Summer Reading

Ever since I was a junior in high school, I've had a Summer Reading List. Last year I was still taking classes, so I flaked out and didn't do it. I had a list all made out and everything but it just wasn't working out. I had too much to do with classes, Chi Alpha (the young adult Christian group I was in at the time), and preparing to graduate to accomplish much pleasure reading.
The Summer Reading List started because one summer I challenged myself to read every Jane Austen book I could get my hands on. I even read a collection of stories that she wrote probably when she was in her teens, which I'm sure she never meant to have published. Ever since then I've made a list. Sometimes it has a theme, sometimes not. I always have a couple categories inside of it. There is usually a graphic novel series that I'm supposed to finish or catch up to the most current one of. There's the summer reading challenge which is a really long book (at least six hundred pages) that I'm to finish by the end of the summer. The last three years my friend, Elie and I have been reading a book together each summer. At the end of the summer we get together talk about it. We read to each other our favorite parts. The first two years it was a Jane Austen but this year it's a children's science fiction. So, that's an exciting change.
It's funny to have a Summer Reading List when I'm not in school anymore. I usually did it because summer was the time to catch up on that pleasure reading I couldn't do during the school year (I still read but not as much as I wanted). I often put off reading certain books until summer came just so I could enjoy them more and finish them in the speed that I like. This spring I had a Spring List which just contained seven fiction books from one of the Young Adult Library Services Association(YALSA) lists for the year 2010 (if you don't know much about YALSA or nothing at all, just look them up). This summer I decided to revolve the list around some children's books that have been widely popular. So, there are some of those but there are few extra too.
So the list is below:

Summer Reading List 2010

Montana Marriages Series by Mary Conneally

- The Husband Tree
- The Wildflower Bride

Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster

Extras by Scott Westerfield

Will Grayson/Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

Looking For Alaska by John Green

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Graphic Novel Series: Monkey High by Shouko Akira


Summer Reading Challenge: Brisingr by Christopher Paolini

Dear Dumb Diary #1 by Jim Benton

Ivy and Bean #1 by Annie Barrows

Among the Hidden by Margaret Peter Haddix

Amelia Rules by Jim Gownley
Vol. 1-4

How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell

Frog Princess by E.D. Baker

Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (This one I'm reading with Elie and our friend, Stephanie)

-Nichole