Slice of Life: Summery Middle Grade Titles

I've met monthly for book club with a group of middle school students this past year. We started the year by reading Mock Newbery possibilities and then moved to March Book Madness titles after the Newbery was announced in January. We took a couple of months off while I was traveling and enjoying the arrival of my new grandson. 

Last month, I asked the book club members if they would like to have a meeting before school was out. They were definitely interested. I thought it would be fun to feature titles set in summer or with summer in their titles for this final meeting of the school year. Unfortunately, only three titles (of the many I requested) arrived before our meeting in June. We planned to select a title for our July meeting from these titles. We meet at the public library during July and August.

The Summer of May - "An angry thirteen-year-old girl and her hated English teacher spend a summer school class together, learning surprising things about each other." (Follett)

Summer at Forsaken Lake - "Twelve-year-old Nicholas and his ten-year-old, twin sisters, Hetty and Haley, spend the summer with their Great-Uncle Nick at Forsaken Lake, where he and their new friend Charlie investigate the truth about an accident involving their families many years before." (Follett)

Cosmic - "Twelve-year-old Liam, tall for his age, is often mistaken for an adult, a fact that he uses when he finds himself in a group of children on the first manned spacecraft since Apollo 17. When things go wrong, some quick thinking by the kids averts a disaster. Likable characters, gentle humor, and the far-fetched adventure will hold readers' attention." (Horn Book Guide)

Our group selected Summer at Forsaken Lake. When I stopped by our local indie bookstore, I discovered that it wasn't readily available in paperback. But I learned that Kate Messner's Breakout had just became available in paperback this month.

"In sleepy Wolf Creek, New York, a prison breakout sets the community on edge and brings racial tensions to the surface. Messner tells the story through letters, transcriptions, newspaper articles, and other items the three girl protagonists gather for a school time-capsule assignment. Doses of humor and details about the main characters' everyday lives help leaven the story, which delivers timely and relevant messages." (Horn Book Guide)

The day after our book club meeting, ten more books arrived on my holds shelf at the library. And because I can't resist sharing these books with someone, I decided to write this post. If you're in search of a good middle grade summer read, here's a pic of the stack of titles I picked up. I stacked them in order of publication dates with the oldest publication on top to the more recent titles on the bottom. I've read two of these titles, My Life as a Book and Three Times Lucky (click on the title for my 2012 review).

You may notice an excellent summer title, The Penderwicks, absent from the stack. I didn't include it because most of my book club members have already read it and loved it. I'm adding The Girls of Firefly Cabin which I just read about on Jana's #IMWAYR post. And one more title that I carried upstairs to read because it's about summer and a teen who has to spend her summer vacation volunteering at the library, A Kind of Paradise.

Happy summer reading! If you have a favorite middle grade summer read or if you've read some I've shared and want to recommend them to my book club members, let me know in the comments.

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