Under my sunhat

 

It’s hot out there, folks, so don’t forget your sunhats, will you? I’m going to be needing mine more than ever shortly as I’m off to beautiful boiling Turkey. Lucky me! Right now, though, I’m getting up extra early each morning, trying to finish a draft of my new book, and dashing around buying sandals, modelling bikinis (ahem!), and sorting out cat-sitters. And most important of all – I’m gathering up the family’s summer reading!

I love reading on holiday. There’s nothing better than being on the beach with a damp and slightly sandy paperback. I’ve bought a ridiculously enormous and wide-brimmed sunhat which I intend to be underneath with a book for most of the holiday. I’ve noticed that this year there’s a new addition to the selection criteria – books with print large enough not to require me to put reading glasses on as well as sunglasses. Oh dear, sign of getting old!

My daughters are much more focussed on packing fashion and flippers than books, but I know they’re going to want to read too, so I picked some titles for them. Check these out and see how you think I did.

 

 

 

For my 12 year old, I have The Twice-lived Summer of Bluebell Jones by Susie Day, which I think will be just up her street – I love the premise of the 13 year old girl meeting her very different 14 year old self and having to figure out what has happened in the single year that separates them. It also has a really fantastic cover.

 

 

My 14 year old reads in fits and starts. She’ll go for ages without a book and then gets carried away by a big series. She loved Michelle Paver’s Wolf Brother books and Patrick Ness’ Chaos Walking. More recently it’s been Twilight, Divergent and The Hunger Games. So I’ve gone with the flow and bought The Maze Runner by James Dashner and The Declaration  by Gemma Malley.

It’s amazing how many book covers mention The Hunger Games, whether they were published long before or some time after Suzanne Collins’ hit, but it is quite useful when it comes to choosing.

 

 

 

 

I’m also taking a copy of To Kill a Mocking Bird, the wonderful classic novel by Harper Lee. My plan is that we’ll read that to each other as  a family in the warm evenings, where there’s no telly to distract us.  Won’t that be lovely? Or am I living in fantasy land? I’ll be back by the time you read this, so I’ll let you know…

 

Meanwhile, both girls are really into mermaids at the moment, after watching oodles of the Australian TV series H20: Just Add Water. They’ve already read Liz Kessler’s addictive Emily Windsnap books so I was pleased when I happened on Ingo by Helen Dunmore. This isn’t a new one but it’s new to me and it looks just right. Helen Dunmore  writes brilliant books for adults so I have no doubt that the writing itself will be excellent. And it sounds as if the story will be captivating too. How about this quote from the Telegraph:

“Helen Dunmore may have a few drowned readers on her conscience, so enticing and believable is the underwater world she creates”

I’d better keep a close eye on my two beauties when they go flippering off into the Med!