SUMMERLOST

It’s been one year since 12-year old Cedar Lee’s father and autistic younger brother Ben both died in a car accident. Now Cedar, her mother, and youngest brother are spending the summer in the small high desert town of Iron Creek where her mother grew up. It’s a summer where everything is the same, and nothing is the same.

Cedar soon befriends a boy associated with the Summerlost Festival, Iron Creek’s distinguished Shakespearean festival, and becomes preoccupied with the decades old, unexplained death of one of its star actresses. Meanwhile, random trinkets, things that would have caught Ben’s attention, mysteriously appear on Cedar’s windowsill at night. Cedar doesn’t believe in ghosts, but what if Ben is sending her a message?

Summerlost is a middle-grade story of friendship, mystery, grief and healing. Ally Condie beautifully and heartbreakingly captures the complexity of love and guilt experienced by a sibling to a special needs child.

Share with theater lovers and fans of Gary Schmidt, Richard Peck, Cynthia Lord, and Ingrid Law.

Grades 5-8