First published 2007
Penny Falucci wants a simple summer in 1953. She dreams of butter pecan ice cream, baseball games, and swimming pools. But her Italian-American family won't let her near the public pool because of polio fears. Her beloved dog Scarlett O'Hara is dying. Her favorite uncle lives in his car. Her best friend steals things. Worst of all, no one will explain how her father really died. The adults whisper about the war years when Italian-Americans faced suspicion and worse. They speak in fragments about internment camps and broken families. Penny catches pieces of conversations that stop when she enters the room. As the summer unfolds, she discovers that family secrets can poison relationships across generations. But she also learns that some truths, however painful, can finally bring healing. The story reveals how World War II's aftermath continued to shape American families years after the fighting ended.
Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: America
Period: 1953
120 pages · Kindle Edition · Random House Books for Young Readers
Content warnings: war