Summer Reading Basket For You

My kids are home for summer vacation. You might as well know, I love it. I know, I know, there's lots I've read out there of how you can't be my friend if I like my kids home, but I do.

Anyway, on their last day of school, I pick them up with a van full of balloons. Then we go for french fries and soda, **fast food?? aaargh! unfriend!** The first morning that my children are mine home again, I let them sleep in, then they come downstairs to cinnamon rolls. We do it the same way every year.

Another thing they wake up to on their first day of vacation, is a large reading basket I've set out for them at the bottom of the stairs. They love it. It's filled with books, magazines, notebooks, sketchpads, markers, charcoal pencils, pastels, small travel games, and a few card games, too.

What I have for you today, courtesy of so very many wonderful, talented people I've met on the internet, is a summer reading basket for you.

Leave a comment below for a chance to win.

Up on deck for some very lucky winners, the following top of the line reads:

 
--Jill Smokler, Scary Mommy's, second book; Motherhood Comes Naturally, and other vicious lies. This book is right on. It's something I truly needed when I started this parenting gig 18 years ago. I thought I was supposed to hit the ground running. 18 summers later, and I'm still learning.  Written in Jill's reassuring style that tells us, we're all in this together. A winner.

--Tracy Beckerman's newest, Lost in Suburbia. I've met Tracy in real life, and her essays here are as close to having your BFF living right next door as you can get. No topic off limits for her, Tracy spills it on what the rest of us keep quiet. She takes the words right out of my mouth by asking, "What the heck happened here? And whose house am I in?"

--Lela Davidson's Who Peed On My Yoga Mat. Lela, an adorable pixie of a woman, is another one who reads my mind out loud. She is the best friend from college that you've been smart enough to hang onto. Her writing is irreverent, yet still deeply in love with mothering. This is a great book to carry around in your purse--easily pulled out for hidden giggles in between classes and at swim lesson pick up.

--Rita Arens, of Surrender, Dorothy, offers us a painfully beautiful glimpse of adolescent life during the stormy times of uncertainty and doubt. For those who love YA literature, as I do. Vulnerable, aching, and absolutely irresistible. A must read, The Obvious Game, by Rita Arens.

 
--I am proud to say, that the last book here up for this giveaway is authored by someone who was an editor for me. Una LaMarche. This woman with a keen eye for the subtleties that take writing from pretty good to knocking it out of the ballpark, has written Five Summers, a YA novel that had me hooked from the first page with sentences like "words flowed from her like the very next breaths she was taking."  It's the story of four friends and five summers they share together. Captivating.

These fabulous reads are yours if you win! Please leave a comment to win, and the authors will send out the books to you. All books are available through Amazon, if you can't wait to spend your summer nights falling asleep to some mighty fine writing, as I do. 

GOOD LUCK!

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