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Summer 1996 Recommended Reading

These books for primary, middle grade, and high school students are recommended for summer reading by the school librarians of the Vermont Educational Media Association, an affiliate of the Vermont-National Education Association.

1996 Caldecott Award

• Rathmann, Peggy. OFFICER BUCKLE AND GLORIA. Putnam. The children at Napville Elementary School ignore Officer Buckle's safety tips, until a police dog named Gloria accompanies him and engages in lively antics.

1996 Newbery Award

• Cushman, Karen. THE MIDWIFE'S APPRENTICE. Clarion. A homeless waif becomes a midwife's apprentice in medieval England.

Recommendations for Primary Grades - Compiled by Mary Ann Alexander, Woodstock Elementary

• Auch, Mary Jane. THE LATCHKEY DOG. Little, Brown. Problems develop when Sam's mother has to go to work and leaves their dog Amber alone all day.
• Auch, Mary Jane. PEEPING BEAUTY. Holiday. Poulette the dancing hen falls into the clutches of a hungry fox, who exploits her desire to become a great ballerina.
• Banyai, Istvan. RE-ZOOM. Viking. Zoom in - what do you see? An artist's house by a lake. Zoom out - what do you see? A beautiful scene on a painted fan. A beautiful wordless book for fans of Waldo and Anno.
• Christelow, Eileen. JEROME THE BABYSITTER. Clarion. Mrs. Gatorman's nine frisky little pranksters put Jerome, their babysitter, through his paces.
• Galdone, Joanna. THE TAILYPO: A GHOST STORY. Houghton. A strange varmint haunts the woodsman who lopped off its tail.
• Haas, Jessie. NO FOAL YET. Greenwillow. Nora and her grandparents wait for their mare Bonnie to have her foal.
• Hesse, Karen. SABLE. Holt. Tate Marshall is delighted when a stray dog turns up in the yard one day, but Sable, named for her dark, silky fur, causes trouble with the neighbors and has to go.
• Kaplan, Marjorie. HENRY AND THE BOY WHO THOUGHT NUMBERS WERE FLEAS. Four Winds. Henry the dog helps his owner's little brother, Sam, learn the multiplication tables.
• Kesey, Ken. LITTLE TRICKER THE SQUIRREL MEETS BIG DOUBLE THE BEAR. Viking. Little Tricker the squirrel watches as Big Double the bear terrorizes the forest animals one by one, but then Little Tricker gets revenge.
• Kirby, David. THE COWS ARE GOING TO PARIS. Caroline House. One day a herd of cows leaves the pastures and boards the train for Paris. The cows dress up in clothes and royally tour the city before returning home.
• MacDonald, Amy. RACHEL FISTER'S BLISTER. Houghton. Rachel Fister's blister sends adults scurrying for a cure, but nothing seems to help until they appeal to the queen for advice.
• Park, Barbara. JUNIE B. JONES AND A LITTLE MONKEY BUSINESS. Random. Through a misunderstanding, Junie B. thinks that her new baby brother is really a baby monkey, and her report of this news creates excitement and trouble in her kindergarten class.
• Rylant, Cynthia. MR. PUTTER AND TABBY PICK THE PEARS. Harcourt. When he gets too old to climb the ladder, Mr. Putter and his cat Tabby figure out an ingenious way to pick pears for pear jelly.
• Sendak, Maurice. HIGGLETY PIGGLETY POP! OR, THERE MUST BE MORE TO LIFE. Harper. Though her master loves her and she has everything, Jennie the dog packs up and runs away to find if there is more to life. She has many fantastic adventures before her wishes come true.
• Sis, Peter. THE THREE GOLDEN KEYS. Doubleday. Led by a cat on a magical journey through the deserted streets of Prague, a man comes upon some of the city's landmarks and finds the keys to his childhood home in three traditional Czech tales.
• Stadler, John. ANIMAL CAFE: A STORY AND PICTURES. Bradbury. Old Max never suspects the true source of his shop's financial success or the secret life of his sleepy pets Sedgewick and Casey.

Recommendations for Middle Grades - Compiled by Chris Terry, Main Street School, Montpelier

• Alexander, Lloyd. THE REMARKABLE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE JEN. Dutton. In this fantasy-adventure, young Prince Jen, bearing unusual gifts, embarks on a perilous quest.
• Beller, Susan. CADETS AT WAR: THE TRUE STORY OF TEENAGE HEROISM AT THE BATTLE OF NEW MARKET. Shoetree. This Vermont author tells the true Civil War story of the 280 schoolboys who fought their first battle to stop the Union troops from moving through the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.
• Byars, Betsy. THE MOON AND I. Messner. Betsy Byars describes her hilarious adventures with a blacksnake and some comical childhood stories about her first attempts at becoming an author.
• Cooney, Caroline. AMONG FRIENDS. Bantam. Six high school juniors discover surprising things about themselves and their friends in the diaries they are asked to keep as a three-month English assignment.
• Crutcher, Chris. STAYING FAT FOR SARAH BYRNES. Greenwillow. In this darkly funny, suspenseful novel about friendship, fear, and living with a past you cannot change, two friends who are outcasts must support each other if they are to make it through tough times.
• Fine, Anne. ALIAS MADAME DOUBTFIRE. Little, Brown. Miranda's three children enjoy their huge, overdressed cleaning woman who is actually their father in disguise, and they dread the day when their mother discovers Madame Doubtfire is really her ex-husband. Read the funny book that inspired the movie!
• George, Jean Craighead. JULIE. HarperCollins. A terrific sequel to Julie of the Wolves. When Julie returns to her father's Eskimo village, she struggles to find a way to save her beloved wolves in a changing Arctic world, and she begins to have feelings for a young Siberian man.
• Hite, Sid. IT'S NOTHING TO A MOUNTAIN. Holt. After the death of their parents, thirteen-year-old Lisette and her nine-year-old brother Riley go to live with their grandparents in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, where they experience a series of adventures that brings new dimensions to their lives.
• Hobbs, Will. THE BIG WANDER. Atheneum. As he searches for his uncle throughout the rugged Southwest canyon country, fourteen-year-old Clay becomes involved with a group of Navajo Indians who are trying to save some of the last wild mustangs.
• Paulsen, Gary. HARRIS AND ME: A SUMMER REMEMBERED. Harcourt. Sent to live with relatives because of his unhappy home life, an eleven-year-old city boy meets his distant cousin Harris and is quickly introduced to hilarious life on the farm
• Peck, Richard. BEL-AIR BAMBI AND THE MALL RATS. Delacorte. Bambi, Buffie, and Brick, three totally hip siblings from LA, are forced to move with their parents to Hickory Fork, New Jersey, a small town terrorized by a high school gang.
• Roybal, Laura. BILLY. Houghton. Billy, a sixteen-year-old boy, is reunited with the family he was kidnapped from by his natural father six years earlier. If you liked The Face on the Milk Carton, try this one!
• Taylor, Theodore. THE CAY (and its prequel TIMOTHY OF THE CAY). Doubleday. When a ship on which they are traveling is torpedoed during WWII, a twelve-year-old white boy named Phillip must rely on Timothy, an old black man, when they are stranded on a small desert island in the Caribbean.
• Thesman, Jean. WHEN THE ROAD ENDS. Houghton. When three foster children are sent to a cabin in the woods for the summer, they are abandoned by their caretaker and have only Aunt Cecile, temporarily brain-damaged from an accident, to take care of them.
• Wolff, Virginia Euwer. MAKE LEMONADE. Holt. In order to earn money for college, fourteen-year-old LaVaughn babysits for a teenage mother's two children, even though she doesn't get paid.

Recommendations for Grades 9-12 - Compiled by Sylvia Nichols Allen, Harwood Union High School

• Alvarez, Julia. HOW THE GARCIA GIRLS LOST THEIR ACCENTS. Algonquin. Fleeing the Dominican Republic after the father's participation in a failed coup, the Garcia sisters leave behind a pampered and protected life and move to the Bronx. There they try to live up to their father's version of honor while accommodating the expectations of their American boyfriends. Very funny, irrepressible Spanish Caribbean women.
• Baker, Russell. GROWING UP. Congdon & Weed. Skinny, fatherless, shy, and bullied by classmates, Baker believed he would never succeed at anything. A mother who never gave up on him and a cast of wacky relatives molded him into the man who would become a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for the New York Times. A wise and funny memoir.
• Cisneros, Sandra. THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET. Vintage. told in a series of vignettes stunning for their eloquence, this is the story of a young girl growing up in the Latino quarter of Chicago.
• Delany, Sarah and Elizabeth. HAVING OUR SAY: THE DELANY SISTERS' FIRST 100 YEARS. Kodansha International. Two sisters and former slaves, 101 and 103 years old, speak their minds about everything. This dual memoir is filled with humorous and poignant anecdotes that offer a rare glimpse of the birth of Black freedom in America.
• Donofrio, Donna. RIDING IN CARS WITH BOYS: CONFESSIONS OF A BAD GIRL WHO MAKES GOOD. Penguin. The subtitle says it all. A very funny, touching memoir of a teenage mother whose only interests are riding around in cars, drinking, and rebelling against authority. As her son grows up, she becomes an adult herself.
• Evans, Nicholas. THE HORSE WHISPERER. Delacorte. Tom Brooker, a gentle Montana rancher, has inherited the ancient, mystical power to tame wild horses and heal broken spirits. Now he must make a miracle come true for a teenage girl, her mother, and the savage horse that touches both their lives.
• Gibbons, Kaye. ELLEN FOSTER. Algonquin. Having suffered abuse and misfortune for much of her life, a young child searches for a better life and finally gets a break in the home of a loving woman with several foster children.
• Grealy, Lucy. AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FACE. Houghton. Grealy describes the loneliness of pain, the confusion of childhood, and the slow shock of her disfigured face, caused by Ewing's sarcoma. She tells her story with unblinking intelligence and surprising joy.
• Hoffman, Alice. SECOND NATURE. Putnam. A man who has been raised as a wolf is captured. He suddenly has to learn the rules of life as a man and suppress vivid memories of his life as a wolf. A haunting book.
• Kuralt, Charles. CHARLES KURALT'S AMERICA. Putnam. To celebrate his retirement, Kuralt planned a dream trip, a journey to his favorite places in America. Travel with him to New Orleans, Alaska, Key West, Montana, Vermont, and other special places.
• Mosher, Howard Frank. NORTHERN BORDERS. Doubleday. In the summer of 1948, six-year-old Austin Kittredge is sent by his widowed father to live with his grandparents on a Vermont farm. In spite of their 40-year-old feud, his grandparents teach him about hunting, dam building, family secrets, independence, and love.
• Schulman, Audrey. THE CAGE. Algonquin. Lost in the Arctic, members of a photo expedition must battle cold and polar bears. Survival is not probable. A bone-chilling story.
• Shepard, Alan and Deke Slayton. MOON SHOT: THE INSIDE STORY OF AMERICA'S RACE TO THE MOON. Turner. Written by two of the most respected astronauts in U.S. history, Shepard and Slayton describe the birth of our space program and the moonwalk. This book is for all people who missed this exciting and momentous period in our recent history.
• Stoll, Clifford. SILICON SNAKE OIL. Doubleday. This is the first book that intelligently questions where the Internet is leading us. Stoll looks at the network as it is, not as it's supposed to be. Although he is a genuine legend on the Internet, Stoll questions the concept that it is "computer utopia" and poses many thought-provoking questions.

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