A Summer to Die

In this poignant novel of a young girl's first experience with the death, Lois Lowry manages to steer away from being overly maudlin and instead presents a heartfelt picture of a close knit family dealing with the grief of terminal illness. Meg, the younger sister who has always felt inferior to her older sister Molly, is just coming to terms with her jealousy of Molly when Molly is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Meg learns to deal with her grief by finding who she is outside of her family - in her photography and her friendships. Ultimately, Meg comes through her ordeal changed and matured - "Nothing will be the same, ever, without Molly. But there's a whole world waiting, still, and there are good things in it."

A gift from Amy! Thank you Amy! I finished reading this at 2:30am this morning when I couldn't sleep.I almost didn't want to read this because it is like a little dandelion poof of a book, it is so super small I was like, I'll blink and I'll miss it! What if I hurt it! I'd never read it before because as a kid I was snotty about the kill-me-now melodramas of Lurlene McDaniel and ilk. (Please see Somewhere Between YA Lit and Death.) However, this meant I overlooked a lot.The handling of these experiences of death is so elegant here. I liked how most of the biggest information is told not through first-person dialogue (declaration, reaction) but by simple narrative statements, sometimes right in the middle of a chapter. The news itself is show more important and dramatic enough to make impact in a few sentences. And I liked how once it was clear Molly was dying, her disease still wasn't named for a while -- this isn't a book about leukemia, it's a book about Meg and Molly and their family and neighborhood.The jaw-drop factor came from the birth scene, for which I am giving the book an extra eleventy stars though GoodReads only shows 5. It is just... it is just. The detail is incredible, and everything that is said couldn't be more perfect. The symbolism of this entire subplot is perfect, but this is a 100% perfect chapter of book.The ending is also perfect: not just leaving us with a meaningful moment in Meg's connection to her sister, but viewing Meg having a personal lesson that is just as important. show less

I first encountered this book when my library was weeding its children's paperback collection. I grabbed several out of the pile destined for the recycling bin, including this one. I knew Lowry's work, but I didn't know this was her first novel, or how good it would end up being.

I loved it. It was beautifully written from start to finish. The setting was rich with detail and made me want to move to the New England countryside and start my own garden. It was a bit slow to get going, but once the older sister started to get sick, I couldn't put the book down.

I'm not sure whether to classify it as children's or YA. The protagonist is young, but the tone is sophisticated enough for teenagers. It was in the children's section of my show more library, but with the recent explosion in YA publishing, I have to wonder what it'd be classified as if it came out now.

I had to wonder if it was partly autobiographical--and it seems it is--because the family dynamics in the book seemed so real to me. Several of the passages, such as this one, could have been lifted directly from my own childhood. I'm a younger sister of a sister, and my father's a professor, so I especially identified with those aspects of the book: the older sister being the "easy" one, while the younger one was more rebellious; the absentminded professor father who invites his students over for Thanksgiving and spends hours alone in his study.

My one complaint is the title. Not only does "A Summer to Die" make it sound like an R.L. Stine thriller, but it gives away the entire plot. There's a reason why Bridge to Terabithia isn't called "Bridge to Terabithia... OF DEATH." No wonder the library weeded it--if I were a kid I wouldn't pick up a book called "A Summer to Die" either.

There are so many great recurring images and themes in this book--flowers, photography, country houses, gardens, quilts--I find it hard to imagine that it was impossible to pull a better title out of one of those. If I ever meet Lois Lowry, I'll ask her if it was her first choice.

Title aside, though, this book was a wonderful surprise. I was in the mood to read something from the 70s-80s era of children's lit after reading Shelf Discovery, and I'm glad I picked this one. show less

My listening to this out of all the things on Audible and in my library was such a random chance, quite literally as I actually rolled dice as I wasn't sure what to read next, and I am so very glad that I did. I mistakenly assumed this was going to be a mediocre Audible Original (No shade, there are some bangers), not realising this was a novella from the seventies.

I'm going to try and write more of a review another time, but for now this was a heartfelt, joyous, imperfect, and a little too twee, but lovely story that really spoke the the little sad girl in me. This is a book I would never have read by choice and I would have missed out.

CW: Child Death, Disease.

Although the title makes it sound like a horror story, this book is actually the sad story of the summer Meg's older sister Molly dies of leukaemia.

As an adult reader, Meg is so naive for so long about her sisters illness... but maybe her denial is the point of the story. (It's not the story the book is telling, but I found it hard that her loving and intelligent parents try to shelter her by shutting her out of what is going on.)

The central sad story is surrounded by a sweet host of other characters - Meg's dad (writing his academic book), Meg's mum (simple and sweet and sewing a quilt), Will (their landlord, but a dear friend and mentor to Meg) and Ben and Maria, idealistic home birthers. It is a bit 'babies are the happy ending', show more but it's very light touch - the real ending is to see and be seen, and know and accept that bad things are going to happen. show less

Story of a young girl (Meg) and her older sister (Molly) that has been diagnosed with leukemia. Told from Meg's point of view, which is one of not really knowing what is going on with Molly so there is a lot of frustration with how everyone is babying Molly, how Molly is grumpy, etc. As the reader, you know something is up though, and when the reality of the situation is finally clear to Meg it is heartbreaking. This book brought tears to my eyes. I would recommend it for more mature 4th and 5th graders on up through adults. I loved this book as a 49 year old so it definitely is for multiple ages.

Holy shit... my sister and I loved this book. So tragic and weird for a fourth grader to be reading. Two things I remember: The family sings the song, "Michael Row Your Boat Ashore" and I've never heard that sung in real life AND it was the first time I read the word "taut"... it was used during a birth scene and I've disliked that word (like moist and mucuous) from that point on.