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Title: Two Summers
Author: Aimee Friedman
Published: 2016
Source: Edelweiss

Summary: It all comes down to a phone call at the airport gate. In one universe, Summer answers it, and discovers that her unreliable father has putzed out once again, and she shouldn't board the plane to France to spend the summer with him. Unwilling to face the idea of another boring summer at home, she takes a photography class with her aunt, sees her relationship with her best friend undergo some strain, and reconnects with an old crush.

In another universe, she ignores the phone call and gets to France, looking forward to a summer of quaint villages, beautiful scenery, and her father's art. When she arrives, jet-lagged and miserable, she discovers that her father has flitted off to Berlin for several weeks. She's forced to stay with her father's business partner, Juliette, and her unfriendly daughter.

In both universes, she spends a summer of self-discovery, including truths both painful and beautiful.

First Impressions: Hmm. The interesting part was that she changed in the same ways whether she went to France or not.

Later On: I saw the twist regarding the business partner and her daughter's true identity a long way off, given what we knew of the father. I wasn't terribly surprised but I was pleased with the honest (and not entirely mature) reaction to it from almost all participants.

The French boyfriend was so amazingly charming and attractive and perfect that he bordered on smarmy, and I was waiting for him to do something scuzzy. When she dumped him without much of a second thought and went back home, I was relieved that she wouldn't be pining.

Overall, this book is a funny mix of Deep Thoughts, Life Changes, and fluff. Summer is changing drastically, coming out of her rather unpleasant mid-teen self into a person who actually has interests and compassion outside her very small world. But it's also a lot of wish fulfillment. It was a fun, quick read and might be just what you're looking for.

More: Kirkus

Aimee Friedman is a Senior Editor at Scholastic, where she has worked for over eleven years. She is also a New York Times bestselling author of YA fiction (Sea Change).

Aimee says that kids by nature are collectors, and this applies to books as well. Series books tend to be for kids more so than other types. She points to one of her favorite series while growing up: The Babysitter's Club

Also, she talks about the hooks with endless possibilities, like with Magic Tree House.

When it comes to series writing, Aimee says there are elements to every successful series:

A solid hook with endless possibilities

Characters you'll want to revisit again and again

And an overall series arc/theme that weaves in naturally with each title.

If you're going to set out to write a series, you'll need to do some research first. There are no hard and fast rules, but to understand series and packaging, you should READ. She says it's the best way to learn the genre.

First Things First

I did a random drawing on the people who gave me feedback on my blog in last week's post. The winner is.....

Elana J!

You won a free copy of Christina Katz's book "Get Known before the Book Deal". Please email me your address and I will mail it out to you :)

Congrads!

Leave me your questions!

I have an interview coming up with Elizabeth Bird from School Library Journal Fuse 8 to discuss marketing to librarians. She is the children's librarian at the Children's Center at 42nd Street of the New York Public Library system. Please include any questions you have in the comments or email me offline.


Marvelous Marketer: Aimee Friedman

Hi Aimee! Thanks for coming here to answer a few questions. First, tell me a little about yourself.

I am the author of seven books for young adults. My first novel, SOUTH BEACH, a New York Times bestseller, came out in 2005, and my latest novel, SEA CHANGE, was released in the summer of 2009. My primary publisher is Point/Scholastic though I do have one book--A NOVEL IDEA--with SimonPulse at Simon & Schuster. I am also a children's book editor at Scholastic, a job I still love to this day!

I started my author website over 2 years ago and I've gotten lots of great feedback and lots of traffic since its inception. Please visit me--and write me! I love to get email from readers, and I try to respond as quickly as I can.

I have a blog but I don't blog nearly as much as I'd like (it's hard when juggling two full-time jobs), but I do spend a lot of time on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter (more on this below).

Scholastic has a blog that you can also follow on Facebook or Twitter. The imprint at which I publish, Point, also has a great website. You can check it out for book recommendations, author bios, links, giveaways, and more! You can also follow it on Twitter.

Wow, it must be very hard juggling being an editor and author. I can barely be an author. In your expert opinion, what are the top three things every author should and must do to promote their book?

A website is the a great basic place to start-- I think it's important for authors to have a home online whe

In My Mailbox was created by Kristi from The Story Siren. Here's what I found in my mailbox, at the bookstore, and at the library this week. Summaries are taken from Amazon, B&N, and GoodReads.

Sea Change by Aimee Freidman - 16-year-old Miranda Merchant is great at science...and not so great with boys. After major drama with her boyfriend and (now ex) best friend, she's happy to spend the summer on small, mysterious Selkie Island, helping her mother sort out her late grandmother's estate. There, Miranda finds new friends and an island with a mysterious, mystical history, presenting her with facts her logical, scientific mind can't make sense of. She also meets Leo, who challenges everything she thought she knew about boys, friendship...and reality. Is Leo hiding something? Or is he something that she never could have imagined?

The Wedding Girl by Madeleine Wickham - At the age of eighteen, in that first golden Oxford summer, Milly was up for anything. Rupert and his American lover, Allan, were an important part of her new, exciting life, so when Rupert suggested to her that she and Allan should get married to keep Allan in the country, Milly didn’t hesitate. Ten years later, Milly is a very different person and engaged to Simon—who is wealthy, serious, and believes her to be perfect. Milly’s secret history is locked away so securely she has almost persuaded herself that it doesn’t exist—until, only four days before her elaborate wedding. To have and to hold takes on a whole new meaning when one bride’s past catches up with her and bring the present crashing down.

Flash Burnout by L.K. Madigan (ARC) - Fifteen-year-old Blake has a girlfriend and a friend who’s a girl. One of them loves him; the other one needs him. When he snapped a picture of a street person for his photography homework, Blake never dreamed that the woman in the photo was his friend Marissa’s long-lost meth addicted mom. Blake’s participation in the ensuing drama opens up a world of trouble, both for him and for Marissa. He spends the next few months trying to reconcile the conflicting roles of Boyfriend and Friend. His experiences range from the comic (surviving his dad’s birth control talk) to the tragic (a harrowing after-hours visit to the morgue). In a tangle of life and death, love and loyalty, Blake will emerge with a more sharply defined snapshot of himself.

That's my collection for the week. What books did pick up?

Teaser Tuesdays is sponsored by MizB of Should Be Reading. Teaser Tuesdays go like this:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week, my teaser is...

"There was, of course, nothing to beware of on Selkie Island. But I couldn't shake the sense that there would be plenty to discover."

--page 12, Sea Change by Aimee Friedman

What's your teaser this Tuesday?

Grandparents Day (September 9) in the U.S., along with a family cross-country move that will separate two adored young grandchildren from their grandparents, started me thinking about the role of parents’ parents in the multicultural families, where children are sometimes separated even farther from this precious family resource. Aline’s review of grandparent stories on PaperTigers offers a great survey of relevant resources. Regan McMahon’s San Francisco Chronicle review of Grandma stories celebrates maternal grandmothers and cross-cultural grandparenting.

The Philippines has a sort of mythical national grandmother in Lola Basyang, the early 20th-century creation of writer Severino Reyes. Christine Bellen, a present-day authority on Reyes’ work, received a Special Citation from the Manila Critics Circle for her ten-title English series retelling the stories. Here’s an interview with her by Anvil Publishing, which publishes her series in Tagalog and English. The Best of Lola Basyang is a 1997 selection of the tales in English by Tanahan Press. For more books from and about the Philippines, San Francisco’s Arkipelago Books is a great resource. Click here for their .pdf online catalog and scroll down to page 14 to browse their children’s book list.

Books are no substitute for the warmth of a grandparent’s lap, but they can bring that experience to life, across generations and cultures.