{"id":4953,"date":"2026-06-01T08:15:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T12:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/?p=4953"},"modified":"2026-06-01T08:15:48","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T12:15:48","slug":"classic-childrens-and-ya-books-set-in-the-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/blog\/2026\/06\/01\/classic-childrens-and-ya-books-set-in-the-summer\/","title":{"rendered":"Classic Children\u2019s and YA Books Set in the Summer\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The summer solstice will take place on June 21, 2026, which technically marks the beginning of summer.  However, I am sure that most of the students in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) think that the real beginning of summer will arrive on the afternoon of June 10, 2026, which is the last day of the 2025-2026 school year. The sense of liberation that students feel on the last day of school is captured in Alice Cooper\u2019s famous hit, \u201cSchool\u2019s Out,\u201d or as it is sometimes called, \u201cSchool\u2019s Out for Summer.\u201d  In this song, Alice Copper sings about \u201cno more books,\u201d and I am sure that is how many students feel, but for some students, summer is a time to read books for pleasure.  I was such a student when I was growing up.  Today\u2019s Storied Charlotte blog post is for readers of all ages who read for pleasure and who are interested in classic children\u2019s and YA that take place during the summer.<\/p>\n\n\n

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One such classic is Maureen Daly\u2019s coming-of-age novel Seventeenth Summer. <\/em>Published in 1942, this novel is often cited as one of the key books that shaped the nature of contemporary YA literature.  It\u2019s written in first person, and it captures the emotions of a teenage girl who falls in love for the first time. Daly wrote the book while she was still in college, so she could still easily relate to the way teenagers often think about relationships. Angie Morrow, the central character, is a bright but very na\u00efve teenager who has lived a sheltered life.  I recently taught this book in my course on classic American children\u2019s literature. My students liked Angie and were pleased with her determination to go to college, but they were surprised at how clueless Angie often is when interacting with Jack, her first boyfriend. In some ways, Seventeenth Summer<\/em> seems a bit tame by today\u2019s standards, but in the opinion of my students, Angie\u2019s emotional responses still ring true.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Another classic book set during the summer is Virginia Hamilton\u2019s debut novel, Zeely, <\/em>which came out in 1967. Following the publication of this middle-grade novel, Hamilton went on to become a famous African American children\u2019s author.  In Zeely, <\/em>a girl named Elizabeth and her brother John spend the summer on their uncle\u2019s farm. There they meet Zeely Tayber, a tall Black woman living on a neighboring farm. Elizabeth has a very active imagination, and she imagines that Zeely is Watutsi queen living in exile. For Elizabeth, her fantasies about her neighbor are put in a new light when she gets to know Zeely as a real person. The novel focuses on the characters\u2019 interactions, and it wonderfully captures the workings a child\u2019s imagination. <\/p>\n\n\n

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My last recommendation is Bette Greene\u2019s 1973 historical novel titled Summer of My German Soldier. <\/em>Set in a small town in Arkansas during World War II, this novel focuses on a 12-year-old Jewish-American girl named Anne Bergen.  She befriends Fredrick \u201cAnton\u201d Reiker, a young German POW who escapes from a nearby prison camp. Anton was drafted to serve in the German military even though he opposes Hitler and the Nazi Party. Their friendship ends up shattering her relationship with her family and puts her at odds with the town. I taught this course in a graduate seminar on Southern children\u2019s literature, and my students were very impressed with how Greene deftly deals with the complexities of prejudice and wartime fervor.  Summer of My German Soldier<\/em> is far from an entertaining summer escape novel, but it is a memorable story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could recommend many other children\u2019s and YA books that take place during the summer, but these three books stand out for me because they show how much story can be packed into three fleeting months.  With summer vacation just around the corner, I hope that everyone in Storied Charlotte, whether they are school-aged or grownups, can spend part of their summer reading just for the pleasure of engaging with a well-told story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The summer solstice will take place on June 21, 2026, which technically marks the beginning of summer.  However, I am sure that most of the students in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) think that the real beginning of summer will arrive on the afternoon of June 10, 2026, which is the last day of the 2025-2026 school […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[401,399,400],"class_list":["post-4953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-storied-charlotte","tag-seventeenth-summer","tag-summer-of-my-german-soldier","tag-zeely"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4953"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4961,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4953\/revisions\/4961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}