Reading Partners DC’s Summer Reading List

Barry Brinkley, the executive director of Reading Partners DC, recommends these books for your child’s summer reading list.

Ella’s Summer Fun: A Kids Yoga Summer Book

Ages 6 – 8

Join Ella as she experiences a week full of fun summer activities with her grandparents. This book will help your young one discover summer, explore movement, and learn the days of the week. Written by Giselle Shardlow and illustrated by Lauren Hughes, this summer kids book includes 12 kids yoga poses, an easy-to-follow list of kids yoga poses, and a parent-teacher guide. Parents and caregivers can also read this interactive summer camp book at home during transition times, after school, or at bedtime.

Summer of Sloane

Ages 14+

Summer of Sloane, written by Erin L. Schneider, follows 17-year-old Sloane as she travels to her mother’s home in Hawaii in hopes to escape her recent breakup and act of betrayal from her best friend. She’s ready for a summer full of beach bonfires, old friends, exotic food, and the wonders of a waterproof cast. But Sloane may need more than an ocean between her and the life back home to truly escape.

How to Code a Sandcastle

Ages 4-8

Pearl and her trusty rust-proof robot, Pascal, need to build a sandcastle before summer vacation is over, and they’re going to do it using code. Pearl breaks the big we-need-a-sandcastle problem into smaller steps, then uses conditionals, loops, and other basic coding concepts to tell Pascal exactly what to do. But building a sandcastle isn’t as easy as it sounds when surfboards, mischievous dogs, and coding mishaps get in the way. Josh Funk and Sara Palacios use humor, relatable situations, and bright artwork to introduce kids to the fun of coding.

It Began with Lemonade

Ages 4-8

On a hot summer day, a young girl decides to sell lemonade, but she soon realizes there are too many other young entrepreneurs on her street with the same idea. Determined, the girl sets off toward the countryside, finding some pretty unexpected customers by a river. Lian Cho’s cartoon illustrations are full of playful details, adding to the charm of this story written by Gideon Sterer.

One Crazy Summer

Ages 9-11

This historical fiction novel is an award-winning story about three young black sisters who are sent across the country to visit their estranged mother during the summer of 1968. During their stay in Oakland, the sisters have their own adventures, discovering a life quite different from the one they had in Brooklyn.