Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial kickoff to summer, and that means the tantalizing prospect of having more time for reading stretches ahead of us — long, lazy summer days curled up with a book.
With that in mind, Newbery Award-winning author Kate DiCamillo shared some summer book recommendations for readers ages 8-13 with NPR's Melissa Block. DiCamillo is the author of Because of Winn-Dixie and The Tale of Despereaux, among others, and was recently named the country's national ambassador for young people's literature by the Library of Congress. Her latest book is Flora & Ulysses.
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Kate DiCamillo's Summer Reading Picks For Ages 8-13
Counting By 7s
by Holly Goldberg Sloan
Kate says: "[Willow] is a brainiac and she's also a horticulturist; she loves to grow things and has a real talent for growing things and that's a wonderful metaphor for what happens in this book. ...
"You're so taken with Willow's voice that you want to keep going. And then it's a very wise book, and it's wise in a sneaky kind of way. You don't realize how much you're learning about how to see other people and how to be in the world. You [know] that thing sometimes where you close a book and you want to clasp it to your chest? This book made me want to do that. I just wanted to hug it."
How I Discovered Poetry
by Marilyn Nelson and Hadley Hooper
Kate says: "I think that this would be a wonderful book for a family to read aloud. It wouldn't take a long time; it packs a powerful punch. And the language is so beautiful and also very simple. It's very, very accessible. I always was afraid of poetry when I was a kid. I thought, 'There's something here that I'm supposed to understand that I'm not understanding.' And this poetry is very clear, it opens itself to you. I loved this book."
Under The Egg
by Laura Marx Fitzgerald
Kate says: "A very strong, very capable, very smart narrator and somebody who is suddenly on their own in the world — and has to make big decisions about big things.
"When a book is good, I stop being a writer and I'm just a reader, which is what I did here. You just fall into it as a reader. But the writer in me did go and check a couple times to see, 'Is this really the first thing that [Fitzgerald]'s written?' Because it's so accomplished and it's packed with stuff. ... It's really a very compelling read and I don't know how she did it."
Half A Chance
by Cynthia Lord
Kate says: "It's about a summertime in New Hampshire and these big changes that are occurring with the boy's grandmother. She has dementia. ... It's a book that's deceptively simple. It talks about really big things in a very straightforward way. And also it does a gorgeous job of seeing the world. These two kids become true friends in a way that's very, very believable."
The Year Of Billy Miller
by Kevin Henkes
Kate says: "It's a book that I can't say enough good things about. Very simple, straightforward, but it deals with matters of the heart in a very, very compelling way. ... If you were reading this out loud to your second-grader, your fourth-grader and your fifth-grader would wander in and be captivated too."
Harriet The Spy
by Louise Fitzhugh
Kate says: "Not too long ago, I remembered that I read and loved Harriet the Spy [as a kid], and so I went back to it as the adult me, with some trepidation. ... And it's even better and more subversive than I remembered. It's basically a primer on how to be a writer."