As a child, one of the rituals of summer was heading to The Book Rack, the paperback bookstore at the corner of North Avenue and Eastchester Road, in New Rochelle. It was there, and at the library, that I spread my reading wings.
I’d have a budget of about $5 to spend on books to bring with me to “sleepaway” camp. In the mid to late 1960’s new paperbacks each cost 75 cents to $1.25 so careful decisions were required.
Seeing the children (and grandchildren) of friends leaving their phones and tablets behind as they board buses and planes to camp, I started thinking about those summer books that have stayed with me decades later. Here a few from my way back list.
I was very lucky. My mother encouraged me to choose books that I found 
intriguing, not necessarily those marketed as appropriate for what we now call tweens or young teens. An early choice was A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith’s classic coming-of-age story of an Irish immigrant family at the turn of the 20th century.
And there is nothing like reading mystery and horror stories by flashlight to scare you witless. I clearly recall reading Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby 
when it appeared in paperback. It is about this time I was introduced to Agatha Christie and I picked up Henry Miller’s The Turn of the Screw.
As a ravenous reader, my vocabulary outpaced my maturity at times. For example, I was probably 13 when I read 
Ann Fairbairn’s Five Smooth Stones, a groundbreaking novel in 1966 about the civil rights movement and an interracial love affair. Reading the newspaper morning and evening was a part of my life. There were local connections to Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman, murdered in Mississippi in June 1964, and that further heightened my interest in civil rights.
The last title I remember to this day is Daphne DuMaurier’s Rebecca. Tens of millions of readers have been swept away by this romantic, exotic and frightening novel.
Truth be told, if I were to pack a tote with these books, leave my electronics behind and find a comfy reading spot, I’d probably be a happy camper once again.
While some have you may have avoided reading anything beyond comic books over the summer, I suspect that as many caught the reading bug. So, what titles are engraved in your memories of summer? Do tell!
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