Summer Reading: Smack Dab OUT of the Classroom by Dia Calhoun

What was the best thing about summer when I was a child and a teen? Summer reading! For ten weeks I could read whatever I wanted. No assignments. No homework. Only those stars mounting up on my summer reading chart at the local library. Read ten books and you get a prize.

Ten? I was just getting started at ten! I reread old favorites, and many new books as well. With that memory in mind, I browsed the library shelves today looking for something fun and new. I spend a lot of time driving, so audio books are my friends. But when I'm driving, I can't listen to anything too serious--too distracting.

And so, having just watched the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice, my eye was primed when I pulled a book by Marion Chesney titled Emily Goes to Exeter. The premise sounded fun. Miss Hannah Pym, formerly housekeeper of Thornton Hall (OK, good sign, loved the parallel to Jane Eyre's Thornfield Hall) becomes a travelling matchmaker in 1800's England.

Could be fun. Could be terrible. That's the point of summer reading. You never know.

I'll lreport back next month. Meanwhile, choose a book that is fun and different, lean back against a tree, and think of nothing else for a few hours.