Book Review of "A Summer To Die" by Lois Lowry

I. Introduction

Lois Lowry is an American author of children's literature. She began her career as a photographer and a freelance journalist during the early 1970s. In 1977, she published her first children’s book, A Summer To Die. Since then, she had written more the 30 books for children and received awards from two of them, Newbery Medal: Number the Stars in 1990, and The Giver in 1994.
Lowry became known for writing about difficult subject matters within her works for children exploring complex issues such as racism, terminal illness, murder, and the Holocaust among other challenging topics that brought her to praise and criticisms.

II. Summary of the Text

A Summer to Die is a story about Meg, a girl who is jealous of her sister, Molly. She hates herself for she did not have the characteristics she wants to have like being pretty, attractive and almost perfect. That’s how she describes Molly.
She finds it hard to deal with her sister. They always fight even though it’s just a simple thing. It became worse when they move to another house on a different country sharing room with her. She thought it is bad to stay there until she met William Banks, an old man who owns their house lonely since his wife has gone. Will become a friend of Meg and Molly. He taught them many things about the wildflowers in their place.
For Meg, February is the worst month. Molly, on the other hand, suffers from nosebleeds making her more conscious about how she looks. They thought that it is caused by the cold weather and will be better soon as this season ends.
But it is not. Molly got confined in the hospital for several weeks. They found out that it is not just a simple nosebleed but leukemia.
Meg doesn’t know it at all. She got angry because of the continuous intake of medicine of Molly. Everything around her seems to change. Molly got thinner with pale skin and lesser hair. Her parents and also Molly has changed emotionally.
Thanks to Will and also to the couple, Ben and Maria, who just decided to live at another Will’s house. Maria is pregnant with their baby boy Happy which makes Molly a lot better. She helps her to prepare whatever Happy will need as soon as Maria gives birth to him. Until Molly got confined again and ended her life in the hospital.
It is really hard for Meg and her family to accept the reality of Molly being gone. Meg regrets many things that she was not able to do while her sister is still alive. But what she remembered the most are the good things happen to them when Molly was still with her.

III. Analysis of Text
The situations and feelings to be seen and felt were recognizable as the scenes go by. She made it clear to the readers how a girl like Meg would feel about her sister knowing that it suffered from a very serious disease and a have a little chance to survive from it.
Lowry also used supporting characters with different personalities to give the readers more lessons to learn that could be applied to reality.

IV. Evaluation of the Text

“Time goes on, and your life is still there, and you have to live it. After a while you remember the good things more often than the bad. Then, gradually, the empty silent parts of you fill up with sounds of talking and laughter again, and the jagged edges of sadness are softened by memories.”
This is a paragraph from the story that filled me up telling how it feels to be left by someone important to your life. It made me realize that you have to be strong although you feel that there’s always something missing in you. It describes a scenario in reality after a person has gone in your life.
I think the part that is not convincing is that leukemia is not that curable. It would be convincing if the writer would use cancer as disease to complicate the story.
“All things must come to an end so while life is still there, live the best of it.”
The book was so good and I can relate it to a part pf my life when my grandfather died. I regret that I haven’t done anything special to him until it is now his time. Like Meg, I hated him in some ways but in the end, I miss the things that I hated about him. It is just really hard to accept that a person who is with you since birth would leave you making you feel incomplete.

Anna Liza A. Balauag
IV-Newton