We hope you encourage your children to immerse themselves in good books over the summer! We present this list to you as a guide, but please feel free to offer your children other books appropriate to their reading level. Children entering second grade are at different reading levels and you may find the books on the rising first grade list to be suitable for your children. The books marked with an asterisk (*) are of an easier reading level.
Any Tomie de Paola Book *
Birthday for Frances (or other in series) by Lillian Hoban *
George and Martha series by James Marshall *
Owl Moon by Jane Yolen *
Roxaboxen by Barabra Cooney *
The Biggest Bear by Lynd Kendall Ward *
Blaze and the Lost Quarry (or others in series) by C.W. Anderson *
A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams *
Doctor Desoto by William Steig *
The Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen *
Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco *
When We Were Very Young by A.A. Milne
Now We Are Six by A.A. Milne
Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen
Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
My Father’s Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannet
Mouse on the Motorcycle series by Beverly Cleary
Will You Sign Here, John Hancock? by Jean Fritz
The Boxcar Children’s series by Gertrude Chandler Warner
The Cam Jansen Mystery series by David A. Adler
Mary Pope Osborne series
Usborne Time Traveler series
