Books for Summer Reading

By Kaitlyn Spotts | March 25 2022 | General

This summer, let students unwind from a long school year with books that will get them excited about reading and invite them to step outdoors. We’ve compiled a collection of thrilling classic and contemporary stories along with adventurous nonfiction that will allow students to connect with nature and take them on adventures around the world without leaving their own backyard.

 

Click here to browse our summer reading list!

Spirit Run
Spirit Run
A 6,000-Mile Marathon Through North America's Stolen Land
Noé Álvarez
9781646220533
In this New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, the son of working-class Mexican immigrants flees a life of labor in fruit-packing plants to run in a Native American marathon from Canada to Guatemala in this “stunning memoir that moves to the rhythm of feet, labor, and the many landscapes of the Americas” (Catriona Menzies-Pike, author of The Long Run).
$16.95 US
Mar 02, 2021
Paperback
240 Pages
Catapult
Leave Only Footprints
Leave Only Footprints
My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through Every National Park
Conor Knighton
9781984823557
Now in paperback, from CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Conor Knighton, the New York Times bestselling behind-the-scenery look at his year traveling to each of America's National Parks, discovering the most beautiful places and most interesting people our country has to offer.
$19.00 US
Apr 06, 2021
Paperback
336 Pages
Crown
Little Heathens
Little Heathens
Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression
Mildred Armstrong Kalish
9780553384246
I tell of a time, a place, and a way of life long gone. For many years I have had the urge to describe that treasure trove, lest it vanish forever. So, partly in response to the basic human instinct to share feelings and experiences, and partly for the sheer joy and excitement of it all, I report on my early life. It was quite a romp.
$17.00 US
Apr 29, 2008
Paperback
304 Pages
Bantam
Wild
Wild
From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail (Oprah's Book Club 2.0)
Cheryl Strayed
9780307476074
At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State—and she would do it alone. Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.
$19.00 US
Mar 26, 2013
Paperback
336 Pages
Vintage
Into Thin Air
Into Thin Air
A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster
Jon Krakauer
9780385494786
A bank of clouds was assembling on the not-so-distant horizon, but journalist-mountaineer Jon Krakauer, standing on the summit of Mt. Everest, saw nothing that “suggested that a murderous storm was bearing down.” He was wrong. The storm, which claimed five lives and left countless more—including Krakauer’s—in guilt-ridden disarray, would also provide the impetus for Into Thin Air, Krakauer’s epic account of the May 1996 disaster.
$18.00 US
Oct 19, 1999
Paperback
368 Pages
Vintage
How to Do Nothing
How to Do Nothing
Resisting the Attention Economy
Jenny Odell
9781612198552
For fans of Jia Tolentino's Trick Mirror; Cal Newport's Digital Minimalism; and Rebecca Solnit's WanderlustThis thrilling critique of the forces vying for our attention re-defines what we think of as productivity, show us a new way to connect with our environment, and reveals all that we've been too distracted to see about ourselves and our world.
$18.99 US
Dec 29, 2020
Paperback
256 Pages
Melville House
The Forest Unseen
The Forest Unseen
A Year's Watch in Nature
David George Haskell
9780143122944
Biologist and author of Sounds Wild and Broken David Haskell uses a one-square-meter patch of old-growth Tennessee forest as a window onto the entire natural world. Visiting it almost daily for one year to trace nature's path through the seasons, he brings the forest and its inhabitants to vivid life.
$18.00 US
Mar 26, 2013
Paperback
288 Pages
Penguin Books
The Legend of Auntie Po
The Legend of Auntie Po
Shing Yin Khor
9780525554899
Part historical fiction, part magical realism, and 100 percent adventure. Thirteen-year-old Mei reimagines the myths of Paul Bunyan as starring a Chinese heroine while she works in a Sierra Nevada logging camp in 1885.
$13.99 US
Jun 15, 2021
Paperback
304 Pages
Kokila
Katie the Catsitter
Katie the Catsitter
(A Graphic Novel)
Stephanie Yue, Colleen AF Venable
9781984895639
AN INDIE BESTSELLER • NOMINATED FOR MULTIPLE STATE AWARDS!Calling all Raina Telgemeier fans! Introducing an irresistible new middle-grade graphic novel series about growing up, friendship, heroes, and cats (lots of cats!)--perfect for fans of Guts, Awkward and Real Friends (not to mention anyone who loves cats!) “Readers will revel in the heroic antics.” --The New York Times
$13.99 US
Jan 05, 2021
Paperback
224 Pages
Random House Graphic
Travels with Charley in Search of America
Travels with Charley in Search of America
John Steinbeck
9780140053203
An intimate journey across America, as told by one of its most beloved writers   To hear the speech of the real America, to smell the grass and the trees, to see the colors and the light—these were John Steinbeck's goals as he set out, at the age of fifty-eight, to rediscover the country he had been writing about for so many years. With Charley, his French poodle, Steinbeck drives the interstates and the country roads, dines with truckers, encounters bears at Yellowstone and old friends in San Francisco. Along the way he reflects on the American character, racial hostility, the particular form of American loneliness he finds almost everywhere, and  the unexpected kindness of strangers.
$14.00 US
Jan 31, 1980
Paperback
288 Pages
Penguin Books
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