Favorite Childhood Summers - Part 2

Water. Summer is not summer without water, whether it be a lake, an ocean, a river, a Slip-N-Slide, or a sprinkler in the backyard.

Does water play a role in your childhood summers? Tell us about your childhood summers for a chance to win the massive Beach Basket Extravaganza we're giving away. Check out the new goodies we added on Monday!

If you're playing Beach Party Bingo with us, here are this week's cards:

Week 2 - HOPE
Week 2 - JOY

We continue sharing some of our authors' childhood summers. If you missed any of the previous posts, check out the links below. We'd love for you to show your support for our authors by checking out their websites (linked below) and their books over to the right - we're having a summer sale on print and digital books, so now's a great time to stock up!

JENNIFER FROMKE - I’m switching the question around (sorry!) Best thing about summer as a child: going up north. It’s a “thing” in Michigan to go up north. Almost everybody does it at some point. Lots of people do it every weekend. My family had a place on a lake and we’d go up for weekends, playing in the water, hiking in the woods, hanging out with cousins and aunts and uncles, playing cards, picnics by the water, croquet, waterskiing, campfires, sailing, boat rides, s’mores, canoeing, swimming, and looking for Petoskey stones in the water. These are my favorite summer things from childhood.

LYNDA LEE SCHAB - All of them! We didn't have video games back then, but found ways to entertain ourselves (Can you imagine?). The best memories I have include getting the neighborhood kids together to play a mean game of Kick the Can, spending 10 hours a day in the pool, and reading under a shade tree. Oh, how I long to enjoy the lazy days of summer again!

MARIE WELLS COUTU - the summer before I went into 7th grade, when my family traveled from Kentucky to Niagara Falls, and through Canada, visiting Toronto, stopping at a so-called “ghost” town, and on to Sault Ste. Marie (I especially liked the name), Mackinac Island, Detroit, in the process seeing all 5 Great Lakes. It involved a lot of car time, but it was my first time out of the U.S., with many memorable experiences.

RUTH O'NEIL - Summers as a kid kind of all run together. Summers were always filled with camping, parades, cookouts, swimming, and playing outside all day long. We often went to my Grandparents’ summer home in PA for a weekend getaway.

MARJI LAINE - In 1976, my family went to Boston to visit my cousins. Best Fourth of July celebration ever. And their small town even had a giant cake - largest my 8-year-old self had ever seen.

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Beach Party Bingo
Authors' Favorite Vacations - Part 1
Authors' Favorite Vacations - Part 2
Let's Play Bingo!
Authors' Favorite Vacations - Part 3
Authors' Childhood Summers - Part 1

Favorite Childhood Summers - Part 1

Our Summer Beach Party continues! If you've missed all the fun, check the links below to see what you missed last week.

We’re adding more to the Beach Basket Extravaganza this week!

WEEK 1:

• 42-quart plastic tub to fill with goodies all summer long!
• 2 extra-long beach towels
• 1 pair of fun sunglasses to bring some bling to the beach
• A festive photo album as a reminder to capture all those summer memories
• $50 Visa gift card
• Paperback AND digital copies of Stalking Willow by Fay Lamb and Destiny Defied by J.A. Marx

WEEK 2:

• $50 Darden Restaurants Gift Certificate (can be used at any Bahama Breeze, Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Longhorn Steakhouse, The Capital Grille, or Seasons 52)
• Giant Beach ball
• Fun inflatable Air Mattress for swimming
• Beach Badminton set
• Paperback AND digital copies of A Familiar Shore by Jennifer Fromke and For Such a Moment by Marie Wells Coutu

This week, we’re talking about our childhood summers. Long, sun-filled days overflowing with games, laughter, fresh foods, and new adventures. Evenings filled with fireflies, star-gazing, and learning to distinguish between the sounds of frogs and crickets. I long for those days again at times, what about you?

Readers, share with us some of your favorite memories of childhood summers.

This week, our authors will share some of their favorite childhood memories. I love getting to know our authors more with all these answers! Be sure to check out their books, too - all the links are over to the right. And click on their names below to visit their websites and blogs.

We're having a summer sale on all the digital books, and even on several of the print books too, so now's a great time to stock up or try someone new. You may discover a new favorite author - or more!

Authors, share with us your favorite memories of childhood summers.

Photo courtesy of Fay Lamb

FAY LAMB - The summer I turned twelve years old. As Stephen King said, in Stand by Me: “You’ll never have friends like the friends you had when you were twelve years old. It was the first summer I spent at my grandmother’s house in Louisa, Kentucky. I was a shy backward kid whose doctor ordered me to Kentucky to de-stress, and one neighbor girl asked me if I wanted to play kickball. I joined in with several kids in the neighborhood, but she and I were inseparable for several summers after that, and I’m still friends today with her and several others.



MARIE WELLS COUTU - the summer before I went into 7th grade, when my family traveled from Kentucky to Niagara Falls, and through Canada, visiting Toronto, stopping at a so-called “ghost” town, and on to Sault Ste. Marie (I especially liked the name), Mackinac Island, Detroit, in the process seeing all 5 Great Lakes. It involved a lot of car time, but it was my first time out of the U.S., with many memorable experiences.

DEANNA - All my summers were great growing up: Vacation Bible School, Scout camp, my first summer jobs, riding bikes, eating popsicles, picnics in the park downtown, building secret clubhouses. All of it was wonderful. The freedom children today don’t know.

Don't forget to sign in to Rafflecopter for your chance to win the ever-growing Beach Basket Extravaganza!

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Beach Party Bingo
Authors' Favorite Vacations - Part 1
Authors' Favorite Vacations - Part 2
Let's Play Bingo!
Authors' Favorite Vacations - Part 3