A coming-of-age story for middle-grade readers about a girl living in Vermont with her moms during the fight for civil unions. Gennari avoids preachiness, however, by making civil unions only one of the many issues that the girl must grapple with during her summer (a pie-baking contest among them), and by showing the diversity of opinions on the matter within the community, within families, and even within individuals.
Despite the potentially heavy subject matter, Gennari maintains a light, but never flippant, tone. Her heroine is thoughtful but not moody; spirited but not pollyannaish. Gennari fills the book with observant details of lakeside life, noting, for example, that blueberries are “foggy blue” but turn shiny when touched.
By setting the novel in 2000, not during more recent marriage equality debates, she also gives readers something that few other fiction writers have—a sense of the history of LGBT families.
One small content warning: At one point, the girl is reading letters to the editor in her local paper, and discovers, “One letter writer . . . said that most gays were ‘pedophiles’ and couldn’t be trusted around innocent children.” There is no further explanation of the word. Decide for yourself if that’s appropriate for your child, or if you want to have an explanation on hand in case your child asks.
