It's Monday 7/5! What Are You Reading?

Hope everyone had a good 4th of July yesterday!  We just returned from our 3-week, 4,000-mile road trip to Oklahoma and New Mexico Saturday night (that's why I've been mostly missing from the blogging world).  It was a wonderful vacation - we all really loved New Mexico.  You can check out photos at our trip blog - just scroll down to June 13, 2010, to read them in order.

We read a LOT of good books along the way!  I posted a Monday update a couple of weeks ago while I was at my father-in-law's and could borrow the neighbor's wifi, but here's the rest of the books we enjoyed on the trip:

• I gave each of the boys a surprise book partway through the trip.  Craig, 12, is reading one of his favorite Hardy Boys' mysteries, What Happened at Midnight.  Summer is time for reading old favorites!
• I gave Jamie, 15, the fourth and final book of the Book of Ember series by Jeanne DuPrau, The Diamond of Darkhold.  He read it immediately, then passed it along to me!  We both loved this middle-grade adventure series, and the last book was excellent.
• Jamie continued his vacation read-a-thon with a string of new releases.  He finished The Thirteenth Child (Frontier Magic, Book 1) by Patricia Wrede and said it was excellent - an engaging combination of history and fantasy.
• He read the brand-new undersea science fiction book, Dark Life by Kat Falls, and he absolutely loved it!  The plot and setting were right up his alley - a futuristic earth where the sea levels have risen, with people split between high-level "stack cities" and an undersea community on the ocean floor.
• He also loved William S. and the Great Escape by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, a middle-grade book that's been sitting in our to-read pile for a long time.  He thinks Craig will really like this one.
• Jamie is now reading his first-ever Stephen King book, Firestarter.  He is, of course, bowled over by King's amazing writing and gripping suspense.
• I finished Everywhere That Mary Went by Lisa Scottoline and enjoyed it more than I expected to!  I would definitely read more in that series of legal thrillers set in Philadelphia.  I also finished The Diamond of Darkhold, as I mentioned above.  I'm sorry the series is over, but it was a good ending! 
• I've just started The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson, which my mom lent me.  I enjoyed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for my book group this winter, and the second book is just as good so far.
• We're almost done with our read-aloud book, a middle-grade/teen adventure story about geocaching, Hide & Seek by Katy Grant.  It's due for release next month, and we have all loved it!  Craig was begging for "one more chapter" every night!
• In the car, we listened to Oracles of Delphi Keep by Victoria Laurie, a middle-grade fantasy/adventure novel.  This excellent audio, read by Susan Duerden who played Claire's mother on Lost, kept us all happily occupied for many hours in the car - it's a great book and very well-read.  We'll look for the next book in the series for our next road trip!
• We started but haven't yet finished another audio, First Light by Rebecca Stead, author of When You Reach Me.  It's another middle-grade novel, about a 13-year old boy spending some time in Greenland with his father, who is studying global warming, and a girl who lives in a secret world under the ice.  It's excellent so far.

Whew, I think that covers it!  Now I'm surrounded by piles of laundry and stacks of mail...back to real life.

What are you and your family reading?

(What are you reading Mondays is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey)