Deschutes Public Library is helping your family prevent the dreaded summer slide this summer.

No, you won’t find the summer slide at your local playground, it’s actually a serious phenomenon faced by students each year. Over the summer, students will lose learning (i.e. slide back) if they don’t engage in activities to practice those skills. By 12th grade, students who don’t read during the summer may find themselves more than a year behind their peers.

DPL’s Summer Reading Program, June 17-Sept. 1, is designed to keep your whole family reading over the summer. Stop by the library to register, and get a free book and a reading log to track your reading through the summer. Read three books and earn coupons to local stores. Keep reading to qualify for our grand prize drawing. Prizes range from an annual family pass to High Desert Museum, to $100 gift certificates to Herringbone Books, Ace Hardware or Heifer International.

You may be wondering why one of the prize choices is a donation to Heifer International. This year’s SRP theme is Build a Better World and along with reading we’re encouraging people to engage in small and large acts to better our communities locally and afar. We also have a slew of fun programs for all ages planned and you can find full details on our website at: www.deschuteslibrary.org/calendar/summerreading.

Here are some books to get your Summer Reading started off right:

Grades K-2

Drum Dream Girl: How One Girl’s Courage Changed Music by Margarita Engle

Based on the childhood of Millo Castro Zaldarriaga, one of Cuba’s first female drummers, this picture-book biography inspires us all to follow our dreams

The Night Gardener by Terry Fan and Eric Fan

William and an elderly gardener help transform their town by creating anonymous topiary artwork.

Grades 3-5

Lola Levine is Not Mean! by Monica Brown

Sports-loving Lola accidentally injures a classmate during a recess soccer game and resolves to win back her spot on the field — and her friends — by demonstrating what good sportsmanship is all about.

Fort by Cynthia DeFelice

Friends Wyatt and Augie spend an unplugged summer in the woods, building a fort and protecting a disabled boy from bullies.

Grades 6-8

Fatal Fever: Tracking Down Typhoid Mary by Gail Jarrow

Learn about this dreaded disease that ravaged our country early in the twentieth century in this nonfiction title that reads like a medical mystery.

In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse by Joseph Marshall

Jimmy McClean and his grandfather go on a road trip together in order for the boy to learn about his Lakota heritage.

Grades 9-12

The 100 by Kass Morgan

When 100 juvenile delinquents are sent on a mission to recolonize Earth, they get a second chance at freedom, friendship, and love, as they fight to survive in a dangerous new world.

Be a Changemaker: How to Start Something That Matters by Laurie Ann Thompson

Empower yourself in today’s highly connected, socially conscious world as you learn how to wield your passions, digital tools and the principles of social entrepreneurship to affect real change.

Adults

Elinor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

The story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes the only way to survive is to open her heart.

The Wright Brothers by David McCullough

The dramatic story of people and technology about the courageous brothers who taught the world how to fly, Wilbur and Orville Wright.

— Jenny Pedersen is a community librarian at the Redmond Library. Contact her at jenniferp@dpls.lib.or.us.