Great Middle Grade Reads discussion

The order in which we ranked the seven books was:

1= Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH 24.5%
1= Counting by 7s 24.5%
3 Fever 1793 20.4%
4= The Teacher's Funeral : A Comedy in Three Parts 8.2%
4= Diary of a Wimpy Kid 8.2%
4= The Wednesday Wars 8.2%
7 Umbrella Summer 6.1%

You can read them over July and August in any order you choose - but please put your comments in the correct thread!

This thread is for UMBRELLA SUMMER

I hope you enjoy it.

I really enjoyed Umbrella Summer and got through it in a couple of days.

I loved Annie's voice, particularly the wonderful ways she had of describing things ('as boring as a drawer full of socks' etc). I think one of the major things it is important for authors to get right when writing MG age characters is their voice. I don't like books where an MG kid is either too naive or too 'mature', and I think it must be very hard to get just the right combination. After all, middle-grade age, between 9 and 12, is when kids are right at that point in their lives when they're starting to move out of their parents'/guardians' protection/shadow, not just physically in that this will be the stage when they mostly start being allowed to get to and from school on their own and have less supervision during free time, but mentally and emotionally too. That's the age when you really start to begin to make your own decisions about people and other things, and start to realise that your parents, and adults in general, aren't perfect, and aren't always right. Of course, everything is relative, some kids may discover these things earlier or later in life.

I think Graff got Annie's voice perfectly right -it had both maturity and naivety. Her observations about how other people react to someone when they've lost a loved one (the 'dead-brother look') were incredibly astute yet at the same time she didn't yet quite understand that loss is proportional (that for Rebecca, her hamster's death was still painful and difficult even though it was minor compared to the death of a brother) and of course she needed the help of her Mrs Finch and her friends to begin to deal with her grief for Jared, and to understand just why she was so obsessed with diseases and other potential dangers.

I thought both of Annie's parents were well-drawn. They were flawed, especially her father, and didn't always support her in the way she needed to. I could clearly recognise that her mom was at least trying to break through her own grief to help Annie, but often found myself wanting to shake her father who was off in his own little world of grief, shut down and shutting Annie out. I cheered out loud for Annie when she told both her parents that they still needed to be parents to *her* and at the same time my heart broke for them when her mom said they were trying. But then I was thinking 'YES!!!!' when she said ''Try harder''.

As with Willow and Dell, Annie's eventual method of dealing with her dad surprised me with it's maturity, she showed more patience and tolerance towards him than I felt for him. I think at one point I was ready to smack him the next time he called her 'Moonbeam' or forgot something important to her.
But, I think it's a wonderful thing when the adults in an MG novel are portrayed as human and flawed and vulnerable, rather than just being absent or 'bad'. That's fine and even necessary for some books and can add to the enjoyment factor if parent-types would get in the way of the kid-characters' story, but I think it's important for MG characters (and MG age readers) to be able to realise that parents/adults in general aren't perfect or always right.
Particularly, with Umbrella Summer, I think Graff shows that it's okay for kids to call their parents out on something when they need to.


Annie's Mom: ....'we're trying'. Annie: 'Try harder'. Wow. So much is said in that one little bit of dialogue. I have read adult fiction where the author hasn't managed to say so much with so few words. Just....wow.

I loved that Annie was able to help other characters and change their lives just as they did for her - not just her parents, but Mrs Finch too.

I also loved that Annie is at least partly 'rescued' by a book - Charlotte's Web, which helps her begin to come to terms with everything that's happened.


Also like 'Counting with 7s', 'Umbrella Summer' was both heartbreakingly sad at times and very funny at others. I laughed out loud at the 'soaking' moment at the car wash.

'Umbrella Summer' is one of my favourite reads *this year* so far, as I loved everything about it.

Totally agree with you, Georgie! My very first noticing was Graff's fresh comparisons and how they truly gave Annie her personality. I think her examples would be great to share with students when we're doing mini lessons on description. One of my favorite lines was "try harder"-so good. I read this one just like Counting by 7s-quickly because I was invested in wanting Annie's family to heal. And to think I chose it because it started with U and saw a few others people's A-Z lists--who knew?

at the same time she didn't yet quite understand that loss is proportional (that for Rebecca, her hamster's death was still painful and difficult even though it was minor compared to the death of a brother)

I must admit, I have sympathy with that view :) But then my brother was grown up and left home, and the hamster [guinea pig] is totally in my care...

I jest. Mostly :)

Georgie has once again written a great review and analysis of the book. I agree about that line "try harder"--that one really stuck with me. As a parent, I definitely both felt for Annie's parents and felt like they were failing her (as most of us do for our kids all the time). It also gave me chills just thinking about how a parent can deal with the loss of a child.

I did like this one a lot, though I think I liked Counting by 7s more, even though it was in many ways less realistic.