Why Summer Reading Is a Smart (and Fun!) Move

When I was a kid, I loved to read. But once summer rolled around, all I wanted to do was play. Books were replaced with cookouts, fireflies, and backyard baseball. One summer when my family drove to Appleton, Wisconsin, for vacation, I remember my sister Molly and my dad calculating miles per gallon at every gas station. At each fill-up, Molly would scramble out of the car, pencil and notebook in hand, and collect the numbers needed to solve the MPG equation: total miles driven divided by total gallons of gas used. Working together, Molly and my dad arrived at the final answer. At the time, I could not figure out why anyone would willingly seek out math problems on vacation. Why was Molly willingly doing schoolwork during the summer? I thought she was bananas.

Years later, here in the Cozy Book Corner, I see the wisdom of it all. By keeping up with previously taught skills during the summer, kids stay immersed in their own learning, which benefits their return to the classroom in the fall.

Molly’s jam may have been math, but summer is also the perfect time to hone literacy skills. All those lazy summer days provide ample time to pick up a book and take a swan dive right into its pages. Your students might never come up for air! But even if their dive turns into a belly flop, that too can be a learning experience! They’ll plunge into new words, phrases, and ideas, and they’ll discover what kinds of books they like and what kinds they don’t. Their critical thinking skills will grow, and dare I say, PROSPER! They might not be able to tell you how many gallons of gas it takes to get to Appleton, but they might surprise you with an explanation of how a hurricane forms or the excitement of figuring out whodunit. What happened after the six sharks arrived in The Dive, for example?

So make sure to check out PVB’s collections of summer-themed books. From graphic novels to narrative fiction to mysteries in the museum, these summer reads offer kids a variety of literary adventures without having to leave the tree fort or lawn chair or beach blanket. Your kids will come back to school in September with something to talk about!

And that summer slide? Save that for the baseball game. I bet Molly had a calculation for that too. (Velocity divided by acceleration and distance, maybe?)