Summer vacation is upon us! We are ready to get out of the house and have some fun. For many of us, summer break means lots of time on the road. Ball games, vacations, camping trips, beach bumming, boating, sightseeing, museums – if your family is anything like ours, summer is when we see our windshield time really increase.
Tablets and DVDs have their place while traveling, but I do not want my kids to be obsessed with technology while we’re on the go this summer. I’ve done some digging and found some new book series that I think will be just the thing to keep my kids reading and enjoying books this summer.

We have a kindergartener (starting first grade in the fall) who isn’t reading independently yet, and I have a second grader (third grade in the fall) who is a very strong but reluctant reader.
I find that sometimes we get in a book rut. We tend to grab familiar books by the same authors over and over – which is ok, but there are so many good kids books out there! This summer is the perfect time for us to broaden our horizons and enjoy some new book series!
Six Great Book Series
Zita the Space Girl. Abby loooooooooves graphic novels (especially Tin Tin!), so I thought this one might be a hit with her. It totally was. She can’t wait to read more in this series (I believe there are four books so far).


Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willems. We may be the last people in the world to discover these books, but better late than never. Riley LOVES these. They’re so fun! This is a great series for the younger elementary crowd. We brought a couple of these along when we went to the lake last weekend. Abby read them to Riley and they were both belly laughing as they read them together – which definitely makes them keepers in my book.

Ella Diaries. We’ve discovered a few book series sold by Usborne Books that are really enjoyable. Ella Diaries is one of them. Abby won one the first book of this series as a door prize at an event, and really enjoyed it. It’s written with a handwriting-style font, which is appealing to her because it’s different from a REAL book. 😉

The EJ12 Series. Another series from Usborne that Abby is starting to enjoy. She really likes the main character. Plus, they’re kid spies/good vs evil with some puzzles to solve along the way…what’s not to love about that?!

Strange Museum series. Abby recently found these at our library and LOVED them. The library only has two books of the series, so I’ll definitely be on the lookout for the additional books this summer. She loved the characters and I loved that the plot interweaves history and fiction. I believe these books may be part of the Hooked on Phonics program?? Anyway, this is one that she is really enjoying lately.

Kingdom of Wrenly series. This is the one of our tried and true favorite book series, great for both girls and boys. These books are delightful. Abby is a huge fan and has been begging for new Wrenly books for a while now, so I bought a few new ones for summer travels. They’re cute and imaginative books to get lost in.

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