Some of my favorite summer reads for grownups were written for children (or at least, that's where they're shelved). I may be biased towards children's books because of my job, but I'd like to think that these are great reads regardless of the original intended audience. Spend your afternoon with one of these super summer tales.
My One Hundred Adventures by Polly Horvath. While most of us dream of weekend trips to the beach, 12-year-old Jane lives there year-round with her free spirited poet mother and her three siblings. Jane's summer becomes more than she bargained for when she ends up on Bible delivery trips with her pastor, meeting her mother's ex-boyfriends, and babysitting a group of unruly kids.
The Penderwicks: a Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy by Jeanne Birdsall. *Sigh* This is one of those old fashioned summer tales that's just pitch-perfect. Four sisters, ages 4 through 12, spend the summer with their widowed father in a cottage on the estate of a local boy and his snobbish mother. Adventure, young love, and that feeling of summer days. 
A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck. Peck has a knack for writing historical fiction like he's sitting right there in front of you spinning a tale while you both relax on a summer evening. The Great Depression may be happening, but that doesn't make life in less exciting for a young boy on his annual summer visit to his larger-than-life grandmother.
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