Cold in Summer

by Tracy Barrett

Overview

The new girl in town meets a mysterious old-fashioned girl who can't seem to find her way home.

The girl didn't say anything. Her face held no expression.
Ariadne shivered. It was cool in the shade, and her hair was still wet.
"Hello," Ariadne said. No answer. "Um—I was just taking a walk. Is this your property?" Still nothing. She took a step toward the girl and stumbled on a fallen branch. She caught her balance and looked back at the tree, but no one was there.
The girl had vanished.

It's bad enough that Ariadne's family just moved to a tiny boring town in the middle of nowhere. But worst of all is that she's so far away from her best friend. The kids in Dobbin seem nice enough, but none of them really understands how lost and unhappy Ariadne feels.

None, that is, but May Butler. She's an odd, quiet person who wears the strangest old-fashioned clothes and has a spooky habit of appearing and disappearing in the blink of an eye. Despite their differences, there is a bond between the two girls. May, too, knows what it's like to feel lost.

Cold in Summer is a 2004 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780805098716
Publisher:	Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Publication date:	05/01/2003
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.70(d)
Lexile:	760L (what's this?)
Age Range:	10 - 14 Years

About the Author

Tracy Barrett is the award-winning author of several books for young readers, including the Sherlock Files books, King of Ithaka and Anne of Byzantium. Her books have been named an ALA Best Book for young adults, a Bank Street best children's book of the year, and a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age, among other honors. She is a professor of Italian language and civilization at Vanderbilt University and lives with her family in Nashville, Tennessee.

Editorial Reviews

Compelling. A genuine ghost story...that will draw readers eerily in.”—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

Barrett (Anna of Byzantium) places a supernatural twist on a well-worn story line about an unwelcome move. Seventh-grader Ariadne, miserable at being uprooted from Florida when her professor mother gets a job in a small Tennessee college town, is daydreaming about running away when she encounters a silent girl in old-fashioned clothes. Eventually she and the girl, May Butler, become friends, but mysteries surface. Why does May so quickly appear and disappear? Why doesn't anyone else see May? Readers will outpace the heroine in her slow piecing together of May's identity (she is the ghost of a 19th-century local girl) and May's request, "You have to look for me and help me go home." Given May's benevolence (she appears to girls or boys needing help), the ghost story isn't especially frightening, and those familiar with the genre may find Barrett's clues too obvious to generate much momentum. Instead, the tension arises from Ariadne's investigation of the colorful local history and her attempt to carry out May's wishes. If somewhat tame, the story offers enough teasers to keep the audience going until the action-packed climax. Ages 10-14. (May) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Gr 5-8-Ariadne's family has just moved from Florida to tiny Dobbin, TN, and she hates it. She misses the ocean, her old school, and her best friend, Sarah. One day, after swimming in Cedar Point Lake, she meets an odd girl in old-fashioned clothing, whose name she later discovers is May. In the course of doing research for a class project on the history of her new town, Ariadne learns of a local legend concerning a child named May Butler who mysteriously disappeared one day in the 1850s, and she decides to discover the truth about the strange girl who drifts in and out of her life with no explanation. The story is rather predictable, and readers figure out what is going on long before Ariadne does. Also, some of the clues that lead her to solve the mystery fall into place a little too easily, with many of the supporting characters seeming to exist merely as vehicles for plot twists. The mutual concern that Ariadne and May have for one another, however, is affecting, and fans of ghost stories should enjoy this light, easy read.-Alison Ching, North Garland High School, Garland, TX Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

No way does Ariadne want to spend her seventh-grade year in a hick town in Tennessee just because her mom got a job at the university there. She’s lonesome, missing her best friend back in Florida. When she meets a girl with a long braid and wearing a faded blue dress and brown boots alone in the woods, who says she lives where "it’s cold in summer and warm in winter," Ariadne feels strangely drawn to her. Intrigued by the murky 100-foot-deep lake where her family lives, Adriadne’s social-studies project on the creation of the lake and the dead town underneath it becomes the eddy that swirls the mysterious circumstances together. Is the girl, May Butler, a ghost? How can Ariadne take her home? Plenty of foreshadowing and obvious clues point to the answers, but it’s not where the plot goes, rather how it gets there that makes the story compelling. A genuine ghost story without coincidental explanations that will draw readers eerily in. (Fiction. 10-14)

Kirkus Reviews