Rylant uses this small little book to deal with one of the hardest things in life: when a loved one passes away.

Summer has come to live with Ob and May. After Summer's mother passed away, she was just passed around family members in Ohio. Never really looked after and treated like a burden. That is until Ob and May come for a vist, pack her up, and take her home with them that same day.

Now, Summer and Ob are trying to find a reason to go on after May passes. They try just about everything a person could try to re-connect with May. But, once they realize the best way to do that is to live, everything just falls into place.

I'd reccomend this book for children or adults that have lost someone and still haven't quite found a place for all those feelings. Another book about a sad topic, but with a feel good ending. ( )

I always come back to "Missing May". It should be required reading in the schools. ( )

Be sure to have a box of tissues by your side if/when you read this poignantly wonderful book of loss that wounds and love that transcends the sadness of death, enabling the spirit to keep living through the pain.

Cynthia Rylant, the author of this 1993 Newbery Medal award winning book, is rightfully deserving of the honor.

While small in the number of pages, it is large in depth and meaning. It packs a soft wallop as each and every word is used with such powerful poetry that I marveled as I turned the pages.

Narrated by Summer, we learn of the difficult early years after her mother died and she was complacently passed along to a series of family members. "Every house I had ever lived in was so particular about its food, and especially when the food involved me. I felt like one of those little mice who has to figure out the right button to push before its food will drop down into the cup. Caged and begging. That's how I felt sometimes."

Rescued by elderly Aunt May and Uncle Ob, Summer finally finds a secure, stable home as she lives with these two wonderful people who, while lacking in financial resources, have an abundance of love.

When Aunt May dies, in deep grief, Summer's fears of abandonment and insecurity arise as she watches Uncle Ob slip into depression.

Enter anything but ordinary, highly eccentric, classmate Cletus Underwood who brings a unique joy and unconventionality to the two deeply hurting souls.

I liked everything about this book. Rich in symbolism, the words gentle power come to mind.

Highly recommended. ( )

This represents a Realistic Fiction book because it is a story that is easy to relate with and very true to life. The plot works well and a variety of people are present in the story that are all unique (Summer, Ob, May, and Cletus). Also, the setting is vivid and woven into the story instead of being presented all at once. Summer, the one telling the story, is a growing character because we continually learn about who she is becoming as the story unfolds. We learn how she deals with challenges and her desire to help Ob. She is revealed a great deal through her thoughts, but also through her interactions with other characters and her own actions.

This book was one of the sweetest books I have read in a long time despite the emphasis on death. Having recently lost her beloved Aunt May to old age, this book deals with the grieving process of both Summer and her Uncle Ob. Focus upon special memories and the goodness of May gets both of them to a point of acceptance. Cynthia Rylant is one of my favorite authors because of her subject of growing up in the mountains. She writes from her own experience as a young girl growing up in the mountains of West Virginia with her grandparents. I am from the Tennessee valley, so relate to a lot of the rural topics she describes in her books-- it makes me miss home and my own grandparents!