For the few who are still on summer break, here are our last-gasp, fun summer reading recommendations.

For the youngest readers:

Rotten Ralph by Jack Gantos and illustrated by Nicole Rubel. Houghton Mifflin, 1980.

Even after more than 30 years, Rotten Ralph remains fresh and sassy and readers will thrill to his antics, which are a little naughty. In the end, Ralph changes his ways—or does he? It doesn’t matter because Sara loves him anyway and readers will enjoy his further adventures in subsequent books.

For transitional readers:

The Buddy Files: The Case of the Library Monster by Dori Hillestad Butler. Albert Whitman, 2012.

Nothing says summer like being able to immerse your brain in a series of mysteries. In Book 5 in this series, Buddy, the dog detective, is spending time at the library as part of their reading therapy program. While listening to a child read, Buddy senses something is amiss. Searching the shelves he comes face to face with a mysterious creature lurking in the stacks. Short chapters are filled with humor, action, and dog stuff.

For older readers:

Ghost Horses (Mysteries in Our National Parks) by Alane Ferguson and Gloria Skurzynski. National Geographic, 2007.

For many families summer travels have to be vicarious but if you are visiting a national park, the mysteries in this series offer great adventures mixed with information about the area. Jack, 12, and his sister Ashley, 11, travel throughout the country with their parents. Mom is a wildlife biologist and dad is a photographer, allowing the kids to observe natural and manmade events around them. During a trip to Zion National Park in Utah they investigate the mysterious deaths of white mustangs, meet two Shoshone kids, and end up in the raging waters flowing through a narrow canyon.