2023 Summer Reading List For Kids: K Through 12

It’s summertime. Kids are on vacation. Hopefully, their 2023 summer reading has already begun! Whether your child is a bookworm or more into other activities, a good book is a brilliant addition to any summer itinerary. But what should you put on your summer reading list for kids? In this post, we’ve put together a great list of book suggestions for kids of a wide range of ages, so you can find the perfect tale for your children.

Why should kids read in the summer?
Not only does reading keep kids engaged and play an important role in maintaining key literary skills, it can also be a fun way to pass the long summer days. Whether your child is in K or 12th grade, there’s bound to be a book out there that they’ll enjoy! Check out our summer reading lists by grade for some awesome, age-appropriate titles that are stimulating and exciting. We’ve included the author’s name and title so you can either find them in online stores, in your local bookstore, or at the library.

Best Summer Reading For Kids
Summer reading list for kids in elementary (K-5):

Kindergarten

• Waiting Is Not Easy by Mo Willems
• Firebird by Misty Copeland
• I Am Enough by Grace Byers
• Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
• Swashby and the Sea by Beth Ferry
• Thank You, Omu! by Oge Mora
• Anxious Ninja By Mary Ninh
• Dragons Love Tacos By Adam Rubin
• The Book With No Pictures By B.J. Novak
• The Day The Crayons Quit By Oliver Jeffers

Grade 1

• Friends Do Not Eat Friends by Jill Esbaum
• We Are in a Book by Mo Willems
• Figgy and Boone: Best Brother Ever by Janee Trasler
• Pig Makes Art by Laura Gehl
• Frog and Toad Are Friends by Arnold Lobel
• Margaret and Margarita: Margarita y Margaret by Lynn Reiser
• Henry and Mudge by Cynthia Rylant
• Big Bug Surprise by Julia Gran

Grade 2

• Rise of the Earth Dragon by Tracey West
• Love Puppies: Best Friends Furever by JaNay Brown Wood
• The Fabled Stables Willa the Wisp by Jonathan Auxier
• Galaxy Zack by Ray O’Ryan
• The Notebook of Doom by Troy Cummings
• Ricky Ricotta’s Mighty Robot by Dav Pilkey
• Secret Spy Society The Case of the Missing Cheetah by Veronica Mang
• Mac Undercover (Kid Spy #1) by Mac Barnett

Grade 3

• Three Tales of My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett
• Jack: The True Story of Jack and the Beanstalk by Liesl Shurtliff
• The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary
• P.I. Blesutterfly Gone Guppy Case #1 by Karen Kilpatrick
• First Cat in Space by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Shawn Harris
• Two-Headed Chicken by Tom Angleberger
• Cat Kid Comic Club by Dav Pilkey
• Ellie, Engineer by Jackson Pearce
• Planet Omar by Zanib Mian

Grade 4

• Fables by Arnold Lobel
• The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
• Dragon with a Chocolate Heart by Stephanie Burgis
• Royal Guide to Monster Slaying by Kelley Armstrong
• Me, Frida, and the Secret of the Peacock Ring by Angela Cervantes
• Leon the Extraordinary by Jamar Nicholas
• The One and Only Bob by Katherine Applegate
• Pie in the Sky by Remy Lai
• Cress Watercress by Gregory Maguire

Grade 5

• Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
• The Captain’s Dog by Roland Smith
• From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg
• The Red Tree by Shaun Tan
• The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
• Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
• Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

2023 summer reading for kids in middle school:

Grade 6

• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
• All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot
• Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
• Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
• One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia
• War Horse by Micheal Morpurgo
• The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum

Grade 7

• Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson
• Cinder by Marissa Meyer
• Starfish by Lisa Fipps
• House Arrest by K.A. Holt
• Whale of the Wild by Rosanne Parry
• The Van Gogh Deception by Deron Hicks
• History Comics: The Roanoke Colony: America’s First Mystery by Chris Schweizer
• The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis
• The Cay by Theodore Taylor

Grade 8

• The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
• The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins
• Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
• Divergent by Veronica Roth
• The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
• My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell

Best summer reading for kids in high school:

Grade 9

• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
• We Are Displaced by Malala Yousafzai 
• Airman by Eoin Colfer
• The Berlin Boxing Club by Rob Sharenow
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• Ironman by Christ Crutcher
• Night by Elie Wiesel

Grade 10

• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• 1984 by George Orwell
• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
• Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier 
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Rootless by Chris Howard
• I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

Grade 11

• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Nessey
• On the Road by Jack Kerouac
• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Grade 12

• The Things We Cannot Say by Kelly Rimmer
• Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
• A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy
• Diving into the Wreck by Adriene Louise
• Amma Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

If you’ve been wondering “How do I make a summer reading list?”, just take your pick from some of the great titles above, depending on your kid’s age! Using these as inspiration, your kids’ summer reading will be sorted.

Featured image by Andy Kuzma on Pexels