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All Summer Long: 04/18/19
All Summer Long by Hope Larson is about thirteen-year-old Bina who feels adrift when her best friend, Austin, leaves for soccer camp. He and she have a history of rating their summer fun by a long list of silly and somewhat arbitrary things. This year, though, she's by herself. Her summer of boredom takes a turn when she ends up locked out of the house. She knows Austin has a key to her house. Rather than knock, she decides to break-in via the open bathroom window. It's that break-in that puts her face to face with Austin's older sister, Charlie. Charlie is the wild child of Austin's family. She has a boyfriend and a summer-long babysitting commitment that she decides to pawn off on Bina. Whether or not Charlie's influence on Bina is good or bad is left up to interpretation.
It's a rather quiet graphic novel but it hit close to home because of its location. Though place names aren't ever really mentioned in the text, the illustrations tell a very different story, placing it unambiguously in South Pasadena, California. This is a town I have family ties to, one that will soon stop being a place of annual migration as the remaining family is moving north to Vancouver. Five stars Comments (0) |