This year, as in other years, Lily has planned a spectacular summer in Rockaway, in her family's cozy house on stilts over the Atlantic Ocean. But by the summer of 1944, World War II has changed almost everyone's life. Lily's best friend, Margaret, and her family have moved to a wartime factory town, and worse, much worse, Lily's father is on his way overseas to the war.

There's no one else Lily's age in Rockaway until Albert comes, a refugee from Hungary, a boy with a secret sewn into his coat. Albert has lost most of his family in the war; he's been through things Lily can't imagine. But when they join together to rescue and care for a kitten, they begin a special friendship. For Lily and Albert have their own secrets to share: They both have told lies, and Lily has told a lie that may cost Albert his life.

Giff’s 1997 Newbery Honor Book opens in June 1944 with ten-year-old Lily Mollahan and her grandmother packing for their annual summer stay at Rockaway Beach, a vast five-mile stretch on the Rockaway peninsula in the borough of Queens, New York. Lily’s father, “Poppy,” an engineer, is to join them for weekends. (Her mother died from a heart condition when Lily was an infant.)

Unfortunately, when Lily arrives in Rockaway she promptly learns that her longtime summer friend, Margaret Dillon, is moving away to Michigan, at least for the time being. Her dad has taken a job on a bomber-plane assembly line there. Before leaving, Margaret gives Lily, a budding writer, the key to the Dillon summer place, so she can escape her sometimes bossy grandmother and work on her stories in its wonderful attic room. A worse announcement comes soon after: Poppy is leaving for Europe, not as a soldier, but because his engineering skills are needed. He promises he will write to his daughter and somehow let her know where he is. Lily’s grief is intense, and she angrily refuses to see him off, an act that will haunt her through a very eventful summer.

Most of the action of the novel is concerned with Lily’s growing friendship with a war refugee from Budapest, the nephew of the Mollahan’s neighbours, Mr. and Mrs. Orban. Albert has been through a traumatic time. Two years earlier, his grandmother took charge of him and his little sister, Ruth, just before their parents were arrested for publishing a newspaper that was critical of Hitler, an act which cost them their lives. The children’s grandmother arranged to have them smuggled west across Europe to France and, hopefully, to America. Unfortunately, by the time the siblings reached France, Ruth was seriously ill with measles. She had to be left behind with an order of nuns. Now Albert is deeply distressed by the fact that he did not say goodbye to Ruth.He’s further tormented by the knowledge that he could have stayed in France with her. Instead, because he was so terrified of the Nazis, he'd chosen to leave for North America without her.

The climax of the novel hinges on a lie that Lily tells Albert, which makes him believe he might be able to get himself aboard a troopship to Europe so that he can find Ruth. All of this may sound a little heavy going for young readers, but Giff has a delicate touch; lighter incidents, including the discovery of a marmalade kitten, counterbalance the serious ones.

The many warm and emotionally satisfying moments in the novel also compensate for a few events that might raise the eyebrows of adult readers. Giff’s child characters have a remarkable amount of freedom compared to most of today's kids. When I consider my own and my friends’ childhood experiences, I marvel at, and am grateful for, the benign neglect of our parents, which gave us the freedom to roam. Giff’s main characters have freedom to roam and then some. They glide off in rowboats, sometimes in the middle of the night, and they go swimming in rough water without any adult supervision—things even the relaxed parents I knew would never have permitted, even though their kids were capable swimmers. Some of today’s helicopter parents might be alarmed by the ideas this novel might give to young readers!

These quibbles aside, Giff’s book is generally a rewarding piece of historical fiction about the power of friendship and family love. Recommended.

Rating: 3.5 rounded down ( )

Patricia Reilly Giff is one of my favorite middle grade authors. She is able to bring the past alive with engaging characters and fascinating stories. I find her very engaging and I thoroughly enjoy all her books. ( )

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Lily's Crossing is a real "tear-jerker". so get out your hankies. Patricia R. Giff, the author, is all about family, and so is this historical novel for young people. It is a great read for 4th graders and up, but adults like it, too.
Lily, the main character, is about to have a bummer of a summer vacation. Her father (her mom is dead), Poppy, is off to Europe as an Army Engineer from the U.S., and Lily is left alone on her vacation, except for a young boy, Albert, who she doesn't like. This changes when Lily finds out about the deaths of Albert's parents, and together they care for a kitten and share their problems. The third-person narrative style was a success. ( )