| "THE SUMMER OF THE SWANS"
Author: Betsy Byars
Interest Level: Middle Grades (4-8)
ATOS Reading Level: 4.9
AR Points: 4.0
Publisher Recommended Age: 8-12
Publisher: Penguin/Puffin Modern Classic
Book Type: Paperback
Pages: 144
Book Description:
Sara's life has always flowed smoothly, like the gliding swans on the lake, until her little brother Charlie disappears. Then Sara is forced to see her life in a whole new way.
Charlie is autistic due to several illnesses when he was three years old. One day Charlie and Sara see swans at the lakeside and Charlie wants to see them again. He gets lossed in the forest while searching for the lake. The story is a coming-of-age story for the fourteen-year-old Sara.
Book Group Guide:
Book Reviews:
Publishers Weekly: "A compelling story of the longest day in a fourteen-year-old's life."
Book Awards:
About the Author:
Betsy Cromer Byars (August 7, 1928 - ) is an American children's author. Her novel Summer of the Swans won the 1971 Newbery Medal. She has also received a National Book Award, for The Night Swimmers (1980), and an Edgar Award, for Wanted...Mud Blossom (1991). In 1987 she received the Regina Medal, for lifetime achievement, from the Catholic Library Association.
Byars was born Betsy Cromer August 7, 1928, in Charlotte, North Carolina. She attended Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, from 1946 to 1948, and graduated in 1950 from Queens College in Charlotte, with a bachelor's degree in English.
Cromer married Ed Byars June 24, 1950, and they had three daughters and a son between 1951 and 1958. In 1956, she began writing for magazines. Her first book, Clementine, was published in 1962.
Betsy and Ed Byars are both licensed aircraft pilots and live on an airstrip in Seneca, South Carolina, the bottom floor of their house being a hangar. |
