SRS 2016

June 05, 2016

We made it, my friends. Summer '16 is officially upon us. That means it's time for the pool, vacay, and READING! It's now a tradition to share my Summer Reading List with you. (If I do anything twice, it becomes tradition. That's the Aggie in me.) If you click here, you can see my past SRL posts.

But this summer I'm calling it my SRS--Summer Reading Suggestions. Because the truth is that a LIST makes summer reading sound bossy, and I don't need another list bossing me around this summer. TBH (that means "To Be Honest," Mom, because I know you are reading this), I never follow my summer reading list; I use it as a place to start, and then I usually find other books to read and abandon my list all together. The most important thing is that we all commit to READING this summer. For escape. For pleasure. For fun. For ourselves. That's the essence of summer reading.

This summer I plan on reading more adult fiction. I read YA (young adult) year round because of my job as a high school librarian. Even though I love YA, I'm going to take a break for a while because I plan on writing the first draft of my second novel this summer (I'm exci-rified--that's excited and terrified rolled into one); I've heard several YA writers say that they don't read teen fiction while drafting, so I'm going to give this approach a try.

Here are some of my adult fiction choices that are recent releases or will be released over the summer. You can click on the cover image to read a blurb from Goodreads, which you need to join and follow me!

Click here, here, and here to see some extensive lists with other titles.

Here's some adult nonfiction that is on my radar. Amy Schumer's book won't be released until August 16, but I'm still excited about it:

It will probably be hard to stay away from YA, so these books might slip into my TBR pile:

If you need some YA in your Summer, these are books that I've read this school year and highly recommend. (You've probably seen my gushy posts on Facebook). I'm 100 pages from finishing WHEN WE COLLIDED by Emery Lord, and WOW. It's beautiful.

Here's an impressive Buzzfeed List for some more YA Summer Reading choices.

I wrote about "the summer slide" (not a ride at a water park) last year on my blog, and it's important enough to repeat again. Basically, if kids do not read over the summer, they will start the school year BEHIND their peers who do read; this gap could be as wide as two to three months! The "summer slide" especially impacts low SES students who do not have access to summer learning opportunities like vacations and camps--experiences that many middle class students enjoy. This short video explains the "summer slide" perfectly:

Because of this, my district (Mesquite ISD) is making another push to get students to read over the summer. Instead of bringing all the books back into the library to sit on shelves all summer, we encouraged students to check out books because our libraries are the main access for many of our kids. It does no good for the books to be locked up in libraries over the summer when they could be in the hands of readers. In MISD, we are more about creating readers than keeping the books on the shelves. (Yes, they might lose them, but we see it as a risk worth taking.) We are also opening our libraries several days throughout the summer so that students can come check out more books. You can find a listing of our libraries' summer hours here.

If you have kids, make sure they read over the summer. But DO NOT force it: make it fun; let them read whatever they want. The great news about preventing the "summer slide" is that it doesn't have to be boring, academic reading to make a difference. ANY kind of reading will prevent the slide! Most importantly, be the MODEL. Practice what you preach--let your kids see YOU enjoying books. There's so much power in that.

No matter if you follow a list or meander through suggestions, MAKE THE TIME TO READ THIS SUMMER. Especially if you are an educator. Especially if you are a parent. Especially if you are a human.

Okay, maybe that sounds a bit bossy.

But it's true.