Summer’s here!
Perhaps your kids are taking part in your local library’s summer reading program, and are looking for books to put in their reading logs. Maybe you’re looking for new reads to bring along on a family road trip. Or maybe your kids just need some fun books to read during the it’s-too-hot-to-go-outside hours of the day.
Check out these eight amazing MG chapter books and graphic novels for your kids to dive into this summer.
A trip to Paris becomes the adventure of a lifetime for Owen Godfrey when he and his new friends suddenly come across an old copy of Jules Verne’s collected works. But inside the book are strange codes: the clues to a treasure hunt! Soon, Owen and his friends are racing across, deep below, and high above Paris on a hunt for the treasure. But they soon discover that other people are also hot on the trail of Verne’s secret, and these people will stop at nothing to get what they want!
Asperides is a powerful, mystical demon sword, waiting for a new hero to wield it (and in doing so, to sign their soul over to the sword’s control). Nack is a wannabe knight who is in need of a quest, because his life is sadly lacking in adventure. One day, fate throws these two together, and Asperides talks Nack into becoming his new hero. When an evil sorcerer (whose body Asperides has been guarding) goes on the rampage, Asperides and Nack will have to rely on each other to save themselves and the entire world.
Siblings Amira (an aspiring astronomer) and Hamza (bored out of his mind at a museum exhibit) find themselves caught up in a cataclysm of cosmic proportions when Hamza unwittingly sets off a device known as the Box of the Moon. Soon, everything is in chaos, with the moon breaking apart, night and day being reversed, and everyone else falling asleep. Amira and Hamza soon learn, through an encounter with a jinn, that they are figures in an ancient prophecy. They must keep the world from being run by ancient evils and keep the moon from being torn apart, or the world that they know will be lost forever.
It must be nice living on a space station, right? Not quite. For best friends Sanity and Talullah, life on Wilnick SS can get pretty dull, but the girls have lots of fun solving mysteries and conducting science experiments to keep things exciting. But things get a little too exciting when one of Sanity’s science experiments, a three-headed kitten (very cute and very against the rules) runs wild and causes all sorts of havoc. So it is up to Sanity and Talullah to corral the flighty feline before it brings disaster to Wilnick SS.
Meet Zed Kagari and Brock Dunderfel: two boys living in the city of Freestone, one of the last cities remaining in a world overrun by monsters. Both boys have their hearts set on joining one of the local guilds: the Mages’ Guild in Zed’s case, and the Merchants’ Guild for Brock. But fate has different ideas, and Zed and Brock find themselves members of the Adventurers’ Guild. It is then that they learn that there is a terrible plot that threatens all of Freestone. They must team up with some new allies in order to prevent tragedy from overtaking the city.
Julia’s dad is convinced that he was abducted by extraterrestrials, and his stories have convinced Julia that there is really life out there. When the 75th anniversary of the Roswell UFO crash rolls around, Julia and her dad go to the big festival in New Mexico marking the anniversary. But Julia finds that she now doubts some of her dad’s stories, and by extension, she starts doubting her dad as well. Will this trip bring the two of them closer together, or drive them further apart? (And is there really life beyond Earth?)
This whimsical graphic novel is based on the animated film of the same name from filmmaker Tomm Moore. Ben, Saoirse, and their lighthouse keeper father are still grieving the disappearance of Ben and Saoirse’s mother several years before. They are also concerned that Saoirse has not yet started speaking even at the age of six years old. But secrets open up when the family realizes that Saoirse is a selkie: a water spirit in Irish folklore. Moreover, the fantastical stories that their mother used to tell them, about spirit worlds and mysterious creatures, are in fact true. The family soon finds themselves on a quest to save the spirit worlds from being overtaken by a terrible force, and to learn the truth about why their mother disappeared.
Meet Ali Cross: the son of Detective Alex Cross from Patterson’s long-running Alex Cross series. Ali knows that he is just as good a detective as his father; he helped his dad solve some big cases, after all. So Ali and his friends start listening in on police calls and secretly shadowing the police at crime scenes, thanks to a handy little device that his friend Gabe has invented. But this quickly stops being a fun adventure when Ali and Gabe visit a crime scene in the late hours of the night, and witness something earth-shattering and potentially dangerous. Ali has to think long and hard about what crime fighting really means, both to himself and to his family. And danger may be waiting just around the corner…
Erin Roll is a freelance writer, editor, and proofreader. Her favorite genres to read are mystery, science fiction, and fantasy, and her TBR pile is likely to be visible on Google Maps. Before becoming an editor, Erin worked as a journalist and photographer, and she has won far too many awards from the New Jersey Press Association. Erin lives at the top floor of a haunted house in Montclair, NJ. She enjoys reading (of course), writing, hiking, kayaking, music, and video games.
