This week’s question asks:
Now that summer is here (in the northern hemisphere, anyway), what is the most “Summery” book you can think of? The one that captures the essence of summer for you?
(I’m not asking for you to list your ideal “beach reading,” you understand, but the book that you can read at any time of year but that evokes “summer.”)
Hmm… I had to really think about this one for a while, but I think the book that best evokes “summertime” for me is a young adult book I read in my early teens: “Boy-Crazy Stacey” by Ann M. Martin. It’s book #8 of the Babysitters Club series. 
In the book, Stacey gets to go with a family she babysits for to the New Jersey shore, and she’s “on duty”, babysitting the kids for the duration of the trip. While there, though, she meets a cute boy — a lifeguard, of course — who she spends a great deal of the vacation hanging out with on the boardwalk, and on the beach. When I think of summer in a book, this book is the first that will always come to mind.
I went back through all of my book lists, from 2002 to the present, and a few others had summertime in them, but they didn’t evoke summer like this one book does for me.
June 25, 2009 at 4:15 pm
I love books reminding me of summer, but the weird thing is, that right now, I cannot think of any book
Will have to think a bit more, I guess.
June 25, 2009 at 6:31 pm
I’m not sure I can think of any good summer books, either. Lots of books growing up that took place during the school year, or else I don’t remember a time of year associated with them.
June 25, 2009 at 10:47 pm
Awesome choice! I can think of a few volumes of the “Sweet Valley High” series that call up summer for me.
June 26, 2009 at 12:56 am
LOL, I had momentarily forgotten about this series. My sister owned several and we read them as pre-teens/teens. I remember having a dream one night that I went into a book store and the series was up to 72 books or something, at the time I think Ann M. Martin was only in the 20s. My sister laughed when I told her and we both thought, “what a crazy dream”… until a few years later I really did stumble upon the series and it was into the 80s! I was shocked. Apparently the series has lived on for another generation of readers.