The Summer I Learned to Fly

Starred review from May 23, 2011
Reinhardt (The Things a Brother Knows) traces the friendship formed between two lonely adolescents in this atmospheric novel set in California during the 1980s. Thirteen-year-old Drew first runs into Emmett, a scraggly, slightly older boy, when she is looking for her lost pet rat in the alley behind her mother's gourmet cheese shop. Though reluctant to talk about himself, Emmett draws Drew into his world, eventually confiding his secret dream: to find a legendary spring with healing powers. Betraying her mother's trust by running away from home, Drew accompanies Emmett on an eye-opening journey to find the magic waters, during which she learns some bittersweet lessons about love and sacrifice. Laced with mystery and fascinating details about Drew's chief interestsârats and cheeseâthis quiet novel invites readers to share in its heroine's deepest yearnings, changing moods, and difficult realizations. Strong imagery, such as a description of the Golden Gate Bridgeâ"First faint and blurred like a watercolor painting, and then strong and vibrant, an electric red against a pale blue sky"âwill stay with readers. Ages 12âup.

June 1, 2011

In the lazy days of summer in a California coastal town, Drew works at her mom's struggling cheese shop and indulges her crush on an older co-worker, until she discovers Emmett and becomes involved in his very different world.

Drew and her mother have been a team for all the years since her father died, with pet rat Humboldt Fog as a companion. Thirteen-year-old Drew finally begins to separate and grow into her own person in this crucial summer. When mysterious, romantic Emmett appears, Drew finds herself holding her breath till she sees him and summing up her day as just "fine" to her mother. Emmett is on his own, and Drew (or Birdie, as her mother calls her) finds herself questioning her values and making new friends as she grows closer to him. This is not drastic or world-changing but a natural emergence of independence. Drew's journey into self-knowledge unfolds in a lucid voice that is thoughtful and entertaining without being showy. Emmett's history is painful but not unlikely or shocking. There is a hint throughout of being a step removed that balances the immediacy of the events being related and the power of hindsight. Drew and Emmett's ultimate quest for a miracle and the unquestioning belief in the magic needed for it adds just that touch of innocence and naiveté that is needed to make the ending poignant.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

June 1, 2011

Gr 6-9-Eighteen-year-old Drew Robin Solo, or Birdie, as her family calls her, tells about the year she was 13, when her widowed mother opened The Cheese Shop. Birdie works there (unpaid) with her mother; Swoozie; and Nick, a surfer who has a way with both artisanal pasta and all machines. Once school ends, she plans on working full-time until her mother tells her that, even if she were not too young to employ, she just could not afford her because the shop is barely making money. Birdie still comes in, bringing along her pet rat on the sly, largely to spend time with Nick, who makes her feel "fluttery" even though he's college age. At the end of most days, she takes the bread, pasta, and cheeses that are too old to sell and puts them out by the Dumpster. It's there that she meets a boy slightly older than she, who introduces himself as Emmett Crane. Over the next couple of weeks she and Emmett get to know each other. She also learns that her mother is dating someone, and that she wants to make her own "Book of Lists" like the one she found belonging to her dad. Ever steady, reliable Birdie slowly comes to realize that Emmett is a runaway. He finally admits it, but it is because he is in search of a miracle to help his family. He wants to find a hot spring that was part of a Native American legend his father read to him. He feels that if he jumps into this spring his father will come back to the family and his younger brother will get well. Birdie agrees to help him with his quest and to leave her comfort zone in the process. Reinhardt has written another book that will resonate with any readers learning to spread their wings and fly.-Suanne Roush, Osceola High School, Seminole, FL

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2011
Grades 5-8 Thirteen-year-old Drew has always lived a rather staid and cautious life. She loves nothing better than to spend time at her mother's cheese shop making fresh pasta with surfer Nick, her very obvious crush, and playing macadamia-nut fetch with her pet rat, Humboldt Fog (named after her favorite cheese). But she gradually throws caution to the wind when she meets Emmett Crane, a runaway who is searching for the miracle hot springs outside of San Francisco. Reinhardt is a true storyteller, and in her latest novel, she takes implausible elements (two early adolescents bonding over a rat and really good cheese) and touchingly mundane details (a dead father's Book of Lists and paper-crane notes) and creates a moving coming-of-age story. Her characters, both adult and teen, are fully drawnimperfect, yet intensely likable and compassionateand the gentle story highlights the challenge of deciding which risks to take and which secrets to keep.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)