SUMMER SECRETS

Missy tries to cope with the chaos around her by writing in her secret journal about the events of one sweltering wartime Mississippi summer. Her mother is forgetting things and maintaining a dangerously thin hold on reality. Geneva, the family’s maid, is the person Missy goes to for comfort and discipline and wisdom. But racial issues are threatening the relationships with both Geneva and her daughter Almay, who is Missy’s best friend. So far Missy is able to be true to the people she loves, but given the time and place in which she lives, that may not always be possible. Along with everything else, Missy survives a serious illness and saves two lives. Hermes crams too many adventures into one summer to be entirely believable, and the war seems not to have affected anyone besides Geneva, who has lost two sons. But she has created a delightful, multifaceted main character, who is at once innocent, strong-willed, compassionate, insightful, and curious. A loving glimpse of a young girl’s struggle to understand her world. (Fiction. 10-14)