The Summer of Letting Go

Gr 7 Up—With gentleness and thoroughness, Polisner probes the wounds of a family rocked by the drowning death of one of their own, four-year-old Simon. The story begins four years after Simon's death, the summer Frankie turns 15. The beach beckons, but Frankie is cemented in fear and guilt. She believes she is responsible for Simon's death. While Frankie's loyal BFF, Lisette, is wrapped up in her new boyfriend, Frankie has a lot of time to call her own, so she takes on a babysitting job for the emotionally wounded young mother of a four-year-old boy who shares the protagonist's name. Events in little Frankie's short life and his personality bear an eerie resemblance to Simon's, so much so that big Frankie begins to wonder if Simon has been reincarnated. Polisner has a keen understanding of the suffering, maturing teen psyche; Frankie's fragility and self-doubt are heartbreaking in their realism. Her guilt is compounded by the unhealthy coping mechanisms of her parents and by her own distress at having a crush on Lisette's boyfriend. There are no easy answers, but over the course of the summer, Frankie learns the value of believing in something bigger than herself. First-rate realistic fiction with plenty of heart.—Jennifer Prince, Buncombe County Public Libraries, NC