There are many reasons for
reading a book.
The side benefits are:
You learn to write by reading.
You learn to spell by reading.
Your learn grammar, punctuation, syntax, and organization by reading.
Your vocabulary will grow when you read.
Reading gives you educated speech.
You can get information, even from fiction.
But, most importantly, it is pleasurable.
Below are some books that are in the Beaumont Library collections that you may want to read. I have read and enjoyed them all. My adult students have read most of them and recommended them.
Because good books are good books, it does not make sense to limit readers to one category or another. But, because libraries and book stores sort books into categories, I have indicated the category to make it easier for you to find them.
Doc Rosow
Armageddon Summer
by Jane Yolen and Bruce Coville
This is about a group of families that join a doomsday cult. Little by little
the reader discovers how each person becomes entangled in ways that prevent
escape.
Both these authors write wonderful books and this shared work is thrilling.
YOUNG ADULT
Whirligig
by Paul Fleischman
When Bruce Bishop kills another teenager with his car, he is given a chance to
redeem himself in a way that no other person guilty of vehicular manslaughter
has ever known. The strange penitence the victim's mother assigns begins with a
very primitive whirligig.
Paul Fleischmann writes fiction and non-fiction. His stories always build and
then surprise.
TEEN NOVEL
The Smile
by Ray Bradbury
The exact year young Tom stood in line to celebrate destruction of the Past was
unclear. But he had gotten up very early to stand in line to assist in the
destruction of the Mona Lisa.
Ray Bradbury wrote this strange science fiction tale in 1952. Now is a very thin
book of 32 pages, printed with big spaces between the lines, it is a strange and
compelling read.
JUVENILE Creative education, Inc., 1991.
Frenchtown Summer
by Robert Cormier
Here are a series of memories, bleeps out of a life in a small town during 1939.
But don't let the year fool you. These are the experiences that helped to make
the man... the time he wished a bully dead, and the bully died; the time he saw
a woman almost fall from balcony, and he willed her to stay safe.
Robert Cormier is known for much longer books, but none that can make the reader
think more intensely. This tall, thin book has very little print per page, but
will keep you pondering at the end of each short passage.
JUVENILE
Rip Van Winkle
by Washington Irving
This is the strange accounting of a Kaatskill Mountain man who went to sleep
with a plan to recapture his gun and his dog, but who awoke twenty years later,
not knowing what had happened.
This story is written in 1820, but the language remains very understandable and
the story is as entertaining as ever.
In 1905 the famous illustrator Arthur Rackman published the volume. One Beaumont
Library copy is the Rackman's edition. (J.B. Lippincott Company) There are 64
pages, with big print, wide margins, and 16 of the original illustrations.
In 1993 Gary Kelley illustrated it in a beautiful, tall, 62-page volume with
masterly paintings, large print and big spaces between the lines. There are as
many pages of illustrations as there are pages of text.
JUVENILE (Creative education, Inc.) Winner - Benjamin Franklin Award
The Hundred Dresses
by Eleanor Estes, Illustrated
by Louis Slobodkin
When Peggy and the other girls began to tease Wanda about the hundred dresses
she had at home in her closet, they could not imagine the impact their words
would have. Neither could they imagine that what Wanda said was true.
There are 81 pages with big print and lots of pictures. The story is powerful.
JUVENILE Newberry Honor Book