Sara St. Antoine

I had to step away from this book for a couple of days just because I felt like something terribly distressing was forthcoming, and I didn’t think I would be ready for it.

I related heavily to this book. Who would’ve thought that a middle grade book about a 12 year old boy would give this 22 year old girl the feels? I certainly wasn’t prepared for the story I got.

We’re going through a similar situation in my family that Adam, his mother, and his grandmother are going through in Three Bird Summer.

My granny used to be this strong, happy person. Then about three years ago, my grandpa passed and it has been downhill from there. She is losing her memory. She is fragile and depressed. She doesn’t leave the house. But every once in a while, when all the grandkids go visit, I catch a glimpse of the woman that I knew when I was a child. The lady who would wake up at the crack of dawn and put on a pot of coffee. She’d sit on the swing outside and push herself with a slippered foot, while telling me stories of her childhood. She had a smile on her face all day long. When I think of summer, I think of going to my grandparent’s house in the woods.

So yea, I understand this. I’ve had the same conversations with my mother about my grandmothers “slipping”. We’ve given the side eye to each other when she repeats questions or forgets what she was doing. It is the second saddest thing I’ve had to deal with. To watch someone you love slowly lose their reality.

“She wrapped her knobby fingers around her mug and sipped her coffee slowly, like medicine…She wore silver glasses-always the same shape and style. They were dull now, but her eyes glinted behind them when she was in the right mood.” YALL. This is so my grandmother!!

Adam is a great narrator and I loved being inside his thoughts. He is so confused about girls that it is adorable. I hope he knows at that age that girls are just as confused about boys.

Everything was so charmingly imagined. I felt like I was at the lake with him inside a canoe or walking through the woods alongside him and Alice.

Alice. SUCH A GREAT CHARACTER!! Funny. Sweet. A true pre-teen girl.

Not even going to lie, I was super invested in their search for the hidden treasure.

Three Bird Summer is a beautiful book about growing up and accepting things as they are. The past and future collide in a spectacular blend of emotions. The writing and expanse of descriptions is worth the read alone.

This book made me miss being a child. It made me miss my grandfather so damn much, it kills me. But it also made me appreciate what I had, and currently have now. I cried. I cried big, fat tears starting a few chapters in until the end of the book.

This is a story of family and finding lifelong friends in the precious moments of a boys childhood summer. I went in expecting something completely different, but came out with a story that I will certainly treasure for a long time.… (plus d'informations)

Ooh, this one got me. Not a perfect book, but it hit all the right notes for me, and I read it in a day. Then I passed it to my 12 year-old daughter, and she read it in one sitting. This story is told by 12 year-old Adam, who heads with his mom to spend the summer at his grandmother's lake cabin in Minnesota. This yearly tradition is profoundly different this year, as his parents divorced, and the many cousins from his dad's side won't be coming this year. Adam, like most 12 year olds, is trying to see how he fits in, and navigating his way through boys "who turn into total jerks whenever girls were around," and girls who "move in careful packs, like wolves." He relishes the quiet and independence of the summer, and much of the charm of the book is found in the celebration of nature and old fashioned cabin life on the lake (lazy days on the dock, exploring the lake by canoe). He begins a tentative but true friendship with Alice, the girl next door, who seems like she should be like the aloof, popular girls, but who is making her uncertain way through middle school just like Adam. Independence is an important theme in this book: Adam, at 12, wants and needs more, and his mother reluctantly acquiesces. His grandmother fiercely protects her independence, but with erratic behavior, unreliable memory and declining health, she needs more care and supervision. Adam and Alice figure out how to be themselves, independent of labels, cliches, cliques, and packs. When Adam's grandmother starts leaving mysterious notes in Adam's room, Alice is the only one he can confide in, and together they help solve a decades-old mystery. A sweet, satisfying story -- makes me want to spend a summer on a lake:)… (plus d'informations)