If you’re an adult with caregiving responsibilities, then unscheduled days mean figuring out how to keep little monsters fed and occupied, without your living or work space slipping into an intolerable level of chaos. Of course, this is where books can help. If you’re specifically looking for recommendations for very young readers, try these titles for preschoolers. However, if your readers are a bit older, then I have ideas for elementary school readers from about 5 to 10 years of age. Below is a list of children’s books about summer for now or whenever the mood strikes you to imagine long, sunny days full of possibility. That’s my list of summer books for kids. I have already noted a few above that you should preorder now like Keah Brown’s Sam’s Super Seats. If you’re looking for more to preorder, here are three more to look forward to: If you like the vivid illustrations or want another book set in the Caribbean for your summer books for kids, check out Auntie Luce’s Talking Paintings by Francie Latour and also illustrated by Ken Daley. It’s about a little girl who travels from the U.S. back to Haiti to visit her beloved aunt. For slightly older readers, Latour and Daley’s book provide vibrant scenes and help readers make connections between Haiti’s past and its present. The aunt says, “To paint Haiti takes the darkest colors and the brightest ones, and all the colors in between.” The author includes a glossary about the words she used in her story and a note about the U.S. and Haiti’s birth stories at the end. Definitely get a copy if you can! Another good “back-to-school” book to preorder is Keah Brown’s Sam’s Super Seats. If you aren’t familiar with Brown’s work, check out her memoir The Pretty One: On Life, Pop Culture, Disability and Other Reasons to Fall in Love with Me. Her children’s book Sam’s Super Seats releases August 23 and conveys the importance of resting for a little girl who has cerebral palsy, a condition Brown knows first-hand. I’m looking forward to reading this one soon and hope many people will pick it up too. If you like this, you could also check out Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow’s Your Name Is a Song. Also with slightly older elementary readers, try The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi or Alma and How She Got Her Name by Juana Martinez-Neal to name a few excellent books that have come out recently. Another middle grade novel that is a great summer book for older kids is one I’ve preordered. It is called Sweet and Sour by Debbi Michiko Florence. Set in the summer with Japanese American characters, this book should be available starting September 6, 2022. I’m looking forward to reading it. I hope you’ve found something you want to read this summer! Another one to look forward to is Build A House by Rhiannon Giddens. This is a book based on Giddens’s song she wrote for the 155th anniversary of Juneteenth. If you’re not already familiar with this Grammy winner and MacArthur Grant recipient’s music, you can listen to the song as recorded with the famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma. The book pairs Giddens’s spare and moving lyrics with visuals by Monica Mikai, an artist who has also illustrated several other books including The Proudest Color and the forthcoming Stacy Abrams: Lift Every Voice. While Build a House doesn’t come out until October 11, 2022, it’s one to preorder now so you can share it with big and small readers alike in the fall. Finally, if you want to get kids excited about reading, try these best summer reading programs or these awesome summer reading program ideas for kids. And of course, I think some of these would work well for people who are a little older too.
