I liked the quiet, natural references to God and prayer and spiritual solace. I liked the family vignettes and country cozy details. I liked this conversation between Andy and his mom. Andy’s father is dead, and his mother is trying to answer some of Andy’s questions about the future:
“Mom set down the bag of mulch and sat back on her heels. ‘Andy,’ she said, ‘Our lives are like novels. The first book didn’t end the way we thought it would, but it was still a really good book.’
She brushed her hands on her jeans. ‘Now we begin the second book,’ she said. ‘There will be some of the same people in this book, but some new characters, too. We don’t know what will happen next or how the story will end up, but what fun would it be to read the last chapter first?’
She picked up a few stray pieces of mulch from the grass.
‘The best part of reading a good book,’ she added, ‘is seeing the story unfold, page by page, chapter by chapter, even with all its surprises.’ She leaned over, kissed my forehead, and smiled. ‘We can still suggest edits to God along the way.’
I nudged her back and swallowed hard. Our next book sounded sad and hopeful at the same time.”
However, the short, episodic chapters made the story choppy and disjointed. It almost felt as if I were reading photo blurbs for a summer vacation, vignettes that attempted to encapsulate the story of Andy’s “summer of courage.” And Andy himself, the fourth grade protagonist who’s lost his father, is a bit too good to be believable. I’m tired of reading about bratty, out-of-control kids, but there is a happy medium. Andy’s father has died, and his best friend has moved to Colorado. As the story begins, his mom has decided to spend the summer in the country at Andy’s grandma’s house. While they’re at grandma’s Mom reconnects with an old flame, and Andy isn’t sure where the relationship will lead. Still, the worst feeling that Andy experiences is a “knot in my stomach.” He never acts out or questions, and his worst fault is a bit of laziness which is cleared up with the help of a five dollar bill.
Mrs. Sackets is a neighbor, and I’m not sure what her place in the story is. She’s eccentric, which is OK, but in this instance she’s unbeleivably eccentric and serves no purpose in moving the story along. And Andy thinks the things Mrs. Sackets says and does are odd, but he just plays along and never criticizes even in his mind. My kids would be much more taken aback by Mrs. Sackets dancing around catching moonbeam messages from heaven.
Show, don’t tell. Tie the narrative together in smoothly connected whole. And most of all, give me believable characters with flaws even if everything does turn out all right in the end.
