Blog by Jeremee DeMoir, Owner of DeMoir Books & Things
Find 10 book recs for endless summer reading fun below!
And just like that… the school year is almost over.
But wait, that’s not where the fun begins! No, the fun begins on the road trip to the grandparents’ houses for the summer or perhaps it begins while you’re dropping your kid off at Summer Camp. Perhaps the fun begins when you catch that first glimpse of the amusement park through your car window. Perhaps the fun begins when you can hear the sound of the ocean waves crashing on the shore and the gawking of seagulls as you approach the beach for the family vacation.
Yes, it’s time for the fun to begin! But do you know what else is beginning? Learning loss.
The ending of a school year also marks the beginning of learning loss. Though it’s pretty self-explanatory, broadly speaking, learning loss describes the loss of knowledge and skills that students experience when they’re not in school. It’s the idea that learning decays over time if students don’t engage with it regularly.
So, how do we keep our youth engaged in reading through the summer? Well, I’m glad you asked. We find culturally relevant and engaging books for them to dive into. We can find books for them to enjoy during the car ride to visit their grandparents. We can find books for while they’re on the beach catching their breath after a day of playing in the water. We can even find books for when they have down time at Summer Camp.
good books & great reads keep kids of all ages engaged!
Of course, we’re talking about English Language Arts, but did you know that there are books for Math, Social Studies, & Science, too? Fiction, Non-Fiction, and beyond. There are books for their imagination and books to help expand their awareness of the world they’re growing up in.
As a kid, I couldn’t wait to jump into my latest stack of books (preferably while lying under a tree at Shelby Farms). Those books let me travel to different places and become other people. It was the perfect escape!
The books below offer many opportunities for tweens, teens, and perhaps even you, dear reader, to melt into a whole new world this Summer.
There’s something for everyone on this list!
Endless Possibilities for summer reading start here:
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
King & the Dragonflies by Kacen Callendar
Miles Morales: Spider-Man by Jason Reynolds
Black Panther: The Young Prince by Ronald L. Smith
Required Reading for the Disenfranchised Freshman by Kristen R. LeE
Across the Stars by Jay DeMoir
Diary of A Wimpy Kid Series (1-16)
Naruto, Vol. 1: Uzumaki Naruto by Masashi Kishimoto
Sailor Moon, Vol. by Naoko Takeuchi
Demoir Books & Things: a Local favorite
DeMoir Books & Things is the city’s only Black-owned brick-and-mortar bookstore. The store is designed with inclusivity and community in mind. Walking into DeMoir Books has the magic of reading the first page of your favorite novel: as comfortable as a friend’s living room, and as exciting as hundreds of stories waiting to be read.
And the atmosphere is just the beginning.
It honestly doesn’t matter WHAT kids, tweens, teens, and beyond are reading! It can be a book, comic, chapter book, manga, or graphic novel. What matters most is that they are reading. And that goes for adults, too. Kids model what they see YOU do (and read), and it’s also a great way to strike up conversations.
The best way to influence a child’s desire to read is by them seeing you doing the same—so stop by DeMoir Books & Things and grab a book for yourself!
