Adventure Tales Take Off in Summer

Remember those long, lazy summer afternoons you used to spend at Grandma’s old house by the beach?

Yeah, me neither. But for some reason, the archetypal summer adventure for kids has always been a week at Grandma’s beach house or a month on the farm with Grandpa. My grandparents lived miles from the nearest beach or farm in a single-story tract home in West Covina (they did have a pool, however), so it’s for kids like me that Harley Jessup wrote “Grandma Summer” (Viking, 30 pages, $15.99).

Through Ben, who hates the very idea of spending time at Grandma’s rusty, spooky, dirty old place by the ocean, we can vicariously take our own summer trip to the seashore. But as he begins to explore the creepy house and the icy surf, Ben quickly warms to the magic and the memories of all the special summers that have taken place there. It’s not quite as good as a real beach vacation, but for landlocked kids ages 3 to 8, Jessup’s book is probably the next best thing.

Ashley Wolff takes young readers on a more common summer outing in “Stella & Roy Go Camping” (Dutton Children’s Books, 38 pages, $15.99). In this sequel to the highly praised “Stella & Roy,” the children join their mother on a trip to Lone Pine Lake, where Roy is determined to find a bear. Unfortunately, his sister has brought along her animal-identification guide and takes delight in showing Roy that the bear tracks he’s been following really belong to coyotes, raccoons or even marmots.

The trip is far from a disappointment for Roy, however. Because in addition to experiencing a memorable outdoor adventure and a campfire marshmallow roast, Roy hears a nighttime visitor to his family’s campground that leaves behind enough evidence to satisfy even his sister that a bear has been there.

Roy and Stella spend just a night sleeping outdoors, but the characters in Liesel Moak Skorpen’s fun and whimsical “We Were Tired of Living in a House” (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 30 pages, $15.99) intend to make the great outdoors their home. First they move into a tree, and “we liked our tree,” the narrator says, “until we tumbled out.”

So the threesome moved on to a pond and “we liked our pond,” Skorpen writes, “until we sank.” Next came a cave and then the beach, but none of them proved as good as where they had come from. So, Skorpen concludes, “We went home to live in a house.”

Of special note are the oil paintings of Southern California artist Joe Cepeda, which bring the text alive by accenting Skorpen’s humor, adding detail and helping drive the story, which is appropriate for even the youngest readers.

Creative and colorful illustrations are also the highlight of “No, David!,” the Caldecott Honor-winning book by Los Angeles author-illustrator David Shannon (Scholastic Inc., 32 pages, $14.95).

The book is an updated version of one Shannon first wrote when he was 5. At that time, he put together a collection of crude crayon illustrations that starred himself doing things he wasn’t supposed to do. Across the top of each page were the words “no” and “David,” the only ones he could spell.

Shannon’s vocabulary and spelling have since improved and so has the story, which is aimed at readers ages 2 and up. Because after a day in which David has muddied the carpet, flooded the bathroom, broken a vase and generally pushed his mother’s patience to the breaking point, she tucks him in at night with a pat on the head and the reassurance that, “Yes, David, I love you!”

Kevin Baxter can be reached by e-mail at kevin.baxter@latimes.com.