Patch Picks: Read Across America Day

Patch Picks highlights editor and reader picks of great local businesses, destinations, services, organizations, ways to spend a day off, and more.

You’ll find useful lists to help you, your family, friends, and significant others find the best places for everything from Sunday brunch to New Year’s Eve celebrations, pumpkin patches, date night destinations, florists, girlfriend nights out, kids party places, parks and more.

(Want to suggest a list? Submit your idea in the comment box.)

If you want to do some reading on National Read Across America Day, check out five picks for kids and five picks for adults from a local library.

Kids

- "A Sick Day for Amos McGee" by Philip C. Stead (Caldecott winner for 2011)

- "Interrupting Chicken" by David Ezra Stein (Caldecott honor book for 2011)

- "Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave" by Laban Carrick Hill (Caldecott honor book, Corretta Scott King winner for illustration 2001)

- "Moon Over Manifest" by Clare Vanderpool (Newbery winner for 2011)

- "Bink and Gollie" by Kate DiCamillo and Alison McGhee (Theodor Seuss Geisel Award 2011)

*Children's book suggestions provided by Bala Cynwyd children's librarian Jane France

Adults

- "The Room" by Emma Donohue (fiction)

- "Cleopatra: A Life" by Stacey Schiff (non-fiction)

- "Elegance of the Hedgehog" by Muriel Barbery (fiction)

- "Life" by Keith Richards (autobiography)

- "The Memory Place" by Mira Bartok (non-fiction)

*Adult book suggestions provided by Belmont Hills head librarian Patricia Rayfield. These are the most popular adult books on reserve at all six Lower Merion libraries.