*Note: The 2024 Summer Reading Challenge launched on June 8, 2024. This post is a rebroadcast of the original announcement with accompanying links to the books on the links.
Welcome to Summer! This is a season of relaxation and rejuvenation. Summer is also a great time to get caught up with, or embark on, a reading schedule. I need not inform you of the many benefits of reading (I want to, but I won’t). I’ll just sum things up by emphasizing the importance of literacy!
This year, our Summer Reading Challenge theme is “Let’s Build A Bridge.” You can participate by selecting 2-5 books from this form (or adding two to five of your own for all you “Off The Grid” folks!) and reading them from start to finish. I would love to hear your thoughts about what you read (i.e., “Sarie, I loved this book.” Or, “Sarie, this book was horrible, I tell you! Just horrible!”). Reach out to me via email at bookchat@sariereads.com with your opinions!
We’re going to start officially building a bridge to literacy and better understanding on Saturday, June 8, 2024. We will finish the bridge on Thursday, August 8, 2024. Please feel free, though, to get started early! Happy reading and safe trails for Summer!
Picture Books
- Kiki Finds Her Voice: Be True to You and Embrace Your God-Given Gifts – Kierra Sheard-Kelly
- Dim Sum Palace – X. Fang
- Have You Seen My Invisible Dinosaur? – Helen Yoon
- Juneteenth (Beautiful Me) – Anece Rochell
- Henry, Like Always – Jenn Bailey and Mika Song
- Lailah’s Lunchbox: A Ramadan Story – Reem Faruqi
- Maribel’s Year – Michelle Sterling
- The Only Way To Make Bread – Cristina Quintero and Sarah Gonzales
- I Will Be Fierce – Bea Birdsong and Nidhi Chanani
- The Loud Librarian – Jenna Beatrice
Easy Readers
- Donovan’s Word Jar – Monalisa DeGross
- Super Dougie: No Ordinary Dump Trailer – Rachael Boyer
- Shine, My Amazing Girl: Inspiring Stories That Help Build Confidence and Self-Esteem – Emma Meyer
- Secrets: The Time Machine Girls – Ernestine Tito Jones
- Don’t Throw It To Mo! – David A. Adler
- Baseball Buzz – CC Joven
- Maynard and Beebus: Escape from the Metaverse – JP Poley
- President of the Whole Fifth Grade – Sherri Winston
- Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing – Judy Blume
- Tales of a Fifth Grade Knight – Douglas Gibson
Middle Grade
- The Parker Inheritance – Varian Johnson
- Simon B. Rhymin’ – Dwayne Reed
- The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell – Chris Colfer
- Amil and the After – Veera Hiranandani
- Bitter – Akwaeke Emezi
- Operation Sisterhood – Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich
- A Boy Called Bat – Elana K. Arnold
- Ahmed Aziz’s Epic Year – Nina Hamza
- Unwind – Neal Shusterman
- The Archaeologist’s Club – D.K. Devonshire
Non-fiction for Kids
- Surviving Middle School: Navigating the Halls, Riding the Social Roller Coaster, and Unmasking the Real You – Luke Reynolds
- A Kids Book About AI – Neha Shukla
- Jimmy’s Rhythm & Blues: The Extraordinary Life of James Baldwin – Michelle Meadows
- Ice Cream Man: How Augustus Jackson Made a Sweet Treat Better – Glenda Armand and Kim Freeman
- The Indestructible Tom Crean: Heroic Explorer of the Antarctic – Jennifer Thermes
- Astrophysics for Young People in a Hurry – Neil deGrasse Tyson
- I Am Ruby Bridges – Ruby Bridges
- Counting on Katherine: How Katherine Johnson Saved Apollo 13 – Helaine Becker and Dow Phumiruk
- It’s A Numberful World: How Math is Hiding Everywhere – Eddie Woo
- All of Us: A Young People’s History of the World – Christophe Ylla-Somers
Graphic Novels
- Pizza Face – Rex Ogle (title available on July 2, 2024)
- Lies My Teacher Told Me: A Graphic Adaptation – James W. Loewen and Nate Powell
- DUNE: The Graphic Novel, Book 1 – Frank Herbert (author), Brian Herbert (adapter), Kevin J. Anderson (adapter)
- Mexikid – Pedro Martin
- Curlfriends: New in Town – Sharee Miller
- The Season of Styx Malone – Kekla Magoon
- Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation – Anne Frank (author), Ari Foller (adapter)
- American Born Chinese – Gene Luen Yang
- Magnolia Wu Unfolds It All – Chanel Miller
- Meet Me on Mercer Street – Booki Vivat
Young Adult
- That’s Not My Name – Megan Lally
- The Golem and the Jinni – Helene Wecker
- Now, Conjurers – Freddie Kolsch
- Blood at the Root – LaDarrion Williams
- Charming as a Verb – Ben Philippe
- The Girls I’ve Been – Tess Sharpe
- I Must Betray You – Ruta Sepetys
- Pet – Catherine Chidgey
- Path to Manhood – Dane Hawkins (title available on June 21, 2024)
- Brat – Gabriel Smith
Adult Fiction
- Song of Solomon – Toni Morrison
- Left For Dead – Kevin O’Brien
- My Year of Rest and Relaxation – Ottessa Moshfegh
- No One Will Miss Her – Kat Rosenfield
- Swift River – Essie Chambers
- Ours – Philip B. Williams
- The Realtor – Sonya Bateman
- Out of the Darkness – David A. Jacinto
- Katherine – Anya Seton
- A Love Song for Ricki Wilde – Tia Williams
True Crime
- College Girl, Missing: The True Story of How A Young Woman Disappeared In Plain Sight – Shawn Cohen
- The Perfect Father: The True Story of Chris Watts, His All-American Family, and a Shocking Murder – John Glatt
- A Killing in Amish Country: Sex, Betrayal, and a Cold-Blooded Murder – Gregg Olsen and Rebecca Morris
- A Murder in Hollywood: The Untold Story of Tinseltown’s Most Shocking Crime – Casey Sherman
- Evidence of Love: A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs – John Bloom and Jim Atkinson
- Midnight in Peking: The Murder That Haunted the Last Days of Old China – Paul French
- The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder – Charles Graeber
- The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy – Elizabeth Kendall
- Murder in Little Egypt: The True Story of a Father’s Ultimate Betrayal – Darcy O’Brien
- The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia – Emma Copley Eisenberg
Memoirs
- Here After: A Memoir – Amy Lin
- The Happiness Project – Gretchen Rubin
- Letter to My Daughter – Maya Angelou
- How to Say Babylon – Safiya Sinclair
- The Wives – Simone Gorrindo
- Girl, Interrupted: A Memoir – Susanna Kaysen
- Plans for Your Good: A Prime Minister’s Testimony of God’s Faithfulness – Scott Morrison
- So Help Me God – Mike Pence
- Miseducated: A Memoir – Brandon P. Fleming
- If You See Them: Young, Unhoused, and Alone in America – Vicki Sokolik
Non-fiction
- The Humanity Archive: Recovering the Soul of Black History from a Whitewashed American Myth – Jermaine Fowler
- As If Human: Ethics and Artificial Intelligence – Nigel Shadbolt
- The Wealth of Nations – Adam Smith
- Unwoke: How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America – Ted Cruz
- The Rediscovering of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History – Ned Blackhawk
- The First Asians in The Americas: A Transpacific History – Diego Javier Luis
- The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church – Sarah McCammon
- Domestic Darkness: An Insider’s Account of the January 6th Insurrection, and the Future of Right-Wing Extremism – Julie Farnam
- The Story of Abortion in America: A Street-Level History, 1652-2022 – Marvin Olasky and Leah Savas
- This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future – Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns