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This novel is set in the drought-stricken farmlands of the Midwest during the summer of 1935. The main character of "The Summer of the Crow" is thirteen-year-old Brady Lee Foster. Brady is as typical a thirteen year old as any boy of any era; he loves baseball and his dog Taggert, who is "so big his dad once said it was like having a yearling calf in the house." What makes Brady Foster atypical, h... More

This novel is set in the drought-stricken farmlands of the Midwest during the summer of 1935. The main character of "The Summer of the Crow" is thirteen-year-old Brady Lee Foster. Brady is as typical a thirteen year old as any boy of any era; he loves baseball and his dog Taggert, who is "so big his dad once said it was like having a yearling calf in the house." What makes Brady Foster atypical, however, is that he must face hardships and challenges most children his age will never know. His summer will be filled with adventures that include dust storms, tornadoes, rabbit drives, bootleggers, hoboes and riding freight-trains. And he will make a new friend - a boy with a pet crow.

Aside from the financial struggles all Midwest farm families faced during times of drought, Brady's personal conflicts also include his mother's severe asthma and his little sister's autism, a condition few understood in the 1930s. When his parents are forced to seek a healthier climate for his mother, Brady and his sister are sent to live with their grandfather, the county sheriff in Sentinel, Kansas. It is hard for Brady to have his family separated; to leave the farm and live in town where everyone will know about his sister; attend a new school where he has to face down the school bully - a boy empowered by his father's money; and come to terms with his grandfather - who is not, Brady discovers, his real, by blood, grandfather. Through these challenges and others even more difficult, by summer's end, Brady will learn that family wears many faces.

"The Summer of the Crow" is author Eunice Boeve's second novel. Her first, "Trapped!" was a Kansas Reading Circle selection in 1995-96. This newest offering is a coming-of-age story that gains its strength through realistic yet memorable characters and action.

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