reading: the magician's elephant

All the kids are home for the summer, which is very fun, and also a bit crazy. I guess only one of them is actually in school all day normally, so in a lot of ways it's not much different. But summertime just FEELS more laid-back. My agent couldn't believe it when she found out that my kids are here all the time when school's out. "Don't they go away to camp?" she asked. But that seems to be an East Coast thing (correct me if I'm wrong) and, at least in our neighborhood, the kids are just running rampant all the time all over the street. I kind of love it. It's like our neighborhood truly comes alive in the summer, especially in the evenings and things get cool, and the kids are all this big gang that runs from yard to yard to yard with bare feet and popsicle stains on their faces. Summer evenings are my favorite time of the year.

Summer afternoons can get a little long though–I won't deny it. Around 4:00 p.m. we often run out of steam. So I've started flopping on the floor or bed closest to the air conditioning and reading this book, just a chapter a day, to the kids. I'm sure a lot of it goes over my toddler's head but he loves to do whatever his brothers are doing. It's such a beautifully written little book. We're all excited to keep going and find out what happens at the end.

What summer kid reads are you enjoying/have you enjoyed in the past?