It’s a sad but true June ritual: Many students walk into bookstores groaning about their summer reading assignments and pleading, “Find the thinnest book, Mom!”

Must our youth visit bookstores with their hearts full of unnecessary dread? Can revising middle and high school summer reading assignments help reduce the declining level of active readership among young people?

As a parent and bookseller, I fully support school-required summer reading for public and private school students, as it is an integral part of the reading curriculum. Summer reading assignments can develop the lifelong habit of reading for pleasure while helping students retain literacy skills outside of the classroom.

Yet, with the end of the school year and its many assignments, summer is the time to read with pleasure and without vexation.

To be sure, there will always be some students who happily tackle the tough summer reading that some teachers assign. But what about the many achieving students who think they don’t like to read? These are the students we need to capture as readers.

Several years ago, my son, who has always been a constant reader, was assigned “Mrs. Dalloway” for the summer before his 12th grade AP English course. Yes, it was AP English, but yes, it was summer reading. I stumbled upon his journal: “Why am I reading about a woman looking at herself in her dresser mirror?” Why indeed is a 17-year-old-boy reading Virginia Woolf during the summer?

One class of rising 12th-graders was required to read two books over the summer: “The Mayor of Casterbridge” by Thomas Hardy and “An Enemy of the People” by Henrik Ibsen. These are great works of literature, but dare I say that I was one unhappy bookseller when the kids and parent bought these books? The last thing we want is for our high school and college graduates to look at the shelves of the library and the bookstore and tell themselves, “Been there, done that.”

I see many bright spots in the various summer reading lists. Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried,” published in 1979 and set during the Vietnam War, is frequently assigned and is a popular choice. Still, it is 2006 and a lot of good books have been published in the 25 years since.

In light of the Sept. 11 attacks and the revelation of the plight of the people of Afghanistan, the best-selling book “The Kite Runner” is a good choice. Sudanese refugee Francis Bok’s memoir “Escape from Slavery: The True Story of My Ten Years in Captivity and My Journey to Freedom in America” (2003) is an enlightening portrait of the crisis in Sudan.

These titles are just a few of the excellent books published every year that are relevant to the world of our youth.

Assign good books that grab them and keep them as readers. Better yet, give students an array of choices. Reading is often very personal; one’s favorite novel is another’s cast-off. Supply brief summaries with the books on the list. This is helpful in dissuading students from using the “thinnest book” measuring stick as the only parameter.

This is my gentle reminder to teachers and administrators: Convince your students that reading can be fun. Take a second look at your summer reading list. There are indeed extraordinary works of literature that many students will discover they love, but are best left to the school year with the daily presence and guidance of a teacher.

Then there is summer reading, when a book easily grabs readers and holds their attention until the end. Then, maybe, our middle and high school students will ask themselves, “What would I like to read next?”