Memory Perfect: Summerhouse Time by Eileen Spinelli

Mom always tells Sophie "The best things in life aren't things!" and when it comes to summerhouse time, Sophie agrees.

It's August, and for her family, that means the whole family, Grandmom and Grandpop, aunts, uncles, cousins, and her cat Orange, too, head for the rented house on the Jersey shore. It seems like the perfect time to eleven-year-old Sophie, whose only regret is leaving the new boy in the neighborhood, for whom she's developed her first crush. But the long days of riding the waves and nights toasting marshmallows over a driftwood fire are calling her, and Sophie is giddy with the joy of summerhouse time.

Older now, though, Sophie sees that things aren't perfect. Uncle Dave and Aunt Liz are having relationship problems, and Aunt Liz gets the news that her job has been terminated in the budgetary wars. Her cousin Cooper's phobia keep him from even stepping into the ocean; her teen cousin Colleen is depressed and distant and refuses to room with Sophie this year; and her dad has a scary panic attack at the Crab Shack, of all places. Then, just before they must pack up to go home, her pesky five-year-old cousin Tammy lets Orange slip out of the house and disappear into the huge outdoors.

"Sophie, here's a news flash for you." Mom says.
Life is never perfect, even at the summerhouse."

Day by day, this messy, noisy family work through their imperfections, and when they find Orange living as a church cat with Pastor Linda in the village, the summerhouse time turns out to be almost as idyllic as Sophie had hoped. Written in easy free verse with characters who seem to step right out of every one's family, Summerhouse Time is a perfect book to look forward--or back--to those wonderful beach days of childhood which seem to stretch endlessly ahead at the beginning of summer.

There was a wonderful beach cottage in my own childhood, and I savored every moment of Sophie's summerhouse time.