Friday, January 7, 2011

Book Review: A Summer's Secret

Tim has been making fun of me for years for alternating between reading smut and books about the Amish. Lately, with all of my reading about birth and midwifery, both my smut reading and my reading about the Amish have suffered. Luckily, I was given a copy of A Summer Secret from BookSneeze in exchange for writing about the book.

The book starts out with a note about the Middlefield, Ohio Amish, on whom the book is based. That is followed by a "Glossary of Amish Terms," so that the reader can understand the Dutch words that pepper the story.

Thirteen year old Mary Beth, the main character, finds herself in the middle of a mystery when she finds a button in the borner of their barn. This raises flags, as the Amish don't use buttons on their clothes. Between doing chores on the family farm, spending time with her Ma and Da and fighting with her brothers, she continues to find more clues that point to something strange happening.

A few chapters into the book, we meet Sawyer, a runaway who has been hiding out in her family's barn. Throughout the story, Mary Beth and her brother, Johnny, spend time with Sawyer and wrestle with what to tell the adults in their lives.

Just like other books of the genre, A Summer Secret is a wholesome read, a book where people grapple with issues and come out of it ok. Though they have things going on in their lives that may feel challenging, they have a strong support system to fall back on when things get tough. Eventually, when the parents step in to help, everyone is kind and supportive.

Patrick, my oldest son, is reading A Summer Secret now.

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