School’s Out. Now What? Teach Green Summer Reading List for Kids

I am the mother of four children, three boys and a girl. I will always remember the sound of the school bus as it came to a stop outside our front door on the last day of class. I still associate its screeching brakes with the energy that was unleashed in my household the minute my exuberant kids raced through the back door, shedding book bags and uniforms as they ran. I learned early on that the best way to channel an over abundance of youthful enthusiasm (and preserve the sane existence I had come to appreciate during the school year) was to get them interested and involved in stimulating activities as quickly as possible.

So, it became a family tradition that as soon as everyone was finished with school, we would load up the Suburban and head to my parents farm in Southwestern Pennsylvania.  Here, they had 200 acres…