For Parents

Why is summer reading so important?

Summer for your child can quickly become an endless stream of television, sleeping in, and video games. A high level of literacy and reading comprehension is one of the best skills a child can develop in our information-rich world. Additionally, summer reading combats “Summer Slide”, a phenomenon that affects children who stop reading over the summer. “Summer Slide” means that students actually lose some of the reading skills they gained during the school year and start the new school year behind where they finished the last. Active reading during the summer months prevents summer slide.

If your child is going into 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade, the Merchantville Summer Reading program is optional and incentive based.  

In addition to completing Merchantville's summer reading, there are other programs around our school that support reading a certain number books in the months of June, July, and August.  Find out more: 


Barnes and Noble

TD Bank

Pizza Hut

For Younger Readers (Going Into 1st through 5th Grades)

Even younger children should read during the summer!

Each student going into grades 1 to grades 5 was given a Summer Reading Log. Have your student return to school in September with this log if he or she would like to win the incentives listed below.

600 minutes (1 hour per week) ..... A secret prize!

1200 minutes (2 hours per week)....   A secret prize AND a snack at lunch!

1800 minutes (3 hours per week)..... A secret prize AND a snack at lunch AND a pizza party with Mr. Strong!


Not sure what you want your child to read?  Check out these suggestions and get started!

Suggested Book Lists from Reading Rockets

Staff Recommendations from Barnes and Noble

50 Fun Books to Read This Summer

Book It! Book List Grades 3-6

Book It! Book List Grades K-2

Students Going Into 8th Grade

Click here for your summer reading assignment to go with these books.

Are you going into 8th grade? Here are your summer reading choices.

Rivalry

Bestselling writer John Feinstein is back with another exciting sports-mystery, this one set behind the scenes at the storied Army-Navy football game.

Breadcrumbs

Once upon a time, Hazel and Jack were best friends. But that was before he stopped talking to her and disappeared into a forest with a mysterious woman made of ice. Now it's up to Hazel to go in after him. Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen," breadcrumbs is a stunningly original fairy tale of modern-day America, a dazzling ode to the power of fantasy, and a heartbreaking meditation on how growing up is as much a choice as it is something that happens to us.

Divergent

In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

Between Shades of Gray

Fifteen-year-old Lina is a Lithuanian girl living an ordinary life—until Soviet officers invade her home and tear her family apart. Separated from her father and forced onto a crowded train, Lina, her mother, and her young brother make their way to a Siberian work camp, where they are forced to fight for their lives. Lina finds solace in her art, documenting these events by drawing. Risking everything, she imbeds clues in her drawings of their location and secretly passes them along, hoping her drawings will make their way to her father's prison camp. But will strength, love, and hope be enough for Lina and her family to survive?

Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different

From the start, his path was never predictable. Steve Jobs was given up for adoption at birth, dropped out of college after one semester, and at the age of twenty, created Apple in his parents' garage with his friend Steve Wozniack. Then came the core and hallmark of his genius--his exacting moderation for perfection, his counterculture life approach, and his level of taste and style that pushed all boundaries. A devoted husband, father, and Buddhist, he battled cancer for over a decade, became the ultimate CEO, and made the world want every product he touched.

Students Going Into 7th Grade

Click here for your summer reading assignment to go with these books.

Are you going into 7th grade? Here are your summer reading choices.

Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life

For Rafe Khatchadorian, middle school is a boring, annoying distraction. To transcend the doldrums, he's devised a plan to outflank the oppressive administration: He has vowed to break every rule in the school's straightjacket Student Code of Conduct. At first, it's fun; then things gets much too serious, much too soon. A James Patterson-concocted comic journal story with Diary of a Wimpy Kid-like echoes.

Life as we Knew It

It's almost the end of Miranda's sophomore year in high school, and her journal reflects the busy life of a typical teenager: conversations with friends, fights with mom, and fervent hopes for a driver's license. When Miranda first begins hearing the reports of a meteor on a collision course with the moon, it hardly seems worth a mention in her diary. But after the meteor hits, pushing the moon off its axis and causing worldwide earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes, all the things Miranda used to take for granted begin to disappear. 






100 Year Old Secret

Go to The Dancing Men and ask for a saucer of milk for your snake. Then all will be revealed.
Xena and Xander Holmes think living in London will be boring. But one afternoon they’re handed a cryptic note that leads them to a hidden room—and a secret society. When they discover they’re related to Sherlock Holmes and inherit his unsolved casebook, life becomes so much more exciting. The siblings set out to solve the cases their famous ancestor couldn’t, starting with the mystery of a prized painting that vanished more than a hundred years ago. Can two smart twenty-first century kids succeed where Sherlock Holmes could not?




Skate Freak 

Dorf is all about skateboarding and so far that's worked out fine. But now that he's in a new city, the terrain has changed. He's no longer free to skateboard where he wishes, school is more difficult, and his passion for skateboarding garners him the nickname and reputation of a freak. With daring stunts he gains the grudging respect of local troublemakers, but he needs to tap into another kind of courage to effect real change.



Students Going Into 6th Grade

Click here for your summer reading assignment to go with these books.

Are you going into 6th grade? Here are your summer reading choices:

Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made

Barnes and Noble Editorial Review: Eleven-year-old Timmy Failure has no clue that he's not the world's greatest detective. Even being unable to deduce the culprit in a recent candy wrapper caper doesn't squelch his dizzying ambitions. The first book for young readers by the creator of Pearls Before Swine features funny pictures, classroom guerilla theater, and more mysteries than any pint-sized Holmes can handle.

Lexile: 520L

Warriors: Into the Wild

For generations, four Clans of wild cats have shared the forest according to the laws laid down by the powerful ancestors. But the warrior code is threatened, and the ThunderClan cats are in grave danger. The sinister ShadowClan grows stronger every day. Noble warriors are dying — and some deaths are more mysterious than others.

In the midst of this turmoil appears an ordinary housecat named Rusty . . . Who may yet turn out to be the bravest warrior of them all.






Hoot

Unfortunately, Roy's first acquaintance in Florida is Dana Matherson, a well-known bully. Then again, if Dana hadn't been sinking his thumbs into Roy's temples and mashing his face against the school-bus window, Roy might never have spotted the running boy. And the running boy is intriguing: he was running away from the school bus, carried no books, and -- here's the odd part -- wore no shoes. Sensing a mystery, Roy sets himself on the boy's trail. The chase introduces him to potty-trained alligators, a fake-fart champion, some burrowing owls, a renegade eco-avenger, and several extremely poisonous snakes with unnaturally sparkling tails.

Roy has most definitely arrived in Carl Hiaasen's Florida.

Roy, who is new to his small Florida community, becomes involved in another boy's attempt to save a colony of burrowing owls from a proposed construction site.           

Once



Felix, a Jewish boy in Poland in 1942, is hiding from the Nazis in a Catholic orphanage. The only problem is that he doesn't know anything about the war, and thinks he's only in the orphanage while his parents travel and try to salvage their bookselling business. And when he thinks his parents are in danger, Felix sets off to warn them--straight into the heart of Nazi-occupied Poland.