But we live in Los Angeles, and my dad is a writer—he writes screenplays. Not just everything the actors say—all the action and settings and everything else that happens in a movie has to be written down too. (Not everyone knows this. Nana, my dad’s mom, still thinks that the actors make up their own lines, no matter how many times my dad tells her otherwise.) He also used to direct movies, until his last one did so badly that now he’s in movie jail, and when we go on hikes, producers pretend they don’t see him when he waves. I adored this. It has all the things I love about Matson’s work, but for a younger audience. The summer days are vivid, and the friendships are sweet. I love books about cousins, because my cousins are my best friends. This group of cousins was no exceptions, all precocious and likable and just so fully kids. It was a delight to spend time with them, and I could read a book about ever summer they’ve spent together.

I decided to forgive Cumberbatch, crossed over to my bed, and hopped up next to him. I gave his chin a scratch as he stretched out with a rumbly purr. Although fireflies in Florida are impressive, Texas has one of the longest firefly seasons in the nation. These lightning bugs make a forest or meadow look enchanted sometimes as late as November. Fireflies in the East Before Ryanna leaves for the camp, her father gives her a cell phone, money, and a credit card and tells her, “‘The phone is a privilege, and it’s for emergencies only.’” (Chapter two) What do you believe her father is afraid will happen? How does being given these items by her dad make Ryanna feel? Have your parents ever offered you anything similar? I wish the sisters were set apart more pronouncedly because they all blurred together for me. They all spoke exactly the same way and I would forget who I was reading about in the middle on a chapter. None of them swears, instead, they say things like ‘Sugar!’ or ‘Craparooni!’ which made me cringe. Birdie was the only one who stood out from time to time because she was harsher than the other sisters, but she still didn’t feel real. Because you expanded it,” I said with a smile. I’d heard this part of the story before, and it always seemed so romantic to me. “Because you were falling in love with her.”

I’d been deep into a mystery—my favorite type of book to read. My current favorite series was Miss Terry’s Case Files, where the heroine, Terry Turner, is a seventh-grade detective who people hire to get to the bottom of things. Whenever I was reading those books, I couldn’t help wishing that I, too, lived in a small town in Vermont with lots of mysteries. Stupid Los Angeles had a lot of private detectives already, so nobody needed to turn to middle schoolers to solve their crimes.

With such a large cast, the length of Firefly Summer makes sense, but it doesn't make it easier to get through. Some serious editing could have improved this story immensely. The story covers a lot of highs and lows and is incredibly surprising at times, but it all ends in the usual Binchy way: a small town coming together to witness a tragedy, leaving the story quite open-ended. Sleepaway Camps: As Ryanna joins her mother’s family for their final summer at Camp Van Camp, she learns more about what life can be like at sleepaway camps. Begin by asking readers if any of them have been to a sleepaway camp, and if so, were any of their experiences like those in the novel? Next, have readers research the summer sleepaway camps in their area to discover the following:Truly the best part of the book was the determination and stubbornness of the kids to save the camp from being torn down. I loved how it tied into the treasure hunt as well, and added some stakes to this otherwise fluffy and comforting book. The dialogue is really good and natural. I appreciate it. I like how it is mentioned that Holden was named for a favorite book character of his father’s but Catcher in the Rye was never specifically mentioned. I stared down at the letter my grandparents had sent. My thoughts were whirring. What did while she still can actually mean? Did it mean that this was a onetime offer? My only chance to go to Pennsylvania—wherever that was—and see more pictures like this of my mom?