Swing Sideways
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Perfect for fans of Bridge to Terabithia and Walk Two Moons, this debut middle grade novel is the story of two girls and the unforgettable summer in which they learn about true friendship and loss.
Annie has been promised a summer of freedom in the country. Freedom from a difficult school year, freedom from her fake “friends” back in the city, and, most of all, freedom from her mom’s life-governing spreadsheets and rigid schedules.
When Annie meets California, who is visiting her grandfather’s farm, it seems she has found the perfect partner for the summer she’s always craved. Especially when California offers Annie a real-life adventure: if she and Annie can find the ponies her mom rode as a girl, surely it will remind her mom how wonderful the farm is—and fix what’s broken between her mom and her grandfather.
But Annie’s summer of freedom is sprinkled with secrets, and everything she has learned about bravery and love will be put to the test when the truth behind the ultimate secret changes her life forever.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Steveson debuts with a empathic summer-of-change story in which panic-attack-prone Annabel transforms from a skinny, anxiety-ridden bookworm into a healthier, stronger, and braver girl. She and her parents are spending the summer at their lake house, as usual, but Annabel's therapist has insisted that she have an unstructured schedule with plenty of independence, instead of living by her controlling mother's spreadsheets. Befriended by the local hermit's free-spirited granddaughter, California who explains that she is visiting to help her grandfather recover from his chemotherapy treatments Annabel renames herself Annie and throws herself into "the Freedom Plan" with a vengeance. Before long, however, she is in over her head, involved in California's questionable adventures, lying to her parents, and sneaking out at night (to tend to a sick, abandoned dog). Steveson sets up a promising portrayal of intriguing dynamics in both families, but Anna's transformation happens so rapidly as to not be entirely believable, and late-arriving revelations make the ending seem of a different spirit than the rest of the book. Ages 8 12.
