaska's Midnight Sun, by Deb Vanasse. In Alaska, kids can go to bed as late as 11 p.m. and still have light outside their window! This sweet poetic book, illustrated by award-winner Jeremiah Trammell, showcases the many pleasures of this unique time as a little girl dances, fishes, plays games, watches moose and fox, and communes with family and nature.  She manages to stay awake past midnight, before finally winding down and falling asleep.

Have you ever read the poem BED IN SUMMER by Robert Louis Stevenson? It captures perfectly the frustration I remember feeling as a young child in the summer when, while lying in bed, I could still see light outside my window and hear the older neighborhood kids playing games like "Kick the Can".

BED IN SUMMER
In Winter I get up at night

And dress by yellow candle light.

In Summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see

The birds still hopping on the tree,

Or hear the grown-up people's feet

Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,

When all the sky is clear and blue,

And I should like so much to play,

To have to go to bed by day?

When I was older, I was finally allowed to stay out until dark and have fun. We caught fireflies (we called them "lightning bugs" - more about that in tomorrow's post) and played the fun hybrid game of tag and hide-and-go-seek, "Kick the Can" -- the bigger the can the louder the "CLANG", when it was kicked.  (Another fun nighttime game is "Flashlight Tag" - CLICK HERE to learn more.)

Goodnight!

SUMMER SEDUCTION AT THE LIBRARY?

seduce (v.)- to win over, attract, or lure.


Yes - Summer Reading Programs are a successful way many libraries lure children to their bookshelves and win kids over to the world of reading.  For example, the CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY'S 2011 Summer Reading Theme is "Book Beats".  Check out their great list of Noteworthy Books and Music ("to extend your knowledge and experience with music").


BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY'S Summer Reading Program is "One World, Many Stories".  Their website has an interesting book list by subject that can be found HERE.  Many public libraries share this same theme for 2011, including the LOS ANGELES PUBLIC LIBRARY - CLICK HERE to see LA's many planned events this summer.

My kids always looked forward to the Summer Reading Program at our local library (Huntington Beach Public Library, see article at the end of this post). Armed with their book satchels, they made weekly visits and eagerly awaited the incentive prizes given out for reading a certain number of books - usually stickers, pencils, and coupons for free food at local kid-friendly restaurants.


Don't Get Caught Without a Good Book List...
The challenge was finding quality literature that was inspirational, and of course, F-U-N.  I recently came across two polls conducted by one of School Library Journal's bloggers, Elizabeth Bird (A Fuse #8 Production), that I think you'll find helpful in your book searches.  Elizabeth (who is also a librarian at the Children's Center 42nd Street of the NY Public Library system) polled other children's book bloggers to get these lists.  Do you agree with the poll results?

THE TOP 100 PICTURE BOOK POLL RESULTS These books are for children ages 4-8.  The poll is from 2009.
THE TOP 100 CHILDREN'S NOVELS (CHAPTER BOOK) POLL RESULTS These are books for kids who can read full chapters on their own and who are under the age of 13.  The poll is from 2010.

You might also find these two lists from the NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY website helpful:
100 PICTURE BOOKS EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW (this list of recommended books is in alphabetical order and contains short book summaries).
100 FAVORITE CHILDREN'S BOOKS (This reading list allows you to look at the recommended chapter books according to genre).

From "Lola at the Library", by Anna McQuinn,
illustrations by Rosalind Beardshaw.

NOTE: The impetus for my post today was a great article by Teryl Zarnow, from my own local ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER.  In "They Go Old School to Hook Little Readers", Zarnow applauds the FRIENDS OF THE CHILDREN'S LIBRARY in Huntington Beach for helping the city's public library kick-off its Summer Reading Program with its daylong FESTIVAL OF FOLKTALES.  She reports that during the Summer Reading Program "...some 63 volunteers read to about 200 children, burning through stickers like tissues during allergy season."  Zarnow suggests readers visit their local public library, where "they are still practicing magic and bringing new generations under the spell of reading".

Do you live in Orange County, CA, like I do?  Check out the O.C. Public Library Summer Reading Program Schedule HERE.