With summertime comes lots of reading, for grown-ups and the little ones in their lives. What have the special bairns in your life read and liked? If they have a book they'd like to share with other children, please list it here.

The first book here is one that my daughter actually read as part of a class assignment this May, but since it was about time travel, it really piqued her interest since, at 11, she's still too young to read Outlander.

Thanks for sharing, and wishing you and yours lots of happy hours of reading all year through.

Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_19?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=running+out+of+time&sprefix=running+out+of+time
Age group: 9-13 y/o

Elizabeth's description: Suspenseful, exciting story of a girl who lives in a world without modern medical advances and bravely seeks it out in the world that does.

Rating:

NE, I don't have children but the obvious Harry Potter books are great reads for the kids and even my nephews like Twilight. Also the City of Glass - etc - by Cassandra are great books.

http://lauraleeslibrary.blogspot.com/20 ... iends.html

My good friend Lauralee who is a member here, has started a blog with reading recommendations for the younger group. She has been a teacher and is now a librarian so she has a good take on this.

I no longer have small children - but I do still love and read Children's books !

My favourites are by Michael Morpurgo Author Website

When my children were small they loved Roald Dahl stories, especially Fantastic Mr Fox, and The Witches

I can also recommend reading Grimm's Fairy Tales - they have stood the test of time but can be quite scary

For over 12yrs - early teens who like history I an recommend books by Mary Hooper - "At the Sign of the Sugared Plum is about the plague in London in 1665 . The stories are quite dark, and cover alot of history but are cleverly written - I love them !

Mary Hooper's website

Sally Gardner also writes fascinating historical fiction which would appeal to older children - I,Coriander is my favourite -

Sally Gardner on Fantastic Fiction

I'll add more when I think of them

Great idea for a topic, NE Mom. My boys love the Artemis Fowl series by Ioen Coffer. The main character is a 13 year old mastermind who is involved in espionage. I read thef first book and loved it. Th author will also be participating in the Brooklyn Book Fair next month so we are hoping to meet him.

Hi All...Ok, this is too close to my heart, as I'm a certified reading teacher (of course, still looking for a job, but that's another story!)
Most of my experience is with the younger set. Kindergarten through 5th grade. I love all of Mo Willem's work. He is very funny with speech bubbles that parents and children can take turns reading. Also, you can encourage your child to use this format in writing because it is less daunting and easier than writing with sentences on a line (challenging for 3-6 years). Anything by Cynthia Rylant is great stuff. The list goes on for authors of picture books: Rosemary Wells, Jim Arnosky (nature stuff), Audrey Wood, Kevin Henkes, Cynthia Von Buhler (cool artwork), anything in the fairy tale section. The series books we love are Pinkalicious, Henry and Mudge, Magic Schoolbus, Piggie/Elephant (willems), Young Cam Jansen, Houndsley and Katina.
These are just to name a few (ha ha).
I also would suggest having older readers get into the classics by Frances Hodson Burnett (Little Princess/Secret Garden), L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Cables series), and Little Women.
Ok, I'm done for now. I could go on, but I must go read a story to my daughter...

I was a pre school teacher for 19 years.In my class (The Orange room) I taught 3 year olds. For that age group you can not go wrong with any Robert Munsch book. My personal favorites "Love You Forever" (it used to make me cry every time) The kids loved to sing the love you forever part. & "Something Good" The most requested from the kids was "Good Families Don't" (affectionately know as the fart book) "Mortimer", & "Murmel Murmel Murmel" When my son was in about I think it was the 3rd grade. The first time he read an author that really got him emotionally was a book called "There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom" by Louis Sachar That book made my son laugh & cry.

Thanks for this link, Lauralee's blog is an awesome resource for this thread, Tink! *we also love Harry Potter*


Celeste, Enjoy!

We have some lucky lasses and lads who have such awesome parents, aunts, and teachers on OBC to have all of these wonderful recommendations. Looking forward to these and future recommendations, too!

Oh, NE Mom...for me Mo is right up there with Diana Gabaldon! I love his work! You are lucky to have seen him.

For Damhnait and any others who loved the book, Love You Forever (which is about a boy growing up), check out the book Someday by Alison McGhee. This one is a great gift for any daughter you have-no matter what age! A friend of mine gave a copy to all of her adult daughters for Christmas one year. Warning! You will cry if you read it.

For middle school aged, I highly recommended The Man Who Love Clowns by June Rae Wood touching book about a girl who has to deal with having an uncle with Down's Syndrome. Also Airball by LisaHarkrader a fun book for guys about basketball. They are both local Kansas/Missouri authors but the books have been available on Amazon. I hope they still are. The guys here also like the Pendragon books by MacHale and any of Anthony Horowitz's or John Flanagan's books.

edited to correct author's name

Thank you Celestem I will take a look at "Someday". Would it be an appropriate baby shower gift? I have a friend who will be having a daughter at the end of August/beginning of Sept.

Goodness-you will make her cry with all the hormones she'll be loaded with. I know that when I was pregnant and right after I had my daughter I tried (tried!) to read that book. I couldn't even get through the first two pages. It is really heartwarming and heartwrenching at the same time. Great gift, but don't make her read it in front of everyone or the whole place will be in tears!

My 9-year-old and I read together at night, and lately we've enjoyed The Mysterious Benedict Society books (brainy kids save the world!) and two beautiful books by Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret (the basis for the recent movie "Hugo") and his newest, Wonderstruck.

We read the entire Harry Potter series this past year as well, and I was so happy that he loved it as much as I have in all my rereadings!

Just wanted to add to the topic of books for bairns by mentioning two books SET IN SCOTLAND that I stumbled across with my son:

The Boggart
The Boggart and the Monster

Both by Susan Cooper, appropriate for middle-level readers (ages 9 - 12, I'd say). These are really fun stories about a mischievous spirit who haunts an old Scottish castle, and what happens when a Canadian family inherits the castle and the boggart. The first book might seem a bit dated (parts of the plot revolve around the kids' knowledge of a computer game -- saved on a floppy disk!), but my son didn't seem to mind the outdated technology. The setting for "The Boggart" is Scotland and Canada. We're about 3/4 of the way through the sequel, "The Boggart and the Monster", which takes place solely in the Scottish Highlands, and features our favorite water creature, the Loch Ness monster. I got a secret thrill when someone in the story mentioned the Jacobite uprising when talking about the history of a ruined castle!

Fun books, and I loved "revisiting" the Highlands!