Synopses & Reviews
There are ghosts at Bird Lake, and they're haunting Mitch Sinclair and Spencer Stone. Not the Halloween kind, but ghosts of the past. Memories of how life was before—before the divorce, before the accident. Can their ghosts bring Mitch and Spencer together, as friends? Or will their secrets keep them apart?
Either way, it is a summer that neither Mitch nor Spencer will ever forget.
Synopsis
Spencer thought the house might be haunted.
Mitch knew it wasn't. And he knew why.
The whole time Spencer and Mitch hung out together at Bird Lake that summer, there were secrets keeping them apart.
And maybe a secret knowledge keeping them together, too--together like members of the same tribe. Like friends.
Synopsis
Told in alternating voices, this smart and engaging middle grade novel from the beloved Kevin Henkes is the story of two boys coming together in friendship as they struggle with family conflicts and tragedy.
There are ghosts at Bird Lake, and they're haunting Mitch and Spencer. Not the Halloween kind, but ghosts of the past. Memories of how life was before--before the divorce, before the accident. Can their ghosts bring Mitch and Spencer together, as friends? Or will their secrets keep them apart?
Mitch feels isolated at his grandparents' house and can't help hating his father, who walked out on him and his mom two and a half weeks earlier. Spencer's family has decided it's finally time to return to Bird Lake, years after his brother, Matty, drowned there. Both boys arrive at the lake scarred and fragile, but as they become friends, the sharp edges of their lives smooth out and, slowly, they are able to start healing.
"Superbly crafted. A 'must have' for every library." --School Library Journal (starred review)
"In a novel as tender as his acclaimed Olive's Ocean, Henkes probes the psyches of two boys facing family conflicts."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
About the Author
Kevin Henkes is the author and illustrator of close to fifty critically acclaimed and award-winning picture books, beginning readers, and novels. He received the Caldecott Medal for Kitten's First Full Moon in 2005. Kevin Henkes is also the creator of a number of picture books featuring his mouse characters, including the #1 New York Times bestsellers Lilly's Big Day and Wemberly Worried, the Caldecott Honor Book Owen, and the beloved Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse. His most recent mouse character, Penny, was introduced in Penny and Her Song (2012); her story continued in Penny and Her Doll and Penny and Her Marble (a Geisel Honor Book). Bruce Handy, in a New York Times Book Review piece about A Good Day, wrote, "It should be said: Kevin Henkes is a genius." Kevin Henkes received two Newbery Honors for novels—one for his newest novel for young readers, The Year of Billy Miller, and the other for Olive's Ocean. Also among his fiction for older readers are the novels Junonia, Bird Lake Moon, The Birthday Room, and Sun & Spoon. He lives with his family in Madison, Wisconsin.