I don’t know about you, but for me the summer is flying by! I can’t believe it’s half over. Hopefully you’ve been up to plenty of fun, whether it’s outside or inside. I’m trying to learn some new things this summer. One is outside–golf. The other is inside–piano. Both require a lot of practice, but I am seeing some improvement at both of them.

Are you trying some new adventures this summer?  Even reading a new type of book–like a mystery, or historical fiction, or SciFi, or nonfiction–can be a new adventure.

Yesterday, I visited my local library and found plenty of interesting titles to choose from there. Here are some of the middle grade books I’m going to dig into:

SAVE ME A SEAT by Sarah Weeks & Gita Varadarajan, about a new kid at school. I can relate to that, since this was my experience several times as a child.

ROSETOWN by Cynthia Rylant, about a young girl dealing with the death of her dog and her parents’ divorce. Big changes in our lives can be tough. I’m looking forward to meeting this character and seeing how she deals with her problems.

STINKBOMB AND KETCHUP-FACE AND THE BADNESS OF BADGERS by John Dougherty, a totally off-the-top fantasy which I will share with my grandson. I think he’s going to laugh-out-loud at this one.

And yes, I am writing as well this summer. I’m editing a middle grade novel as well as a nonfiction picture book. Plus, I’m writing a fun picture book that’s hopefully quite moo-velous!

One other summer adventure I had a few weeks ago was an evening at our local butterfly house with camera in hand. It was incredible to closely observe so many beautiful butterflies and try to capture them with my camera. I am only a beginner at photography but our instructor, a professional photographer, gave me some pointers. I’ll share a few of the photos here.

Keep me posted on your summer adventures and your summer reads!