A Really Weird Summer by Eloise Jarvis McGraw

A Really Weird Summer Reviews

• 
  CatholicBibliophagist

  This was on the For Sale stack at the library, and I snatched it up because I've loved every other book by this author which I've ever read.
  
  It's a story about four siblings who have been sent to spend the summer with a great aunt and uncle while their parents are working out the details of their divorce. All of the kids are miserable at being removed from their home, friends, and neighborhood. And they are sooo bored. And then certain elements creep into the story which seem to indicate that this will either be a fantasy or a book with supernatural bits. But alas! It all turns out to be merely psychological.
  
  The eldest, Nels, is coping with the pressures of having to parent the younger children while himself grieving over his parents' abandonment. And he's secretly worrying about where and with whom they'll all be living after the summer ends. Unbenownst to his siblings, their father has privately proposed that Nels go to live with him in Alaska after the divorce. Nels doesn't know what he wants to do, and as the summer progresses, withdraws further and further from his brothers and sister. Then he discovers a wonderful secret and a perfect friend. Or has he?
  
  I think the book would have been much improved if it had been more ambiguous about whether Nels' adventures with Alan had really taken place. But to be baldly informed at the very end that it was "all in his head" was deeply disappointing and far too didactic for my taste.
  
  And I was kind of repulsed by the book's "lesson" which was that kids must stick together because adults cannot be depended on for anything. Family identity has shrunk to kids only. As he tells his younger brother on the last page, "All us kids have to to stay together, that's the big thing. We've got to promise> each other. If we stick together, then whatever happens outside -- whatever the grown-ups do -- it won't matter so much D'you see? We'll still be us."
  
  Perhaps this was not a surprising conclusion for the children to have come to since their parents had shuttled them off to spend their summer in a holding pattern. (And by the way, I wondered why the children had to be sent away even though their mother was now working. Nels was 12, and their mother had planned that during the school year he'd take care of the other children after they got home from school. So why couldn't they have spent the summer in the security of their own home? I'm sure there were latch-key children back in 1977. I felt that the whole dislocation thing was just a clumsy device by the author to set her characters up for a particular psychological response.
  
  
• 
  Kumari de Silva

  When I was a kid I read "Mara, daughter of the Nile" and "Greensleeves" soon after they were published in the 1970s. Both of them made a deep impression on me. Even now I remember distinct details from both books. Recently "Greensleeves" was available in print again. I re-read it and remain impressed by what a good book for kids it is. The main character of that book is very well realized. She is both mature and yet silly in the way you would be at that age. . . I mentioned the books to my brother who found this one at a library book sale. He read it with his son, they both liked it, and then they sent it to me.
  
  Well. Hmmmm. It is similar in writing style to the other two, but in tone - quite different. While both Mara and Greensleeves had very spunky, female leads, this book has 2 lonely and depressed male main characters. I had expected the story to mostly revolve around Nels, but as I kept reading it was hard to decide if Nels is really the main character or if it's Stevie. Even though we are in Stevie's head for lots of the book, I finally decided Nels is the only protagonist who has a chance to change, so I guess he is the main character.
  
  Some of the other reviewers questioned the set-up, i.e. they ask "Why are the kids sent away just because the parents are getting divorced?" As a child of the 70s I can answer that question. Back then you could get divorced, and move thousands of miles away from your kids (if you were the Dad) and no one said nothing. If it was a mom who moved away though - wow - people SAID things, and not nice things. In this story it seems like that is what the Dad is contemplating. He's (maybe) gonna totally split. At 12 years old Nels is a little too young to be solely responsible for his 3 siblings all summer long by himself. The mom appears to have gotten a job, so by the time school starts she will be able to make it - but finding full time child care for the entire summer for 4 kids is challenging. Thus the family decides to send all 4 of them the stay with elderly relatives who are not unkind, but not entertaining either.
  
  Little Stevie goes through some very believable scenes. McGraw is exceptionally skilled at getting inside a young person's head and reporting events in the way a child would interpret them. That said, Stevie has such a Terrible Summer! It's so sad. Realistic. But sad. I think if you are a 10 to 12 year old and your parents are getting divorced you may like this book because you can relate to it. . . But then again, maybe you can't, because no one has a cell phone and cable TV doesn't exist. They can't even skype their mom. Maybe you would like it as a period piece, as insight to a lost world.
  
  If you are an adult you might want to read it before your kids do - - just because it's heavy! Maybe you don't want your kids reading such a sad book. Even if it is realistic. Or maybe you do, because it could create talking points. If you've never read anything else by McGraw I would not recommend starting with this book. It's not her best.
  
  
• 
  Gina

  I think I'd understand a bit more about depression if I'd read this book as a kid. Lots of symbolism. Yes, it's a kids book, but I think adults would get something out of it as well.
  
• 
  Sarah Rigg

  My only notes from my journal of 1985 was that the title seemed to fit the summer I'd just had pretty well.
• 
  Lulu

  So-so. One of Marika’s old books I think. Definitely for boys with pre-adolescent angst.
  Yep, read it before…around 1985.
• 
  Nancy

  not quite time travel. sad atmosphere.
• 
  Sharon Buxton

  C-. fantasy, children's fiction