Dive Into Summer Reading

By Jeff Sapp | Curriculum Specialist/Writer, Teaching Tolerance

June 2, 2004

    My family has gone to the same beach house every summer for 20 years.  The children have grown up there boogie-boarding and playing in the ocean.  The adults, though, have a different enjoyment.

    Books.

        

    We line up our beach chairs and dive into our summer reading selections.  We swim in these books.  Soaking up the warm air, talking about the books over lunch, getting in a few more pages before sleep or sunburn overtakes us.

    I’ll never forget the first time my nephew, Dylan, put away his boogie-board, pulled up a beach chair and pulled out a book.  He read for hours that first day.

    At the beach, in the mountains, at home or at play, Tolerance.org invites you to dive in to our Summer Reading Program.  Every Wednesday for the next 14 weeks, join us here for a new book to read together.

    We’ve invited internationally acclaimed children’s author Mem Fox to help us kick off the series.

    Educators will certainly know Fox from her many children’s books as well as her groundbreaking book on teaching, Radical Reflections:  Passionate Opinions on Teaching, Learning, and Living.

    Parents will be inspired by her book Reading Magic:  Why Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives Forever.

    One of Fox’s children’s books, Whoever You Are, will appear later as one of our summer selections.

    Fox encourages us to develop a deep need for books in our lives.  Here’s what she has to say:

            When we look at the sort of home that produces book lovers, the first thing we

            notice - the most obvious, but strangely the most often forgotten factor - is that

            such a home has books in it.  How can books become attractive if there aren’t any

            books around to flip through?

            Another factor in developing a deep need for books is having a wide variety of

            reading material throughout the house - thrillers, paperbacks, magazines,

            newspapers, encyclopedias, classics, kids’ novels, nonfiction books and manuals,

            specialist journals and picture books.

            Some short books.  Some long books.  Some easy books.  Some difficult books.

            Want your kids to read?  It’s easier than you think.  The best way to get your

            children to read is for them to see you revel in the reading process yourself.

            I believe it’s a fine thing to be seen to sniffle over sad books in from of children

            and a fine thing to delay washing the dog or getting to a ball game because a

            parent cannot put a particular book down.

            Last of all, books should be beautiful and intrinsically rewarding for readers.

            These books create a need by satisfying a need.  If we didn’t know chocolate was

            delicious we’d never crave it - so it is with books.

            I am thrilled to support Tolerance.org’s Summer Reading Program.  Diving into

            and being thrilled with reading and writing is the best way I know to make…

            Reading Magic!

    The following books we’ve chosen have a little bit of something for everyone.  Dive in.  And enjoy.

    Week 1:      The Way We Never Were:  American Families and the Nostalgia Trap by Stephani Coontz

    Week 2:      A Heart Divided by Cherie Bennett and Jeff Gottesfeld

    Week 3:      The Obesity Myth by Paul Campos

    Week 4:      The Price of Dissent by Bud Schultz and Ruth Schultz

    Week 5:      Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelson

    Week 6:      Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

    Week 7:      Uprooting Racism by Paul Kivel

    Week 8:      Whoever You Are by Mem Fox

    Week 9:      The Circuit and Breaking Through by Francisco Jimenez

    Week 10:    Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine by Bebe Moore Campbell

    Week 11:     America’s Women by Gail Collins

    Week 12:      Floating by Nicole Bailey-Williams

    Week 13:    To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

    Week 14:    Boy Meets Boy by David Leviathan

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