The One Summer

I thought I was going to end my class blogging with a saucy fairytale bang, but then I remembered I forgot to write about This One Summer.

Which, I suppose, is appropriate since summertime is creeping up on us, and I have declared, once again, that this year's summer is going to be perfect.

This One Summer takes us all back to a time when summer was an alternate reality: a place free from school, removed from the routine of everyday life, when a family goes to a lake or a cabin, and people become free.

Windy and Rose are summer friends: they meet only in summer, at the cabins in a resort town. They're just on the edge of being teenagers, and Rose is captivated by the older teens in the town. I loved the contrast between the real drama faced by the kids in the resort town, and the transient, dreamy quality of the drama that Rose and Windy experience. Mariko and Jillian Tamaki are showing us the edge of childhood, where we realize that the alternate reality of summertime is someone else's everyday reality, and soon it won't be a true escape for us either.

For myself, I remember going to cabins as a child. I remember things that only ever happened in summer, experiences and habits and treats that were reserved for long hot days and late nights on the lake.

Then I grew up, and those all faded away. Summertime is just like any time, now.

So much of this story is told through the art. As opposed to El Deafo, where the text is very dense, much of This One Summer is without text. We watch Windy and Rose move through the space: swimming, running, dancing, and creeping around the edge of the real-life problems that have crept into their summertime space.

I loved lingering on the artwork, because I could remember glimpses from my childhood, and I could also remember snatches of things that I experienced as an adult: Walking down a hot road in my pajamas in the dark. Sitting and looking at the stars. Driving my car in the twilight. Walking along train tracks, climbing abandoned grain elevators, sitting on rooftops. We test our freedom in the summer, no matter our age. We want to be wild, with our hearts bursting and our bodies free.

I think this book is suitable for any age. Younger readers will read up, and catch that glimpse of teenage drama, not understanding it, just as Rose and Windy are confused. Older readers will perhaps remember their youth. Everyone will read it with a longing for summertime to come, and for hot evenings and sparkling water in the day.

Savor this book, when you read it. And savor your summertime.