Calendar Girls: Dog Days of Summer (Best Novel Set in Summer)

Good Morning All! Today is the first day that I am participating in the Calendar Girls blog event. I love the idea and it seems like a fun way to get to know other bloggers so here goes:

Calendar Girls is a monthly blog event created by Melanie at MNBernard Books, and Flavia at Flavia the Bibliophile, and will now be hosted by Katie at Never Not Reading, and Adrienne at Darque Dreamer Reads. It is designed to ignite bookish discussions among readers, and was inspired by the 1961 Neil Sedaka song, Calendar Girl.

All you have to do is write a post with your pick for that particular month and link back to Never Not Reading and Darque Dreamer’s posts. Then make sure to blog hop and check out everyone else’s lists. Like, comment, subscribe, you know the drill!

For more information you can check out their blogs and see if this is something that you would like to participate in.

Dog Days of Summer (Best Novel Set in Summer)

My very first pick:

The last thing a fourteen-year-old boy expects to find along an old Ozark river bottom is a tree full of monkeys. Jay Berry Lee’s grandpa had an explanation, of course–as he did for most things. The monkeys had escaped from a traveling circus, and there was a handsome reward in store for anyone who could catch them. Grandpa said there wasn’t any animal that couldn’t be caught somehow, and Jay Berry started out believing him . . .

But by the end of the “summer of the monkeys,” Jay Berry Lee had learned a lot more than he ever bargained for–and not just about monkeys. He learned about faith, and wishes coming true, and knowing what it is you really want. He even learned a little about growing up . . .

This novel, set in rural Oklahoma around the turn of the century, is a heart-warming family story–full of rich detail and delightful characters–about a time and place when miracles were really the simplest of things…

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My 6th grade teacher read this book to our class and we all just loved it. I haven’t read it in a while so it may be time for a re-read.

Have you read Summer of the Monkeys?