You could make invitations, put a special menu together, write a shopping list of all the ingredients needed, go shopping, then cook and enjoy. The whole family could help and have fun with this. What do you think?

Here are a few special reading suggestions connected to cooking and food, which might inspire you further:

Food-themed picture books
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If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (Laura Numeroff)
Jojo Eats Dim Sum (James Kye)
Blueberries for Sal (Robert McCloseky)
Auntie Yang’s Great Soybean Picnic (Ginnie Lo)
The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle)

​Food-themed chapter books
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A Passport to Pastries (Veera Hiranandani)
Baker’s Magic (Diane Zahler)
Rutabaga the Adventure Chef (Eric Colossal)
Cupcake Diaries (Coco Simon)
Recipe for Adventure series (Giada De Laurentiis)

And here is a collage of some of the foods I already enjoyed this summer, representing all the countries I visited so far: Ghana, Germany and Italy. Buon appetito!

If you aren’t already keeping a summer journal, it isn’t too late… This might be the right time for you as you most probably already enjoyed some great times and might have lots of ideas and memories to record. It doesn’t really matter how you go about it – you could use only words, or words and pictures, comic strips, annotated sketches, photos – whatever works best for you to tell your story and keep those summer memories alive. Make sure to include the wonderful books you are reading as well so that we can share recommendations with each other after the summer.

​If you need some more inspiration, you might like to read some books about journaling and writing:

I made a mistake here when I put the summer program together, thinking the FIFA World Cup in Russia would be over by now, when in fact, we are yet to see the semi-finals and finals. Apologies for that. I do hope you are having fun watching the matches. During the year, I don’t follow league matches anymore, but I love tournaments like the World Cup very much. While we know which countries traditionally have strong teams, you can never predict how the teams will do in such a tournament and there are often big surprises and upsets, making it very exciting. Germany returning home after the first round, bottom of their group, was definitely a big surprise. Congratulations especially to South Korea for their fantastic play against our German team! Seeing Germany leave early didn't stop me from watching other matches and cheering for other teams, and I will definitely continue until the finals are over.

Should you have neither a public library nor a bookshop near you, how about exploring an e-book library online? Remember, no matter where you are in the world, as long as you have internet access, you can make use of our Tumble Book Library subscription.

​Here are a few favorite books of mine about libraries and books, you might like to read this week:

Picture books around libraries and books 
The Book of Gold (Rob Staake)
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore (William Joyce)
Madeline Finn and the Library Dog (Lisa Papp)
The Library Lion (Michelle Knudsen)
Dewey: There’s a Cat in the Library (Vicki Myron)
A Child of Books (Oliver Jeffers)
I Know a Librarian Who Chewed on a Word (Laurie Lazzaro Knowlton)​

A few chapter books/middle grades novels around libraries, books and reading
Book Uncle and Me (Uma Krishnaswami)
Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library (Chris Grabenstein)
The Ninja Librarians (Jen Swann Downey)
Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians (Brandon Sanderson)
The Year of the Book (Andrea Cheng)

​And in case you are wondering what Ms. Tanja has been up to: this has been my #1 position and activity throughout the past week, sitting on the balcony and reading, reading, reading... Happy summer reading!
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It is the very first week of the summer holidays – hooray! We have eight (teachers seven) weeks ahead of us, and no matter where we are going to be, summer fun and adventures will await us. 

​Here are a couple of ideas to get you started with the summer (reading) fun:

Make plans and lists…
What do you hope to do this summer? Where do you hope to go? Who are you hoping to see? What are you looking forward to read? What reading plans do you have? Maybe organize a book club with family and/or friends? Write it, sketch it, sing it, dance it… whatever works best for you J

​Start a summer journal / scrapbook…
Do you remember the journals I showed you? How about starting one yourself and then filling it with all the special memories you make this summer. Don’t forget to include all the wonderful books you come across.

Stay tuned for more ideas, more book recommendations, every Monday throughout the summer, on this blog.

Happy Holidays! Happy Reading!

Only a few more days until the break, the summer reading is in sight! Our resources are in place to help you get started in looking for and finding some books you will enjoy to read. You can access all resources through our Summer Reading Padlet below (open it full screen to get a better view).

You can also download the summer reading suggestions and the fun package from here:

Throughout the summer, I will continue to add weekly posts to this blog and also share some of the books I will be reading - you can take a sneak peek of what is currently on my iPad, my loyal travel companion, below. I have a variety of books I am looking forward to read: books for children, for the middle grades, for young adults, for grown ups and a professional title which I am hoping will give me more ideas on how best to support our readers here at HKA. I also have some audiobooks I am keen on listening to - more about this soon. Happy Summer Reading!

Just a couple more days until the long summer break. I can tell that our students are excited, sharing happily with each other about their summer plans. During the past week, I asked some of our students who visit the library in the morning before school, to have their picture taken with a favourite book, a book that could be an idea for others to consider reading this summer. As I mentioned in my blog post last week (if you missed it, click on Reading - All Summer Long), it's great to have a list - I like to call it a summer reading wish list - ready with ideas.

This week, when our students visit the library with their classes, we will think more about and help each other in getting ready for summer reading by sharing ideas. The goal will be to have for each grade a Top 10 Most Memorable Books of 2017-18 ready to be posted on our summer reading Padlet (the Padlet will be posted on this blog next Monday!). I can't wait to see which books our students will include on the list - and look even more forward to hearing their surely lively conversations about this!

Personally, I have also begun adding books to the Kindle App on my iPad, my wonderful travel companion each summer. I find getting ready for summer and summer reading almost as exciting as the summer and the reading itself :) I also have a beautiful new journal ready - a lovely gift from a friend - to record my reading and other summer adventures. Over the past years, my journals have become more and more scrapbooks, filled with books and memories I treasure. I will encourage our students too to consider the idea of keeping track in some form of what they read this summer, as a memory for themselves and new reading ideas for all of us when we return to school in August.

Have you begun thinking about books you might enjoy this summer? I would love to read about your suggestions and ideas in the comment section. Let's help each other with wonderful title suggestions so we can read all summer long.