Summer adventures? Pack a book

Get ready for summer reading: travel to faraway places, visit mysterious nooks and corners and dream with cozy homespun tales. (Don't forget to stash a book in the backpack for that journey away from home.)

Begin with "Magic in the Margins" by W. Nikola-Lisa (Houghton), a medieval tale of bookmaking. This is a fictionalized illustrated history of the book. Bonnie Christensen's paintings and marginal sketches resemble illuminated manuscripts.

While in the medieval era, try "The Falconer's Knot" by Mary Hoffman (Bloomsbury) with mystery, suspense and foul play. A spin-off in this story is the well-researched description of ink-making for the wondrous frescoes of Assisi and illuminated books of Italy. This book (grades 6-12) is one of my favorites of the year.

Tim Egan's "The Pink Refrigerator" (Houghton) takes us to the junk yard where mysterious messages on an old fridge remind us to "paint more," "read more," and "explore more." What great ideas, even if we don't have a pink refrigerator (grades K-3).

June celebrations include Little League Baseball Week June 11-17. "Barnstormers: Tales of the Travelin' Nine" by Loren Long and Phil Bildner will be just the book to get us in the baseball mood (grades 4-6).

June 14 is Flag Day. "The Star-Spangled Banner" (Scholastic) and "The Flag Maker" by Susan Campbell Bartoletti (Houghton) provide glimpses into the history of the flag (grades 4-6).

June 17 is Father's Day. Rudyard Kipling's poem "If" has been standard advice for a hundred years and is now beautifully photographed by Charles R. Smith Jr. (Scholastic). "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs ... " is pertinent today (all ages).

Karen Stanton's "Papi's Gift" (Boyd's Mills Press) is a tender story of a girl south of the border waiting for a gift from her father, a farm worker in California (grades 3-5). Another picture book for this holiday is "You and Me Together" by Barbara Kerley (National Geographic) with colorful photos from around the world.

Celebrate father's gift in "Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life" by Wendy Maas (Little/Brown). Older readers (grades 4-7) will be delighted with Jeremy's search for something his father left him as a birthday gift.

A tribute to parents is Berkeley Breathed's "Mars Needs Moms!" (Philomel). This artist of the comics "Opus" and "Bloom County" has created one of my favorite picture books of the year (grades K-3). It tells what happens when three Martians take Mom and she's not there to attend to a disgruntled little boy. A winner!