Summer is the perfect time for pleasure reading. Whether the readers in your life are looking to pass the time on a road trip, relax at the beach with a new novel, or find a cure for summertime boredom, we’ve got recommendations for all ages! Check out our picks below including sci-fi adventures, escapist fantasy, stories that celebrate the great outdoors, and more adventures perfect for summer.
The Land of the Trolls
Book 1 from the Series Felix and Calcite
Interest Level: Kindergarten – Grade 3
Felix has just found a tunnel to a land full of trolls!
A troll named Calcite is happy to show him around, but the tour ends early when a band of gnomes captures the new friends. That means tiny arrows from tiny bows. The little archers think trolls eat gnomes, but that’s silly—trolls eat rocks! Can Felix and Calcite fix this big misunderstanding?
Monkey with a Tool Belt and the Seaside Shenanigans
From the Series Monkey with a Tool Belt
Interest Level: Preschool – Grade 2
Clark has an enormous problem. Someone is sabotaging his uncle’s seaside resort! What does he do? He calls Chico Bon Bon, the Monkey with a Tool Belt, of course.
Chico and his tool belt start to tackle Clark’s problems, but as soon as Chico fixes one thing, something else breaks! If Chico can’t find out who’s behind these shenanigans, he’ll never get to go surfing!
A Perfect View
Book 3 from the Series Cici: A Fairy’s Tale
Interest Level: Grade 2 – Grade 5
Cici is ready for all her favorite camping activities! She has everything planned for the trip with her dad, her sister, and her friend Kendra. But with Cici’s new fairy powers, nature has more in store for her than she’d expected. A campsite mix-up, stormy weather, and a forest sprite keep testing her good spirits. Can Cici come to see the magic in surprises, before their whole trip is ruined?
Eighth Grade vs. the Machines
From the Series Adventures of the PSS 118
Interest Level: Grade 4 – Grade 7
After the entire population of Earth’s solar system is whisked away by alien technology, Jack and his classmates and teachers aboard the PSS 118 are the only humans left. It’s up to them to find and rescue the rest of humanity—if they can avoid the aliens hunting them down, steer clear of a robot civil war, and figure out who among them might be a traitor.
Cardslinger
Interest Level: Grade 4 – Grade 8
It’s 1881, and a newfangled card game called Mythic is sweeping the nation. Twelve-year-old Jason “Shuffle” Jones doesn’t like it. He and his father created the game for themselves, before his father went missing. Mythic should have disappeared with him. But when Shuffle discovers a clue in a pack of Mythic cards, he sets out on a quest to find his dad. Along the way he clashes with a devious card swindler, an epic twister, and the ruthless bounty hunter Six-Plum Skylla and her gang. As he gets closer to the truth, will he turn tail or push all-in to become a real hero?
The Flight of Swans
Interest Level: Grade 4 – Grade 8
Based on the Brothers Grimm’s fairy tale Six Swans, The Flight of Swans follows Ryn’s journey to save her family and their kingdom.
Princess Andaryn’s six older brothers have always been her protectors—until her father takes a new Queen, a frightening, mysterious woman who enchants the men in the royal family. When Ryn’s attempt to break the enchantment fails, she makes a bargain: the Queen will spare her brothers’ lives if Ryn remains silent for six years.
Ryn thinks she freed her brothers, but she never thought the Queen would turn her brothers into swans. And she never thought she’d have to undo the Queen’s spell alone, without speaking.
Camp So-and-So
Interest Level: Grade 8 – Grade 12
The letters went out in mid-February.
Each letter invited its recipient to spend a week at Camp So-and-So, a lakeside retreat for girls nestled high in the Starveling Mountains. Each letter came with a glossy brochure with photographs of young women climbing rocks, performing Shakespearean theatre under the stars, and spiking volleyballs. Each letter was signed in ink by the famed and reclusive businessman and philanthropist, Inge F. Yancey IV.
By the end of the month, twenty-five applications had been completed, signed, and mailed to a post office box in an obscure Appalachian town.
Had any of these girls tried to follow the directions in the brochure and visit the camp for themselves on that day in February, they would have discovered that there was no such town and no such mountain and that no one within a fifty-mile radius had ever heard of Camp So-and-So . . .
Castle of Lies
Interest Level: Grade 7 – Grade 12
Thelia isn’t in line to inherit the crown, but she’s been raised to take power however she can. She’s been friends with Princess Corene her whole life, and she’s scheming to marry Bayled, the heir to the throne. But her plans must change when an army of elves invades the kingdom. Thelia, her cousin Parsifal, and Corene become trapped in the castle. An elf warrior, Sapphire, may be Thelia’s only hope of escape, but Sapphire has plans of their own. Meanwhile, an ancient magic is awakening within the castle, with the power to destroy the whole kingdom. Can Thelia find a way to protect her future—and her life?
The American Dream? A Journey on Route 66 Discovering Dinosaur Statues, Muffler Men, and the Perfect Breakfast Burrito
Interest Level: Grade 6 – Grade 12
As a child growing up in Malaysia, Shing Yin Khor had two very different ideas of what “America” meant.
The first looked a lot like Hollywood, full of beautiful people, sunlight, and freeways. The second looked more like The Grapes of Wrath—a nightmare landscape filled with impoverished people, broken-down cars, barren landscapes, and broken dreams.
Follow along on Shing’s solo journey (small adventure-dog included) along the iconic Route 66, beginning in Santa Monica and ending up Chicago. What begins as a road trip ends up as something more like a pilgrimage in search of an American landscape that seems forever shifting and forever out of place.