get your holiday
booked
If you’re looking for something meaty and
worthwhile – and appropriate for your daughter
to read, too – here are my top picks for the
summer, writes
Erica Lyons
.
A
s a word of warning, this
article is extremely biased
and opinionated. As a
general rule, I won’t read
anything with the words
princess
or
popular
in the title (with the exception,
of course, of the classic
The Little
Princess
). My 11-year-old daughter has
now adopted the same philosophy
and, while it is possible that we have
missed out on some greats with titles
like
How to Be the Most Popular and Pretty
Princess
, it is a calculated risk that we
are both willing to take.
We did make an exception for a
princess-y title:
Chinese Cinderella: The
Secret Story of an Unwanted Daughter
by
Adeline Yen Mah. I love memoir and
this book is a great read for young
women and mothers as well. It is a
tragic tale but it is beautifully written.
I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up
for Education and was Shot by the Taliban
by Malala Yousafzai with Christina
Lamb is another memoir to add to
the list. This is a must-read. Malala
is an incredible young woman with a
story that must be heard, for there are
many who will never have the chance
to tell their stories. It’s important that
our girls understand how fortunate
they are and how important their
voices can be.
While Malala’s story takes place in
Pakistan, the book tells her story of how
she faced the Taliban. In the fictional,
My Name is Parvana
, the now-15-year-
old protagonist lives in post-Taliban
Afghanistan. This inspiring story is
actually the sequel to
The Breadwinner
Trilog y
. I highly recommend all of the
Deborah Ellis series.
Prolific and profound
While summer reading is meant
to be enjoyable, it can still be well-
written; the two need not be mutually
exclusive. Through our Mother-
Daughter Book Club, which I wrote
about in the March issue of
Playtimes
,
I am discovering/rediscovering that
there are many books that are equally
enjoyable for both the pre-teen set as
well as their parents. There’s currently
a trend in the genre of young adult
literature towards “crossover” novels
– books written for teens, but also
marketed to adults. I have found many
books for an even younger audience
for which the same holds true.
If you remember one name to
add to your summer reading list, it
58
Playtimes
