Thursday, April 2, 2009

A Summer to Die By Lois Lowry Book Review by Liezl Escaño Lopez

“It’s unfair.”

This was the famous line that the narrator, Meg Chalmers, utters often in the story.

“A Summer to Die” written by Lois Lowry was often suspected to be a biography of her sister but as the author says some of it were true but the rest were fiction. This was her first book before she wrote her famous trilogy “The Giver”,"Gathering Blue," and "The Messenger."

The story mainly discusses a usual sister’s relationship and how a family accepts the reality about the death of their loved one.

Margaret “Meg” Chalmers narrates the story expressing how she envies her older sister Molly Chalmers who seemed to get all the attention and beauty while she gets the left over. A common issue between siblings. They frequently argues on anything practically because they are really different, Molly being the happy, easy girl like her Mom and Meg being the serious deep person like her Dad.

As their father seeks for a quiet place to write his book, the family has to move to the country where a big change is waiting ahead of them, leaving their house in town where they had grown up. Adjusting to their new environment and neighbors, Meg seemed to have a difficulty to adapt while her sister Molly already gained new friends as well as new boyfriend who is member of the varsity in school. But Meg found a friend in the presence of Will who is the owner of their house. Meg being interested in photography his father built him a darkroom where she can develop whatever her camera captures. Meg and Will share same interest.

Ordinary days have passed. Everyone is busy in their own business, Mother busy sewing her quilt, Dad finishing his book, Molly having fun with her friends and Meg focused on her darkroom until one night everything is about to change. One suspicious night, Meg woke up and saw her sister drowned in her own blood. Their parents brought Molly at the hospital while Meg was left at home still bothered and scared of what she just saw.


Molly went back to home but the old Molly was gone and seemed to be a stranger as time prolongs. She is losing her hair gradually due to the pills she is taking. A new couple who was about to have a child occupied the near house beside the Chalmer’s house. The upcoming baby and her new found interest in flowers seemed to lighten up Molly. Meg unaware of everything of what really is going on was about to discover that her sister whom she envy the most is about to die because of a disease named Leukemia. These were the time that the family went through difficult stage because they are just to lose a loved one. Accepting the reality was hard for the family. And the day came when Molly finally closed her eyes and never wake up. They went back to town and left all their memories in the country.

In the end of this story the narrator realizes how beautiful she is and that only happy and good memories are those will be left behind by Molly.

This story was really heart-warming because it depicts reality about true issues between sisters and the difficulty in accepting the lost of loved one.

As someone who seemed to relate from the story in particular on how Meg envies her sister, I can really say that this story is great showing the beauty of life and how family faces together the trial. Indeed, only those happy and good memories will be remembered and those are the ones that heal the wounded and emptied heart of the left ones.

Summer To Die by Lois Lowry: A Book Review

Lois Lowry was born March 20, 1937 in Hawaii to Robert and Katharine Hammersberg. Her father was an Army dentist and the family lived all over the world. She attended Brown University, but left after her sophomore year to get married and raise a family of four children. They settled in Maine, where she returned to college and received her degree from the University of Southern Maine. Lois Lowry fulfilled a childhood dream when she began writing in the mid-1970's. Now divorced, she lives in West Cambridge with her dog, Bandit, and spends weekends in her 19th century farmhouse in New Hampshire.

Lois Lowry has written of over 20 novels and winner of the Newbery Medal twice. This native of Hawaii has become a favorite of both children and young adults. She has tackled a number of topics in her literature including adoption, mental illness, cancer, the Holocaust and futuristic societies. Whatever the theme, Lowry portrays realistic life experiences to her audience.

In her books, Lois Lowry throws her characters and readers into many thought-provoking situations. The contemporary young adult reader is compelled to confront society with all of its imperfections. Lois Lowry told Contemporary Authors that she measures her success as an author by her ability to "help adolescents answer their own questions about life, identity and human relationships." She wrote the novel “A Summer to Die” in Boston. MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1977.
The story is about Margaret and Molly Chalmers, siblings of different characteristics. Their father is an English professor at a university who wishes to find a house that will help him finish the book he was writing about dialects that he claims will shake the world of literature. Their family relocates to a small country house where the sickness of Molly started.
The owner of the house the family is renting lives down the road in a smaller house on the same property. The sisters soon establish a rapport with the elderly Will Banks, who learns about photography with Meg and teaches Molly about the abundant wildflowers covering the estate. A few months after coming to the country, Molly begins having constant nosebleeds the doctor blames on the cold weather. Unfortunately, he wasn't aware of the underlying cause, and it is not until Molly's bed is soaked in blood that she is rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with the ultimately fatal disease leukemia. She seems to recover slightly, though the pills she's taking are causing her hair to fall out.
Shortly thereafter, Ben Brady and a pregnant Maria Abbott, who the townspeople assume incorrectly that they are not married, arrive to make the third Banks house their home, and all the inhabitants of the property enjoy each other's company for a while. Then the unthinkable happens, and Molly is rushed back to the hospital. She asks Meg to tell the baby to wait to be born until she comes home, and Meg obliges her, and also asks the baby to be born in the daytime since she's been invited to take pictures of the birth. They named it Happy William Abbot-Brady. In the end, Molly dies and the family moves back to the city. Through it all, and with help from those who love her, Meg finds the jealousy she once had for her sister has changed into pure love, and eventually she must choose to accept that bad things happen to good people. In the end, she does.
Lois Lowry writes with compassion and understanding of a difficult topic, the death of a sibling. Lowry's older sister died of cancer, although she was older than the character in the book when she passed away. She used her experience to write a beautiful novel about siblings’ quarrel that is very usual today.
A Summer To Die talks about the death of adolescents because of incurable disease. It also reflects the importance of life. Molly died but a new life rose with Happy William Brady, the baby of Ben and Maria. The author used simple style of writing with jokes that makes it appealing to the readers like “saying it three times fast.” As the summer wanes, Meg is learning that their differences aren't all that large and starts to get along with Molly. Before they really have a chance to become friends, Molly dies. That is the saddest part of the whole novel. I would highly recommend this for the young adult reader, especially as a first novel about death. It presents it in a gentle way, so as not to scare them. You will feel Meg's sorrow as if it were your own, but you will also feel her hope and healing as she realizes life will go on.
JOAN B. MALTO