Summer is the PERFECT time for reading for children (and adults!)!
Here’s a collection of middle grade books to enjoy during this special reading season.
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Harriet Spies by Elana K. Arnold
Harriet Spies is a delightful book sure to appeal to a wide range of middle-grade readers. In it, we meet Harriet, a young girl staying at her grandmother’s bed and breakfast on Marble Island for the summer while her mother is home on bed rest waiting for her baby brother to arrive. Harriet has an honest heart and feels deeply but tends to lie to others without thinking. A lot. So when one of her grandmother’s guest’s binoculars goes missing, they have trouble believing she did not play a role in their disappearance. Together with her new friend Clarence, they set out to find the missing binoculars and prove Harriet’s innocence. This book has everything a middle grade novel needs: strong, relatable characters, real life experiences and a satisfying ending for all, not to mention a powerful life lesson of telling the truth to yourself and others. This is the second book in the Just Harriet series and will delight fans of Harriet the Spy and Ramona Quimby.
Caterpillar Summer by Gillian McDunn
Cat and her brother Chicken have always had a very special bond–Cat is one of the few people who can keep Chicken happy. When he has a “meltdown” she’s the one who scratches his back and reads his favorite story. She’s the one who knows what Chicken needs. Since their mom has had to work double-hard to keep their family afloat after their father passed away, Cat has been the glue holding her family together.
But even the strongest glue sometimes struggles to hold. When a summer trip doesn’t go according to plan, Cat and Chicken end up spending three weeks with grandparents they never knew. For the first time in years, Cat has the opportunity to be a kid again, and the journey she takes shows that even the most broken or strained relationships can be healed if people take the time to walk in one another’s shoes.
One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia
In the summer of 1968, after travelling from Brooklyn to Oakland, California, to spend a month with the mother they barely know, eleven-year-old Delphine and her two younger sisters arrive to a cold welcome as they discover that their mother, a dedicated poet and printer, is resentful of the intrusion of their visit and wants them to attend a nearby Black Panther summer camp.
Shouting at the Rain by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
Delsie loves tracking the weather–lately, though, it seems the squalls are in her own life. She’s always lived with her kindhearted Grammy, but now she’s looking at their life with new eyes and wishing she could have a “regular family.” Delsie observes other changes in the air, too–the most painful being a friend who’s outgrown her. Luckily, she has neighbors with strong shoulders to support her, and Ronan, a new friend who is caring and courageous but also troubled by the losses he’s endured. As Ronan and Delsie traipse around Cape Cod on their adventures, they both learn what it means to be angry versus sad, broken versus whole, and abandoned versus loved. And that, together, they can weather any storm.
Chirp by Kate Messner
When Mia moves to Vermont the summer after seventh grade, she’s recovering from the broken arm she got falling off a balance beam. And packed away in the moving boxes under her clothes and gymnastics trophies is a secret she’d rather forget.
Mia’s change in scenery brings day camp, new friends, and time with her beloved grandmother. But Gram is convinced someone is trying to destroy her cricket farm. Is it sabotage or is Gram’s thinking impaired from the stroke she suffered months ago? Mia and her friends set out to investigate, but can they uncover the truth in time to save Gram’s farm? And will that discovery empower Mia to confront the secret she’s been hiding–and find the courage she never knew she had?
The Best Worst Summer by Elizabeth Eulberg
This is going to be the worst summer ever for Peyton. Her family just moved, and she had to leave her best friend behind. She’s lonely. She’s bored. Until . . . she comes across a box buried in her backyard, with a message: I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. Things are about to get interesting.
Back in 1989, it’s going to be the best summer ever for Melissa and Jessica. They have two whole months to goof around and explore, and they’re even going to bury a time capsule! But when one girl’s family secret starts to unravel, it’s clear things may not go exactly as planned.
In alternating chapters, from Peyton in present day to Melissa three decades earlier (a time with no cell phones, no social media, and camera film that took days to develop, but also a whole lot of freedom), a story of a mystery that two sets of characters will never forget.
The Parker Inheritance by Varian Johnson
I love books that take me on a journey and this book did exactly that. I traveled from the deep south in the early 1900’s to present day South Carolina, following Candice and Brandon as they worked to solve the mystery Candice’s grandmother unsuccessfully attempted to solve so long ago. In between finding clues and putting the puzzle pieces together, they learn about themselves, about friendship and injustice, about family and the ties that bind us all together. I highly recommend this book.
When Life Gives You Mangos by Kereen Getten
Twelve-year-old Clara lives on an island that visitors call exotic. But there’s nothing exotic about it to Clara. She loves eating ripe mangos off the ground, running outside in the rain with her Papa during rainy season, and going to her secret hideout with Gaynah–even though lately she’s not acting like a best friend.
The only thing out of the ordinary for Clara is that something happened to her memory that made her forget everything that happened last summer after a hurricane hit. Sometimes things come back to her in drips like a tap that hasn’t been turned off properly. Other times her Mama fills in the blanks…only she knows those aren’t her memories and it is hard feeling like she is not like everybody else.
But this summer is going to be different for Clara. Everyone is buzzing with excitement over a new girl in the village who is not like other visitors. She is about to make big waves on the island–and give Clara a summer she won’t forget.
