Changing Tide: Olive's Ocean by Kevin Henkes

It is Martha Boyle's twelfth summer, and she seems to be floating away on some strange tide. Her thoughts keep turning to the sad story of Olive Barstow, a shy, almost reclusive classmate, who was suddenly killed in traffic only a few weeks before. How can someone only twelve be dead?

As Martha's family travel to visit her grandmother Godbee at her home on the Cape shore, nothing seems the same and nothing seems right. Godbee, always to Martha "strong, smart, pretty, protective, safe, and yes, brave," admits that things are not the same for her, either. What she has been is slipping away, she confides to Martha in their daily truth-telling time. Her brother Vince, who was always there like a best friend, spends most of his time with his friends. And the Manning boys, her brother's vacation buddies, the ones she always hated because they teased her and drew her brother away from their usual vacation games--now one of the Mannings has kissed her and one of the Mannings has proven that he is the one who cares about her.

As Martha struggles to the surface of her new world, she fills a jar with ocean water for Olive, who wrote in her journal that she longed to see the ocean. When Martha returns home, she tries to take the ocean water to Olive's mother, but Mrs. Barstow has left and gone away, and all Martha can do is write Olive's name in sea water on her doorstep. Writ in water, Olive and Martha's childhood are both gone, and Martha goes back home to begin the rest of her life.

Kevin Henkes, whose most famous female character had been Lily of Lily's Purple Plastic Purse, has shown that he knows how to get inside the feminine mind once again. In Martha, Henkes has perfectly captured the borderline between childhood and maturity and a girl's first steps over that line.