Ever since Lily's twin brother Anders died, Mom has been lost in her grief, spending time (and money) on a woman who claims to be able to communicate with Anders's spirit. Lily knows the woman's a fake because Anders has told her so. Ever since the funeral, when Lily found Anders at the old swing they both loved, she's been able to spend time with him. In this "overlap" between the land of the living and the dead, Anders stays alive for her for the whole summer, giving her someone with whom she can share her sadness and her anger.
But as the summer comes to a close and Lily is about to return to school without Anders by her side, she has to move on. Learning how to make new friends, accept that the overlap is temporary, and most importantly find a way to keep her dead brother in her heart while making room for the future becomes her summer journey in this sleepy lyrical book about grief.
It was all very beautiful, but this treatment of death and grief didn't really break any new ground and there have been stronger books on the subject.
2 comments:
If as many parents were dead in real life as they are in books, most of my students would only have one parent. It's such a strange phenomenon. Do publishers ever do focus groups with actual middle grade readers who AREN"T adults?
Technically, this is a dead sibling, but your point remains relevant and valid. I think death in the family provides an excuse for a slow-moving melancholy book that has the potential to be quite beautiful and poignant. And that is what draws authors to it. But I rather doubt that books about death would have interested me as a child
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