Reading and summer have always seemed like the perfect combination. I have fond childhood memories of walking to the bookmobile on hot summer days with my mom and sister to pick out books. I’d load up my wagon and gleefully pull my newfound treasures back home.
As a teenager, I loved sprawling out on our porch swing with my book, losing myself in a new adventure. Now as an adult, I enjoy taking a good book on vacation, to the pool, or simply out to my patio.
I’m not sure why books and summer seem to be made for each other. Maybe it’s because we have a little more time to read and relax during the summer.
Whatever the reason, CatholicTeenBooks has several ideas to help enhance your summer reading even further.
We’ve created a fun Bingo game. You just need to keep track of the CTB books you’ve read for a chance to win $50 in books from an online retailer. Click HERE to play.
Through a great story, you can travel to a new state or country. Our Road Trip map shows where each CTB book is set, letting you choose your fictional destination. Click HERE for the Road Trip Map.
How about inviting friends to a summer book club to discuss a favorite story? Did you know that CatholicTeenBooks offers book-clubs-in-a-box? Besides the book and discussion questions, we’ll send you some extra goodies and party ideas. Check them out HERE.
I’d love to end by sharing my latest summer reading experience, which was quite unexpected and unique. Recently, while on vacation, I was enjoying a new book and actually came across my name within the pages of the story! What an honor that the author had included one of my novels as her character’s favorite book.
This incident made me wonder how many of our CTB characters are also avid readers. So, I asked my fellow CTB authors/book enthusiasts what books their characters love to read.
In my book, The Perfect Blindside, snowboarder Jake’s mom chose books-on-tape for them to listen to during their long car rides from Kansas to Colorado for his training sessions. While The Great Gatsby, Gone with the Wind, and Pride and Prejudice might not have been his first choice in reading material, the ritual created special memories and gave Jake an appreciation for literature.
Theresa Linden shared that in Anyone but Him, Caitlyn discovers Jarret's set of Louis L'Amour Westerns and a bunch of mysteries and detective stories, which she assumes are hers. And in Roland West, Loner, after discovering the contents of the locked box his friend inherited, Roland looks through his mother's saint stories.
In Marie Keiser’s novel Heaven's Hunter, Randall is an avid reader, but none are as life changing as the gospels he has just discovered.
When the main character, Rachel, from Carolyn Astfalk’s novel Rightfully Ours novel, has the house to herself for a short while, she chooses a romantic suspense novel on her e-reader, and plans on lounging on the bed, reading and eating ice cream.
Corinna Turner also includes reading in a few of her stories. In Child, Unwanted, the main character Miri is reading a book about Saint Margaret of Castello. And the main character in I Am Margaret, not only enjoys reading but actually writes an autobiography!