What to Read to Your Kids

Welcome to the second of three installments of my Summer Reading Guide! This round-up includes a whopping seventeen brand new middle-grade books for a range of readers, from animal lovers to Dog Man aficionados, fantasy seekers to summer camp dreamers, mystery solvers to history buffs, and everything in between. There’s even a touch of elementary-appropriate romance! The list spans a mix of traditional novels and graphic novels, and I’ve included an example of an interior spread where illustration factors into the enjoyment of the story.

Nearly all of these have been published in just the past few weeks or months. THAT SAID, I must encourage you to take a look at my Spring Break Reading Round-Up from earlier in the year, with what will undoubtedly end up being some of my very favorite middle grade of the entire year. If your kiddos haven’t found their way into the likes of The Liars Society, Max in the House of Spies, The First State of Being, or Not Quite a Ghost, consider them musts. Likewise, Katherine Marsh’s Medusa, an action-packed, thought-provoking story about a group of kids descended from Greek Monsters, is being met with such enthusiasm by my readers at the shop (and me!) that I’ve chosen it for Old Town Book’s inaugural Camp Bookworm. If you’re local, encourage your kids to read the book, then join us in person to discuss and meet Katherine Marsh herself (!) on Tuesday, August 27, at 6pm at the bookshop.

Now, a quick word for my fantasy lovers. There are two fantasies on the below list, but there should be more. One of my colleagues with a deep love of fantasy and a great eye for kid lit read and loved two additional fantasies that made it onto our shop’s Summer Reading Guide but are not included here, simply because I haven’t had time to read them yet. They are: Julie Kagawa’s Lightningborn: Storm Dragons, a series starter about a boy who finds a wild baby dragon, believed to be extinct, and becomes the focus of an evil sky pirate’s vengeance; and Ryan Graudin’s The Girl Who Kept the Castle, another series starter about a girl who must save her home from destruction when a not-totally-dead wizard’s inheritance competition goes awry (think Nevermoor meets Howl’s Moving Castle). It should also be said that every single fantasy on last year’s Summer Reading Guide—and there were some fabulous ones—now have sequels out (hello, Greenwild!).

OK, let’s gooooo! As always, the list is organized in ascending order of target ages.