Review: Four New Summer Reads for Kids and Teens

How It All Ends

by Emma Hunsinger

Norwich cartoonist Emma Hunsinger‘s first book, coauthored with her wife, Vermont cartoonist laureate Tillie Walden, was a picture book called My Parents Won’t Stop Talking, which was among NPR’s 2022 Books We Love. Now Hunsinger has made her solo debut with the full-length graphic novel How It All Ends, which won this year’s Vermont Book Award for children’s literature.

Intended for readers 8 years old and up, the book tells the story of Tara, who, near the end of seventh grade, learns that she’s been “selected” as a high-performing student to be hurled directly into high school. Tara has an audacious imagination; to capture her mental and emotional flights, Hunsinger employs a green palette for episodes in the everyday world and a red palette for the wilder realms of Tara’s dreams, fantasies and fears. These two color modes, with their divergent narrative effects, are often juxtaposed on the same page.

Hunsinger’s drawing technique is dramatically varied, ranging from spare to vigorous and scribbly. Her line work can veer from calm to agitated, or she’ll offer a sweeping panorama, then zero in for a close-up, like a madcap filmmaker. Abandoning the traditional comic sequence of boxlike frames, Hunsinger utilizes every inch of her paper, continually shifting the scale and pacing of the storytelling, with speech bubbles for spoken dialogue and free-floating text for Tara’s thoughts. She captures the almost constant panic of being a high schooler amid the barrage of bodily changes, social chaos and family tumult so inevitable for teenagers.

Friendships are confusing, stirrings of romantic feelings are bewildering, siblings are exasperating, and adults often seem like an alien species. Unlike many of her classmates, Tara genuinely loves learning. She’s especially taken with a literature class in which she’s paired for a project with quiet Libby, whom Tara finds smart and fascinating. Amid the ruckus all around them, Tara and Libby find a haven in simply being together. How It All Ends doesn’t really “end” — at the conclusion, Tara seems to be just getting going.

Kat’s Greek Summer

by Mima Tipper

With the right amount of teen angst, any vacation can feel like a nightmare. Young heroines in novels such as Jenny Han’s The Summer I Turned Pretty and Ann Brashares’ The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants remind us that idyllic scenery is no match for the chaos of growing up. South Hero author Mima Tipper adds to this coming-of-age canon with her debut, Kat’s Greek Summer.

The novel follows 14-year-old Kat, who plans to spend her summer training to make the cross-country team at her high school. Just as Kat gets started, her mom informs her that they’re going to spend the summer connecting with their family heritage in Paralia, Greece. The horrors of sparkling beaches and fresh apricot jam!

Kat doesn’t spend the entire time griping. Due to the heat and modest dress code for women in the village, she sneaks out after sunset to train. During her nightly runs, she meets a local boy named Theofilus and has her first romance. But the lies Kat tells to sneak out eventually catch up with her, and she has to figure out how to be honest with her family.

Kat also has to navigate cultural barriers: The villagers in the fishing town speak limited English, and being part of a community, it turns out, is about more than playing new games and trying delicious food.

While the text is free of profanity or graphic detail, Kat and Theofilus kiss and touch each other above the waist. Kat is also sexually harassed by a group of boys. It’s an unfortunately realistic situation — but a good opportunity to have a conversation with your young reader about how Kat deals with it. This book is recommended for ages 11 to 14.

Overall, Kat’s Greek Summer is a heartwarming story about first loves, learning to stand up for yourself and discovering cultural identity. Maybe that dreaded summer vacation in Greece wasn’t so bad.

The Secret Library

by Kekla Magoon

The special locale in the title of Kekla Magoon‘s latest novel isn’t only a secret library; it’s a library of secrets. This is a magical archive, with miles of shelves filled with volumes cataloged as “Minor Transgressions,” “Guilty Pleasures,” “Little White Lies,” “Hiding Places,” “Withheld for Someone’s Own Good” and (most compelling of all) “Family Secrets.”

The novel’s main character, Delilah, (“Dally” to most people) is an unusual almost-12-year-old. Thanks to her grandfather, she knows all the constellations in the night sky, how to tie every sort of knot and pick any kind of lock, and how to rig and steer a sailboat. When her grandfather dies, he bequeaths her a map that leads her to the Secret Library.

Along with being precocious, Dally is lonely. She misses her grandfather terribly. Her strictly controlling mother, Katherine, is a widow and single parent who insists that Dally must be tutored in finance every afternoon so she’ll be ready to take over the multitiered family business — construction, real estate, hotel and retail chains, manufacturing, and shipping.

Dally needs to deceive the adults in her life in order to visit the Secret Library. Once there, she chooses a volume from a shelf and is instantly launched into another place and time: a department store on the day her parents met, a pirate ship in the 1850s. Through these glimpses into the past, Dally gradually learns about her origins.

In the grand tradition of time-travel stories, Dally can be transported for days or weeks, but she’ll only be absent from her “home world” for minutes. Yet her excursions aren’t without danger: If she ever steps through the boundary of an enchanted fog that accompanies her on these visitations, she’ll be trapped in the past, unable to return through the library’s portal.

As in her tenderly observant previous novel The Minus-One Club, Magoon explores aspects of contemporary culture and society. While The Secret Library is intended for readers ages 8 and up, the book is complex enough for teens and adults, addressing themes such as grief, gender fluidity, slavery and racism. Meanwhile, it tells a rip-roaring tale that will grip younger audiences.

Red Dog Farm

by Nathaniel Ian Miller

When Vermont farmers speak about their livelihood, they don’t just talk about getting a paycheck. The work is grueling, unpredictable and doesn’t come with any financial security. But farmers have a unique connection to the landscape that comes from rising early and getting up close and personal with it every day. That relationship is central to Red Dog Farm, the second novel from Vermont author Nathaniel Ian Miller.

Orri, 19, a first-year student at a university in Reykjavík, Iceland, feels lost and homesick. He leaves mid-semester to help out on his family’s cattle farm in the western part of the country. His mother tells him that his father, Pabbi, has sunk into a depression since Orri has been away. Now, for the first time, Orri is allowed to help run the farm, and he soon discovers that there’s a lot about his father he doesn’t know.

The plot stumbles forward as aimlessly as young Orri’s future plans. He toils away on the farm, strikes up an unlikely friendship with an old classmate and falls in love with a woman who lives several hours away. Orri struggles with the complications of trying to keep the long-distance romance going when their lives feel worlds apart.

The small farm is a character in itself, with its worn-down machinery and weak fences. Orri’s family seems to be barely scraping by, making just enough money to keep it going year after year. When Orri reflects on those challenges, he remembers his grandmother telling him that she liked Iceland because there was nowhere to run from your troubles; instead, you just “hunkered against the rock, and while you were down there, hunkering, you admired the moss.” Vermonters can likely find something relatable in that sentiment.

Red Dog Farm deals with some heavy subject matter, including mental illness, suicide, sexual orientation and animal slaughter. While this is an adult novel, the book is appropriate for older teens who may identify with its coming-of-age themes.

The original print version of this article was headlined “These four new books for kids and teens by Vermont authors tackle coming-of-age themes with humor and compassion. Words to Lounge By | Four new books by Vermont authors to add to kids’ and teens’ summer reading list”