Summer of Lost and Found

 

As I said previously, 2020 seems to be my year of reading kiddie lit.  I have a stack of adult fiction a mile high but somehow I keep finding  young people’s books to be very enticing.

Currently I am reading “The Summer of Lost and Found” by Rebecca Behrens.  It is the story of Nell and her parents.  Her mother is a botanist and her father is a writer and they seem to be in the middle of some sort of marital discord — a separation.  

It is summer and Nell’s father has disappeared to London to do research for a book and her mother has a summer gig on Roanoke Island, North Carolina working with the oldest known grapevine in the country.  Apparently it was on the island when the first pilgrims came.  Nell and her mom would be staying on the Island for the summer, living in a rented, picture perfect cottage and exploring all the island had to offer.

Nell meets Ambrose, a very sweet boy with floppy brown curls and beautiful blue eyes.  He talks a little funny and he dresses a little funny but that is probably because he works, with his mother, at one of the living history parks.  Or is it?

Nell also meets Lila at the bookstore in town.  Lila is an annoying know it all who lays claim to the island because she was born there, never mind that Nell is Nell Dare of a very prominent Roanoke family.  They try to be friends but, up to now, it isn’t going well.

I haven’t finished the book but it is a good read.  It is adult enough to hold my interest and I am really loving learning the history.  Anything that resembles genealogy or local history has my interest.  Honestly, this would make a really good family movie — I can just see Hayley Mills and Kevin Cocoran in a Disney version.

Anyway, even though I haven’t finished it I would recommend it.  It has a charming cover, too, and we all know that I DO just books by their cover!