It’s time to stock the summer reading shelves for our kids so they can make use of those long, lazy days of summer ahead to travel places and meet people they never have before in the pages of books they don’t otherwise have time for during the school year. (I sincerely hope you have not packed their lives so full already that those long, lazy days really do loom before them as a deliciously anticipated breather for them?)

Recently I found myself feeling restless in my own reading world and quickly realized that my malady had to do with all the rush of the end-of-year activities and that I was reading no children’s books. What? How could this be! I have always found that throwing a children’s book into my mix keeps me sane. The child’s perspective helps adjust my own. I ransacked the lists of books by some of my favorite classic children’s authors for titles I have not read before and have quite a stack waiting.

Then I thought maybe some of my readers would appreciate enjoying them, too. Over the summer, I will share my thoughts on one or two children’s stories each week to give some possible options for your children’s summer reading.  

One I read this past weekend was by one of my favorite childhood authors and whose books I read to my own children and regularly recommend to others is Eleanor Estes. I should not have been surprised to discover she was a children’s librarian. In fact, she was married to one as well, a man who later taught at a school offering library science. Naturally I have read the Moffat family stories: The Moffats, The Middle Moffat, Rufus M., and The Moffat Museum. Janey was one of my best friends in books and all of my children loved her books in elementary school—well, probably still do. Janey Moffat was Eleanor Estes herself and many of the happenings in the Moffat home were memories of her own childhood. Her father really did die when she was young and her mother really did support the family with her seamstress business in their home. She also told them stories by the score and cultivated their own love of stories. I say this so we know who to really thank for the delightful hours we have spent reading Estes’s books.

Estes’ story-rich upbringing gives her a way of describing the inner workings of a child’s mind—it’s sudden connections, flights of fancy, purposeful decisions based on rather random associations. She never forgot her own joy in the every day—and sometimes unpredictable moments—of childhood and communicates them in a way that a child instantly understands. I still vividly remember my enchantment with The Little Oven, Pinky Pye, Ginger Pye,  and The Coat Hanger Christmas, all of which inspired many play hours for me as a little girl. I fervently wish I had read The Hundred Dresses as a child and learned some of those valuable life lessons and spared myself many a misery as a result.

A quick glance through her more than 20 published children’s books revealed several I have not yet read, many because I had grown up and left that genre behind by the time they came into print.

The Lost Umbrella of Kim Chu took me straight back to those forgotten days. Kim’s adventure begins in a library, (don’t all the best?), when her father’s irreplaceable umbrella is missing when she goes to retrieve it to go home. Her grandmother insists she must find it and she leaves her Chinatown tenement to wander the streets of New York in quest of the family’s treasured possession. This is where her adventures begin and before the afternoon is out, she has found herself taking her first ride on the El, first voyage on the ferry, and solving a mystery. Estes’s books are perfect for first through sixth grade readers. Chapters are short and the turns and twists of plot and unexpected surprises keep a child’s interest. Of course, they all have happy endings.

If your children like mystery stories or fantasy fiction, this one is perfect.

For the joy of reading,

Liz