I thought I would make a list of books my kids are reading during summer of 2023 as a fun way of tracking where my kids are at and to share book ideas with other book loving families. Last year I posted a couple of lists for what my kids were reading before 1st and 3rd grade and now that they are a year older their tastes have changed. I do want to make a few caveats before everyone gets their pitchforks out on what level is appropriate.
- We do a lot of listening to books in the car during our commute. Most books are easier for kids to digest if they are listened to rather than if kids are reading to themselves so we are able to go up a level or two for our youngest and then talk about it. We also will watch the movie if available after reading books and this really helps with understanding some of the more difficult concepts.
- My kids all read at above grade level. They haven’t always, but we read a lot and it helped them learn very quickly once they got started.
- Every kid is different and learns to read at their own pace. It is much better to read at or slightly above your kid’s grade level than to read something way above and have them get frustrated.
- The most important thing is that reading should be fun!
So with that I will get into the list of what they are reading. We are only a few weeks into the summer and we have already read several books. The favorite so far has been “A Series of Unfortunate Events” by Lemony Snicket. This series has been a hit with our daughter and our son likes it as well. We rewarded them for finishing the first three books with watching the movie for movie night and the kids loved it! They are listening to this series in the car but we also added it to our daughter’s Kindle since she is a voracious reader. If you have not read this series yet it is about a family of orphans that undergo mysterious events when moving from relative to relative after their parents die. There is a lot of problem solving, big words which are defined in the book and hilarity that both of my kids like.
Another series my daughter loves is “The Land of Stories” by Chris Colfer. These are not my son’s style yet but our daughter is obsessed. We were given these books by someone in our Buy Nothing group and I had never heard of them. They are the traditional fairy tales reimagined and from what I understand they are pretty good. I read part of the first book and it was well written. My copy has mysteriously disappeared from behind my bed so I suspect my daughter has borrowed it back to read again.
We found this “Mayor Good Boy” series by Dave Scheidt and Miranda Harmon at the library one day and both of my kids loved it. The series is graphic novels for grades 2-5 and it is about a dog focusing on silliness. I did not read much of these but they were a fast read for both of my kids and they read them a couple of times.
Power Rangers have been the obsession in 2023 for our youngest. We have finally moved on from Ninjago into this long running series. I had no idea that there were over 20 seasons of Power Rangers and honestly until this year I had not watched any of them but now I am an expert and these Shattered Grid graphic novels are a favorite of our son. They are a little bit more challenging to read but I love the message the rangers convey of helping each other and doing good for the universe. We bought a couple of them but we also found copies at our local library.
My daughter has been ready for more challenging books so I brought out some of the books my oldest read around this age. The City of Ember series by Jeanne DuPrau was a favorite of both the oldest and I. Now our middle daughter loves them too. These definitely took her much longer to read than other books she has been reading but she loved them. I kept this series in the car for her so she had something to read on our long car rides out and about. These are about a community that lives underground after a disaster and how they figure out why they are there and what lies on the surface. It is well written and perfect for kids that like a little bit of action and a mystery to solve.
Another book we just read this week was “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” by Jeff Kinney. The kids loved it and we watched the movie for our weekly movie night which was everything I remembered. Although I do have a copy of this one somewhere in the house which I ahem, bought several years ago and have misplaced, the kids listened to this one in the car on the way home from our trip. I am going to have to find our copy and then scout out some thrift stores for the rest of the series. Usually with popular books like these there are tons of copies floating around out there and it is better to buy them used. I would just get them at the library but I can already tell my son will read them repeatedly and I like to encourage that as much as possible.
Wow. We are only a few weeks into the summer and my kids have already read a ton of books! I can’t wait to see what they pick up at the library again next week. For now this list will have to do. If we find some other good books this summer I will do another post next month to let you know what we find. For now, happy reading!!!
Links:
Book Tracker by NothingButDownloads on Etsy
