In the summer you could take out ten books at a time, instead of three, and keep them a month, instead of two weeks. There would be months of beautifully long, empty days, and each other to play with, and the books from the library. Still, even without the country or a lake, the summer was a fine thing, particularly when you were at the beginning of it, looking ahead into it. If you're going to argue, and Jane usually was, you want people to line up all their objections at a time then you can knock them all down at once. 'It would attract lightning,' Miss Bick said, which Jane thought cowardly, besides being unfair arguing. 'Clear Lake isn't the ocean you can hardly hear it,' Jane told her. And she wouldn't take them to the country or a lake she said it was too much to expect and the sound of waves affected her heart. A woman named Miss Bick came in every day to care for the children, but she couldn't seem to care for them very much, nor they for her.

The children never went to the country or a lake in the summer, the way their friends did, because their father was dead and their mother worked very hard on the other newspaper, the one almost nobody on the block took. Martha was the youngest, and very difficult. This will give you some idea of what Jane and Katharine were like. And the others knew she was, too, by now, because ever since that day Katharine would keep boasting about what a comfort she was, and how docile, until Jane declared she would utter a piercing shriek and fall over dead if she heard another word about it. She knew she was a comfort, and docile, because she'd heard her mother say so. Katharine was the middle girl, of docile disposition and a comfort to her mother. Jane was the oldest and Mark was the only boy, and between them they ran everything. It began one day in summer about thirty years ago, and it happened to four children. The only problem is that only half of Jane's wish comes true. Adventures to Read All Through the SummerĮverything about Jane's summer changes after she finds a coin on the street that grants wishes, in this title recommended by librarian Nancy Pearl on Morning Edition.

Edward eager