Take a look at this evocative article written by Sally for Canada’s The Globe and Mail.

She brings alive the joy of summer-reading and discusses Moomin-creator Tove Jansson’s modern classic, The Summer Book.

Sally also poses the question, “What are you reading this summer?” – has this been a time for reducing those piles of must-read books in your household? And if, instead, you are emerging from winter-time, has there been some opportunity to escape into a good book?

In our family, Little Brother has been as voracious a reader as ever; and it has been a relief to find Older Brother with his nose in a book at every opportunity too. Discovering Anthony Horowitz’ Alex Rider series, as well as various graphic/cartoon books has definitely helped here…

Who knows better what young readers want than another young reader? Christopher Paolini goes to show that he certainly knows–his Inheritance cycle, consisting of Eragon, Eldest, and Brisinger, with a final installment in the works, has captured the imaginations of children, young adults, and adults too, all over the world.

The home-schooled son of parents who owned a small publishing business in rural Montana, Christopher Paolini found himself with time on his hands after graduating from high school when he was 15, and with a novel that he had begun the year before. He spent a year writing Eragon, his parents published it,  bestselling writer Carl Hiasson’s stepson read it and loved it, and suddenly Christopher was a Knopf author, published by Random House in the U.S. and the U.K.

A voracious bibliophile and devotee of libraries, Christopher was a reluctant reader as a child, and credits his mother for enticing him to love the printed word. Certainly she must be proud that her encouragement not only made her son a lover of books, but a writer whose goal was to write a book that other 15-year-olds would want to read.

He certainly has accomplished that–his first two books have sold over 15.5 million copies and are in print in 50 languages–a testimony to youthful talent and to parents who stressed the joy of reading!

I grew up in a remote corner of Alaska, without electricity or a telephone, at a time when the Internet would have been considered a maniac’s wild fantasy. Anyone entering our house at night would have found everyone in our family clustered around a couple of gas-fueled lanterns in dead silence, each of us deeply immersed in a book–except for my little brother.

Scarred by an unsuccessful introduction to reading in the first grade, my brother had soon become embarrassed by his lack of skill in a family of bibliovores and was a resolute functional illiterate. The rest of us found this appalling as well as inexplicable and discovering a book that would make my brother a passionate reader became an overriding obsession for us all.

Not too far away there was a tiny library that was our family’s idea of paradise. Even my brother loved it, since it contained picture books and illustrated encyclopedias–and as it turned out, a sizable collection of Tintin books.

We were not a family of comic book readers, but when my brother came home with his first volume of Tintin, poring over the pictures and painfully puzzling out the words, it was a big day for us all. It was the moment that my brother became a reader and Tintin became a household saint.

As a bookseller, I love to find books for the uneasy reader and Tintin is always high on my list of suggestions. A colleague of mine specializes in turning reluctant readers into bookworms and in an upcoming interview she will tell us how she does it. What about you? What titles do you suggest for the uneasy readers of your acquaintance? Let us know!

It’s April 1 – traditionally a day for pranks and teases–but the announcement this morning of this year’s winners of the Kiriyama Prize is no joke to people who love to read. For over a decade, this prize has been given to books that promote understanding of and empathy for the people who live in South Asia and the Pacific Rim– one fiction title and one nonfiction. The prize this year has been given to The Fragile Edge by Julia Whitty and Mr. Pip by Lloyd Jones.

Both of these books are ones that will appeal to book-loving teenagers and may well tempt adolescent reluctant readers as well. Julia Whitty’s wonderful introduction to the world of the ocean is from the perspective of a deep sea diver, and is high adventure as well as an environmental wake-up call. War-wrenched Papua New Guinea is the setting for Mr. Pip, where a young girl’s life is changed when a man begins to read aloud Great Expectations to the children of her village.

In addition to choosing the two books that win the Kiriyama Prize each year, judges also select a group of books that they feel are particularly notable. These books are listed on the Kiriyama website and this year has a separate category for children’s titles. These lists are a great resource for teachers, librarians, parents, and anybody who is looking for something good to read. Take a peek!

Jon Scieszka (”it rhymes with Fresca”) was declared the first ambassador for Young People’s Literature, today. The position is the children’s book equivalent of the Library of Congress’s poet laureate program. The new role will entail promoting the importance of reading by reaching out to parents, teachers and children everywhere and, in particular, Scieszka says, “to children who are considered reluctant readers.” Author of many children’s books, including the very successful Time Warp Trio series, The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs and Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, Scieszka is also the founder of Guys Read, a literacy program and website aimed at encouraging boys to read.

What should we expect from a guy whose Little Red Hen questions the presence of the ISBN number in the volume she appears on, and who allows her, later on, to be eaten by the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk?… Well, lots of gutsy energy to impart momentum and backbone to his important mission.

The new school year has kicked in now so I was glad to spot A Year of Reading’s recommendation of Monday with a Mad Genius by Mary Pope Osborne as a good read-aloud to bring some excitement and magic to those first few days back at school. I was interested, too, to read Mary Lee’s method for getting her class back into reading after the long summer vacation:

Lots of my students haven’t read all summer long, and I am modeling what they need to do to rebuild their fluency and stamina: start with lots of quick, easy reads to build confidence and refresh skills.

My younger son can’t keep his nose out of a book (sometimes I even get exasperated): but my older boy, who is about to turn 9, is starting to need some chivvying and he hasn’t read as much this summer as I would have hoped. One way I’ve found to encourage him is to sit down and read the first chapter to him… except then we all get into it and it turns into a bedtime book!

I’m about to try out the technique with Susanne Gervay’s superb book I Am Jack. You can read the first chapter on Susanne’s website. She has also provided some good ideas and materials to download. Reading the book together at home and discussing it provide a valuable springboard for bringing up the subject of bullying. By writing the story, Susanne has put into practice one of the messages that underpins the book: the pen is mightier than the sword. It presents a well-rounded perspective from all angles, whether that of the victim, the bully, friends, onlookers, teachers, schools or parents… And it’s also a cracking good story that I think he’ll enjoy. Maybe we’ll read it together all the way through then he’ll feel inspired to pick up the sequel, SuperJack…