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Summary
Summary
Annie Richards knows there are a million things to look out for--bicycle accidents, food poisoning, chicken pox, smallpox, typhoid fever, runaway zoo animals, and poison oak. That's why being careful is so important, even if it does mean giving up some of her favorite things, like bike races with her best friend, Rebecca, and hot dogs on the Fourth of July. Everyone keeps telling Annie not to worry so much, that she's just fine. But they thought her brother, Jared, was just fine too, and Jared died.
It takes a new neighbor, who looks as plain as a box of toothpicks but has some surprising secrets of her own, to make Annie realize that her plans for being careful aren't working out as well as she had hoped. And with a lot of help from those around her--and a book about a pig, too--Annie just may find a way to close her umbrella of sadness and step back into the sunshine.
With winsome humor and a dash of small-town charm, Lisa Graff's third novel is a touching look at rising above grief and the healing power of community.
Reviews (4)
Horn Book Review
(Intermediate) With the same deftness she demonstrated in The Thing About Georgie (rev. 3/07), Graff immediately engages the reader with the main character. Here's Annie Richards, about to ride her bike to the local drug store. Elbow pads? Check. Kneepads? Check. Helmet? Check. Ace bandages? Check. She's now ready to take the safe but more time-consuming route on her mission to buy Band-Aids. Why is Annie so fearful? The previous year her older brother, Jared, died unexpectedly from a rare heart condition, and Annie's at a loss as to how to cope. Her mother cleans obsessively, her father hides behind newspapers and magazines, and Annie reads about terrible illnesses and their symptoms. She's not searching for sympathy, and she certainly doesn't want any of those "dead-brother looks," but "there was a lot of...dangerous stuff that most people didn't even think to worry about. You had to watch out for everything." However, while Annie may be prepared, she's not healing. That healing comes slowly, helped along by understanding friends and a close-knit community of complex, concerned (but never cloying) characters. Expect tears, but also expect to cheer for Annie's recovery as she gradually learns to honor Jared's life and care for her own. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Nine-year-old Annie knows that bad things can happen even if you're careful. Her older brother Jared died even though he went to the doctor. So now she is extra careful. Annie pores over a medical encyclopedia, wears a helmet in the car, preemptively wraps her ankles for bike rides, and never roller-skates down the hill with one eye closed the way she and Jared loved to do. A fight over the funeral of her best friend's hamster leaves Annie even more alone, but she finds an unlikely friend in the new neighbor, Mrs. Finch, who lends her Charlotte's Web, reveals that she is a recent widow, and helps her learn to close the umbrella that she has put up to shield herself since Jared's death. Annie grapples with what to do to mark Jared's approaching birthday, and together with his best friend, Tommy, they find a fitting tribute to joyfully remember Jared. This tender book about love and loss benefits from Annie's quirky personality, which lightens the serious tone.--Booth, Heather Copyright 2009 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-6-After her brother's unexpected death from a rare heart ailment, adventurous Annie Richards changes into an overly cautious child who diligently tries to prevent any illness or accident happening to her. Each cut or bump is bandaged. Instead of racing her friend Rachel on her bike, the 10-year-old invents turtle racing to see who can ride the slowest. Games she deems too dangerous are avoided. Annie's neighborhood is filled with friends and neighbors who care, but too often she sees the "dead brother" look on their faces. Only when Mrs. Finch moves into the long-vacant "haunted" house in the neighborhood, and Annie attempts to sell her outdated Junior Sunbird cookies, do things begin to change. Friendship, shared moments, and some careful listening help Annie close her umbrella of sadness. As in The Life and Crimes of Bernetta Wallflower (2008) and The Thing About Georgie (2007, both HarperCollins), Graff has created a lively, quirky individual who tells her story with frankness and humor. Annie's three friends come across as real kids who treat Annie's eccentricities with a mixture of understanding and occasional anger. A more complex read than Andrea Beaty's Cicada Summer (Abrams, 2008), Annie's story deals with death with sensitivity, love, and understanding.-Kathryn Kosiorek, formerly at Cuyahoga County Public Library, Brooklyn, OH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Four months ago Annie Richards's 11-year-old brother Jared died suddenly from an undiagnosed heart condition. Since then, she and her parents have been nearly paralyzed with a grief that none of them can acknowledge. Her mother frantically cleans but won't speak of Jared, her father is sweetly distant and ten-year-old Annie tries desperately to protect herself from every conceivable form of disease or accident. The loving adults who surround Annie are aware of her fears but bumble in their attempts to comfort her, until a new neighbor, grieving over her husband's recent death, finds just the right words and caring interventions to ease Annie, and ultimately others around her, into taking down the metaphorical umbrellas they raised to shield themselves from pain. Though at first glance rather long for those new to chapter books, the generous, nicely spaced print makes for a surprisingly fast read. A welcome and sensitive addition to collections dealing with grief, this is also an appealing and moving choice for readers seeking a dose of feel-good reality fiction. (Fiction. 8 up) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Umbrella Summer Chapter One If you started to squeeze your brakes right in the middle of heading down Maple Hill, just as you were passing old Mr. Normore's mailbox, you could coast into the bike rack in front of Lippy's Market without making a single tire squeak. That was the fastest way to go, and the most fun too, with the wind whistling past your ears and your stomach getting fluttery and floaty, till you thought maybe you were riding quicker than a rocket. I didn't do that anymore, though. Now I hopped off my bike at the top of the hill and walked it. It took five times as long but it was lots safer. I got to the store at 7:58--that's what it said on the clock inside. The door was still locked, and Mr. Lippowitz and his son, Tommy, were flattening cardboard boxes in the corner. Mr. L. saw me peeking through the window and held up two fingers, so I sat down on the front step and waited, trying to soak up the whole two minutes by taking off all my biking gear real slow. I slid off my elbow pads--left one first, then the right--and stacked them on the step next to me in a pile. Next came the kneepads, which I tugged off over my sneakers, and last of all I unsnapped my bike helmet. I thought about taking off the ace bandages around my ankles, too, but then I decided it would take too long to put them back on when I was ready to bike home, and there was no way I was biking without them. They were important for protecting against sprains. I took so long with my bike gear, I swear Mr. L. could've opened the store twice by the time I was done, but the door was still closed. I stood up and leaned back on my heels and then forward to the tippy-tips of my toes, just for something to do while I was waiting, and I scanned the bulletin board out front to see if there was anything new. Same as usual, there were papers pinned up all over--advertisements and lost-and-founds, flyers about art lessons and people selling furniture and high school kids looking for babysitting jobs. In the top right corner there was a green one that said YARD SALE SATURDAY--106 KNICKERBOCKER LANE, and I knew that had to be the Harpers next door, because my house was 108. Some of the flyers were brand-new, and some were so old they were brown around the edges from too much sun. My dad once said that if you ever wanted to know what people were up to in Cedar Haven, California, the easiest way was to go down to Lippy's, because then you could learn about everyone all at once. By the time Mr. L. unlocked the door, it was 8:09, but I didn't tell him that. "Well, if it isn't my best customer!" he said with a grin. "How are you doing today, Annie?" "Pretty good," I told him. "I checked our house for black widow spiders, and there aren't any." "Well." His nostrils flared at that. "Good to know." There was a crash from the back room--not an emergency-sounding shatter like plates breaking, but more like a good long rattle. "Tommy!" Mr. L. hollered over his shoulder. "What was that?" Tommy didn't answer. "Sounded like a whole carton of Good & Plentys to me," I said. He laughed. "I better go check, huh?" While Mr. L. checked on Tommy, I wandered around. I knew exactly what I was looking for, but I liked exploring. Lippy's was one of my favorite places to be. Sometimes on Sundays, after Rebecca's family got back from church, we rode our bikes down to get lunch from the warmer. Rebecca got either fried chicken or spiced potato wedges, and I always got beef taquitos. It was four for two dollars, but if Mr. L. was at the register I got a fifth one for free. I saw right away that Mr. L. had finally stocked up the toy aisle for summer--water balloons and Super Soakers, snorkel masks and plastic sunglasses. He should've gotten that stuff out three weeks ago, because it was already the first day of July and I was sweating worse than a pig in a roller derby. But I guess better late than never, that's what my mom always said. There was a pair of brown-and-pink polka-dotted flip-flops that were just my size, and I wanted them real bad, but there were more important things I needed to spend my money on. After I finished my wandering, I went to the front, where Mr. L. was reading the newspaper behind the counter. "Was it Good & Plentys?" I asked him. "Is that what crashed?" He shook his head. "Junior Mints. You find something worth buying today, Annie?" "Yup." I slapped my purchase on the counter. Mr. L. looked at the box and then looked back at me. His face was squinty. "Didn't you just buy a box of Band-Aids yesterday?" he asked. "It was Thursday," I told him, "and I'm out already." I saw him looking at my arms. I had two Band-Aids on the right one, where Rebecca's hamster had scratched me with its nails, and five on the left one, covering up spots that were either mosquito bites or poison oak, I wasn't sure yet. He sighed deep. He was looking at me with his eyes big and sad, and a crease between the eyebrows. It was the same look almost everyone had for me now, Miss Kimball at school, my parents' friends, even Rebecca sometimes when she thought I couldn't see her. Everybody on the planet practically had been looking at me the same way since February--sad and worrying, with a bit of pity mixed in at the edges. I guess that was the way people looked at you after your brother died. I slipped three dollars across the counter toward him. "I get seventeen cents change," I said. Mr. L. just nodded and rang me up. Umbrella Summer . Copyright © by Lisa Graff . Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Umbrella Summer by Lisa Graff All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
