As summer quickly approaches, students are encouraged to start reading during their summer break. Reading introduces a perfect opportunity to prevent the yearly “brain drain” that often happens due to long breaks away from school. Picking up the hobby of reading books over the summer can keep a student’s mind active and give them an activity to complete out of boredom.
By reading, students can discover different authors, explore new genres, and improve critical thinking. The most trending genres for teens include romance and young adult stories. This year’s top-rated romance book for young teens, “Funny Story” by Emily Henry explores the ideas of love and heartbreak. The main character, Daphne shares her story on how she met her fiancée Peter until he dumps her after their bachelor party and chooses his childhood friend Petra over her, giving her one week to move from their shared house.
Reading, continues to gain popularity amongst young teens as many different social media platforms like, “TikTok” create trends that encourage students to start reading. “BookTok”, one of many trends throughout TikTok allows its creators to make short videos recommending, reviewing, or just generally chatting about books. This community on TikTok became one of the most followed on the platform with the hashtag #BookTok used on over 60 billion videos.
Members from Sierras Vista’s book club share their summer reads and the books they look forward to releasing over the summer. Their president Christina Fakoya (10) shares, “Over the summer I plan on reading, “We Were Liars” by E. Lockhart and hopefully reach my goal of finishing fifteen books before summer ends. I also look forward to the release of “The Black Bird Oracle” by Deborah Harkness, coming out July 16th.”
Book Club influenced many students throughout the year to start regularly reading and strongly encouraged students to continue reading throughout the summer. Alaina Smalling (10), a book club member, explains, “I didn’t want to read anything until I signed up for the book club and now I can’t wait to read so much over the summer.”
Concluding this final chapter of this school year many students will have the opportunity to read and keep their minds occupied. Reading over the summer gives students something to do other than spending mindless hours on social media and reading keeps their minds busy for the start of the next school year.
