When I Was Summer

February 15, 2019
Nora and her fellow band members are heading in their van to perform at an elite club in San Francisco, but Nora also has secret, hopeful, ulterior motives.High school junior Nora is already an accomplished bass player and the only girl in a four-member band called Blue Miles. Her opportunity to join her band mates playing the Magwitch has come at a price; she has reluctantly promised her adoptive parents--high-end professionals--that in return she will do an internship in Washington, D.C., over the summer. Abandoned by her birthparents as a toddler named Summer, the olive-skinned, black-haired teenager--who is curious about her ethnic origins--has imagined that she is the child of now-famous musicians who had to give her up when they were just starting out. Nora cleverly, secretly plans the band's van trip from Huntington Beach to San Francisco so it coincides with towns offering possible leads for her birthparent-seeking detective work. Skillful storytelling interweaves the protagonist's passion for music, her unrequited love for a fellow band mate, and such issues as teen alcohol abuse, socio-economic differences, career choices, toxic relationships, and--of course--the nature versus nurture debate. Characters and dialogue are believable and inclusive of various ethnicities and sexual orientations. Nora's combination of grit, humor, and vulnerability compels readers to join her on her journey of self-discovery. This bass player's coming-of-age story keeps a strong and steady beat. (Fiction. 12-16)

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April 1, 2019
Grades 9-12 Nora Wakelin, a high-school junior, has a pretty good life. She has loving parents and a big sister who adores her, and she is an up-and-coming bassist in her own band. But Nora also feels different from the rest of her family: she's adopted. Nothing has ever indicated that she is treated differently, but her interests don't seem to fit. Her parents, an attorney and a state senator, want her to take a summer internship, and, if she does, she has their permission to go to San Francisco with her band to open for a popular group. After learning that her birth name was Summer, she does some searching and finds three possibilities for her birth parents along the way. Nora's journey is a lot more complicated than she counted on, but, in the end, she sees that not everything is cast in stone and change is not only inevitable but also something to embrace. Nora's spirited, heartfelt first-person narration is imbued with a sense of immediacy, and, through it, Howard explores a familiar subject in a fresh way.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)