Summer Reading List 2022
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Picture Books | Early Readers | Chapter Books
Young Teens | Teens
Adult Fiction | Adult Non-Fiction
There is something special about reading during the long days of summer. Take a look at some new books we are recommending or wanting to read ourselves for the summer of 2022, as we strive to “Read Beyond the Beaten Path.”
Need help getting one of these titles? You can reserve a copy by placing a hold at lincc.org or give us a call (503-783-3455), and we’ll be glad to help. For even more ideas, just ask your librarian!
Also, have you joined us for our summer reading program? Book lovers of all ages are eligible.
Picture Books
A Day for Sandcastles by Jonarno Lawson; illustrated by Qin Leng
Siblings spend a day making sandcastles in this celebration of creative problem-solving, teamwork, and sun-splashed summer beach days.
A Good Place by Lucy Cousins
Four insects are looking for somewhere to live, and each has a different want: Bee loves flowers, Ladybug prefers leaves, Beetle is fond of dead wood, and Dragonfly likes ponds.
Grandad’s Camper by Harry Woodgate
A child who enjoys Grandad’s stories of his travels and adventures with Gramps persuades him to fix up the old camper and take another trip, in honor of Gramps.
Mommy’s Hometown by Hope Lim; illustrated by Jaimie Kim
A boy and his mother travel to her childhood home in Korea.
Paletero Man by Lucky Diaz
Follow along on a hot summer day, as a boy passes through his busy neighborhood in search of the Paletero Man!
The Tide Pool Waits by Candace Fleming; illustrated by Amy Hevron
Dive into the rich ecology of Pacific Coast tide pools in this nonfiction title for very young readers.
The World Belonged to Us by Jacqueline Woodson; illustrated by Leo Espinosa
A group of kids celebrate the joy and freedom of summer on their Brooklyn block.
Early Readers
Beginning readers, short chapters, and lots of fun
Beak & Ally: Unlikely Friends by Norm Feuti
Ally the alligator is perfectly happy being alone… until one day a noisy bird named Beak lands on her snout, and much to Ally’s annoyance, this chatty bird chooses a nearby tree to build their new nest.
Bug Scouts: Bugs Scout out the Wild by Mike Lowery
To earn their foraging bug badge, the Bug Scouts embark on a wilderness adventure to find an edible plant.
Doggo and Pupper by Katherine Applegate
Declared boring by the cat of the house, routine-oriented old Doggo is dismayed by the messy antics of newcomer Pupper.
The Flower Garden by Renee Kurilla
After planting a seed packet in the backyard, things don’t go as expected for best friends Anna and Tess. They fall asleep in the sun and wake up to blooms as tall as buildings!
Flubby Will Not Go to Sleep by J. E. Morris
A new bed, a squishy pillow, a warm blanket, and even a bedtime snack are not enough . . . Flubby will not go to sleep!
Surviving the Wild: Star the Elephant by Remy Lai
While Star the Elephant and his herd are searching for a new home, Star is separated from the other elephants. Can Star find his way back to his family?
Ty’s Travels: Beach Day by Kelly Starling Lyons; illustrated by Nina Mata
Ty turns an ordinary day in the sandbox into a fun beach day – he wiggles his toes in the sand, finds seashells, builds a castle, and splashes in the ocean.
Chapter Books
Just right for grade schoolers
Extincts: Quest for the Unicorn Horn by Scott Magoon
A team of genetically enhanced extinct animals embark on their first big mission to Siberia to retrieve an ancient unicorn horn from the thawing permafrost.
History Comics: The National Parks: Preserving America’s Wild Places by Falynn Koch
Meet the visionaries, artists, and lovers of the American wilderness who fought against corruption and self-interest to carve out and protect these spaces for future generations.
It’s the End of the World and I’m in My Bathing Suit by Justin A. Reynolds
Read to find out what happens when five kids face the apocalypse under outrageously silly circumstances.
Maizy Chen’s Last Chance by Lisa Yee
Maizy visits her estranged grandparents, who own and run a Chinese restaurant in Last Chance, Minnesota, where she makes unexpected discoveries about her family’s history and herself.
Sinister Summer: Wretched Waterpark by Kiersten White
While staying with their Aunt Saffronia, the Sinister-Winterbottom siblings visit the Fathoms of Fun water park where they find themselves caught in a spooky mystery full of gothic twists.
Witchlings by Claribel Ortega
Rather than being placed in one of the five covens with her friends, twelve year old witchling Seven Salazar is made a Spare instead, which means she’ll have to complete “an impossible task”.
Middle School
Just right for 6th-8th graders
The Ghoul of Windydown Vale by Jake Burt
Copper Inskeep holds Windydown Vale’s darkest secret, but when a terrified girl claims she and her father were attacked by a creature, it threatens not just Copper’s secret, but the fate of all Windydown, action-packed, full of surprise scares and ghoulish fun.
In the Key of Us by Mariama J. Lockington
Brought together during summer music camp where they are the only two Black girls, Andi and Zora slowly begin to connect and soon come to realize what has been missing from their lives.
The Marvellers by Dhonielle Clayton
Ella, the first conjurer to attend the Arcanum Training Institute, a global magic school in the sky, discovers that being the first isn’t easy.
Miss Quinces by Kat Fajardo
Sue just wants to spend the summer reading and making comics at sleepaway camp with her friends, but instead she has to go to Honduras to visit relatives with her family, and surprise, celebrate her quinceañera, which is the last thing she wants.
Northwind by Gary Paulsen
When a deadly plague reaches the small fish camp where he lives, an orphan named Leif is forced to take to the water in a cedar canoe – he flees northward, following a wild, fjord-riven shore, navigating from one danger to the next, unsure of his destination.
Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor by Xiran Jay Zhao
After his augmented reality gaming headset is possessed by the spirit of the First Emperor of China, twelve-year-old Chinese American Zack Ying is compelled to travel across China to steal an ancient artifact, fight figures from Chinese history and myth,and seal a portal to prevent malicious spirits from destroying the human realm.
High School
Drama, heartbreak, and finding your voice
Blackout: short stories by Dhonielle Clayton et al.
A summer heatwave blankets New York City in darkness – when the lights go out, people reveal hidden truths, love blossoms, and new possibilities take flight in interlinked stories by six award winning authors.
Ghosts of Rose Hill by R. M. Romero
Aspiring violinist Ilana spends the summer with her aunt in Prague, where she finds a forgotten Jewish cemetery and meets a kindhearted ghost named Benjamin who introduces her to the enchanted side of the city.
Golden Boys by Phil Stamper
It’s the summer before senior year – Gabriel, Reese, Sal, and Heath are best friends, bonded in their small, rural town by their queerness, their good grades, and their big dreams; each is about to embark on a new summer adventure.
Himawari House by Harmony Becker
Three foreign exchange students adjust to living in Japan, while each of them has her own motivations and challenges, they all deal with language barriers, being a fish out of water, self discovery, love, and family.
I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston
When her academic rival, prom queen Shara Wheeler, kisses her and disappears, leaving behind cryptic notes, Chloe Green hunts for answers and discovers there is more to this small town than she thought—and maybe more to Shara, as well.
Melt with You by Jennifer Dugan
Fallon and Chloe used to be best friends, but after a series of misunderstandings, they aren’t even speaking to each other, which is especially difficult because their moms own a business together—a gourmet ice cream truck where both girls work.
The Red Palace by June Hur
In 1758 Joseon (Korea), 18-year-old palace nurse Hyeon works closely with a young police inspector to uncover the truth surrounding the murder of eight palace nurses when all the evidence points to the Crown Prince himself.
Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger
Fifteen-year-olds Nina and Oli come from different words – she is a Lipan Apache living in Texas and he is a cottonmouth from the Reflecting World – but their lives intersect when Oli journeys to Earth to find a cure for his ailing friend and they end up helping each other save their families.
Survive the Dome by Kosoko Jackson
Jamal, an aspiring journalist gets trapped inside an impenetrable dome around Baltimore that is keeping the residents in and information from going out during a city-wide protest.
Adult Fiction
The 6:20 Man by David Baldacci
After a cryptic murder, a former soldier-turned-entry-level analyst, who boards the 6:20 commuter train like clockwork, is forced into a clandestine investigation into his firm that takes him to the darkest corners of the country’s economic halls of power, rife with corruption, where a killer awaits.
Book Lovers by Emily Henry
Agreeing to a holiday escape to the country, literary agent Nora keeps running into a bookish, hardheaded, arrogant editor she knows from Manhattan, and wishes she didn’t, even as she discovers they have more in common than previously thought.
Book of Night by Holly Black
In a world where shadows have feelings and memories and can be altered, a low-level con artist/bartender is pitted against doppelgangers, mercurial billionaires, shadow thieves and her own sister while trying to keep out of trouble.
The Candy House by Jennifer Egan
Told through lives of multiple characters, this electrifying, deeply moving novel, spanning 10 years, follows “Own Your Unconscious,” a new technology that allows access to every memory you’ve ever had, and to share every memory in exchange for success to the memories of others.
Counterfeit by Kristin Chen
Ava Wong, a strait-laced Chinese American lawyer and her former college roommate from Mainland China, who dropped out under mysterious circumstances, join forces in an ingenious counterfeit operation selling replica luxury handbags.
The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
When the arrival of Eduardo Lizalde sets in motion a dangerous chain of events, Carlota Moreau finds her carefully constructed world falling down around her as passion is ignited in the sweltering heat of the jungle where a motley group of monstrosities await.
Dele Weds Destiny by Tomi Obaro
Three once-inseparable college friends in Nigeria reunite at the posh Lagos wedding of one of their daughters and recount the events of the past 30 years including loves, losses, an abortion and an affair with an American Peace Corps volunteer.
Flying Solo by Linda Holmes
Returning to her Maine hometown to handle her grandmother’s estate, Laurie investigates a love letter and a mysterious wooden duck she found at the bottom of a cedar chest and is swept up in a journey of self-discovery and antiques.
Honey and Spice by Bolu Babalola
A young black British woman with a popular student radio show that dishes out relationship advice finds her show and her reputation on the line after she publicly makes out with a man she publicly denounced.
Horse by Geraldine Brooks
A scientist from Australia and a Nigerian-American art historian become connected by their shared interest in a 19th century race horse, one studying its remains, the other uncovering the history of the Black horsemen who were critical to its success.
The Hotel Nantucket by Elin Hilderbrand
Attempting to win the favor of the Hotel Nantucket’s new London billionaire owner, general manager Lizbet Keaton, with drama behind closed doors, staff and guests with complicated pasts, a ghost roaming the halls and her own romantic uncertainty, has her work cut out for her.
The It Girl by Ruth Ware
After John Neville, the man convicted of killing her best friend April 10 years earlier, dies in prison, expectant mother Hannah Jones, after new evidence surfaces proving his innocence, reconnects with old friends to solve the mystery of April’s death and realizes they all have something to hide—including a murder.
Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley
When a drunken altercation with a stranger turns into a job she desperately needs, Kiara, who supports her brother and an abandoned 9-year-old boy, starts nightcrawling until her name surfaces in an investigation exposing her as a key witness in a massive scandal within the Oakland Police Department.
Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance by Alison Espach
Opening in the early nineties and charting almost two decades of shared history and missed connections, this is both a breathtaking love story about two broken people who are unexplainably, inconveniently drawn to each other and a wryly astute coming-of-age tale brimming with unexpected moments of joy.
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
This award-winning, best-selling author returns with a novel of art, time, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.
The Summer Place by Jennifer Weiner
At her stepdaughter’s marriage to her pandemic boyfriend—the last gathering at the family’s beach house in Cape Cod, Sarah is faced with lovers being revealed as their true selves, misunderstandings, and secrets, ensuring that nothing will ever be the same.
Switchboard Soldiers by Jennifer Chiaverini
In 1917, Grace Banker from N.J., Marie Moissec from France, and Valerie DeSmedt, originally from Belgium, are recruited as a telephone operators, aka switchboard solders, to help American forces communicate between troops as bombs fell around them.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Embarking on a legendary collaboration launching them to stardom, two friends, intimates since childhood, have the world at their feet until they discover that their success, brilliance and money won’t protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of the heart.
Upgrade by Blake Crouch
When his DNA is rewritten with a genetic-engineering breakthrough beyond anything the world has seen, Logan Ramsey finds his transformation threatening everything around him as he is forced to take sides in a fight to save humankind.
Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill
Four strangers in a library strike up a friendship. One of them is a murderer. As they each share their stories, which one has something to hide?
You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi
Learning how to feel joy while healing from loss, Feyi Adekola starts dating the perfect guy, but discovers she has feelings for someone else who is off limits and must decide just how far she is willing to go for a second chance at love.
Adult Non-Fiction
Every Good Boy Does Fine: A Love Story, in Music Lessons by Jeremy Denk
An acclaimed classical pianist shares the most meaningful lessons of his life and tries to repay a debt to his teachers. He also reminds us that we must never stop asking questions about music and its purposes: consolation, an armor against disillusionment, pure pleasure, a diversion, a refuge, and a vehicle for empathy.
Happy-Go-Lucky by David Sedaris
Sedaris once again captures what is most unexpected, hilarious, and poignant about modern upheavals, personal and public, and expresses in precise language both the misanthropy and desire for connection that drive us all. If we must live in interesting times, there is no one better to chronicle them than the incomparable David Sedaris.
How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question by Michael Schur
From the creator of The Good Place and the cocreator of Parks and Recreation, a hilarious, thought-provoking guide to living an ethical life, drawing on 2,500 years of deep thinking from around the world.
The Office BFFs: Tales of The Office from Two Best Friends Who Were There by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey
Expanding on their Office Ladies podcast, two beloved The Office co-stars, and close friends in real life, share everything from what it was like in the early days as the show gained traction to walking their first red carpet to how their lives have changed when they became moms.
Phil: The Rip-Roaring (and Unauthorized!) Biography of Golf’s Most Colorful Superstar by Alan Shipnuck
In this raw, uncensored and unauthorized biography of the legendary golf champion, a longtime Sports Illustrated writer and best-selling author delves deep into all the rumors and controversies that have forever dogged Phil Mickelson, while celebrating his random acts of kindness and generosity of spirit.
The Puzzler: One Man’s Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life by A. J. Jacobs
A master of immersion journalism unpacks the history of the most popular puzzles, and aims to solve the most impossible head-scratchers, from a mutant Rubik’s Cube, to the hardest corn maze in America, to the most sadistic jigsaw.
River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile by Candice Millard
Set against the backdrop of the race to exploit Africa by the colonial powers, a story of courage and adventure brings to life the rivalry between two enemies—a decorated soldier and a young aristocrat/Army officer—as they set out to find the mysterious headwaters of the Nile River.
There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important Than Kindness: And Other Thoughts on Physics, Philosophy and the World by Carlo Rovelli
One of the world’s most prominent physicists and fearless free spirit, Carlo Rovelli is also a masterful storyteller. His bestselling books have introduced millions of readers to the wonders of modern physics and his singular perspective on the cosmos. This new collection of essays reveals a curious intellect always on the move. Rovelli invites us on an accessible and enlightening voyage through science, literature, philosophy, and politics.
We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story by Simu Liu
The star of Marvel’s first Asian superhero film, in this candid, inspiring and relatable memoir, tells his own origin story and how embarked on a journey that took him far outside of his comfort zone into the world of show business. We Were Dreamers is more than a celebrity memoir – it’s a story about growing up between cultures, finding your family, and becoming the master of your own extraordinary circumstance.