A Summer to Die

"A Summer to Die" was Lois Lowry's first novel, chronicling a year in the lives of Meg and Molly Chalmers.

ynopsis

Meg, the younger of the two sisters, is the story's narrator and primary protagonist. Their father, an English professor at a university, has decided to take a year off from teaching to write a book that he claims will shake the world of literature--only half jokingly. This means the family relocates to a small country house where his daughters are upset they will be sharing a room. Like most sisters, the two girls quibble over silly things, and Meg is jealous of her sister's blond curls and long eyelashes.

The owner of the house the family is renting lives down the road in a smaller house on the same property. The sisters soon establish a rapport with the elderly Will Banks, who learns about photography with Meg and teaches Molly about the abundant wildflowers covering the estate. A few months after coming to the country, Molly begins having constant nosebleeds the doctor blames on the cold weather. Unfortunately, he wasn't aware of the underlying cause, and it is not until Molly's bed is soaked in blood that she is rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with the ultimately fatal disease leukemia. She seems to recover slightly, though the pills she's taking are causing her hair to fall out.

Shortly thereafter, Ben Brady and a very pregnant Maria Abbott--the townspeople assume incorrectly that they aren't married--arrive to make the third Banks house their home, and all the inhabitants of the property enjoy each other's company for a while. Then the unthinkable happens, and Molly is rushed back to the hospital. She asks Meg to tell the baby to wait to be born until she comes home, and Meg obliges her, and also asks the baby to be born in the daytime since she's been invited to take pictures of the birth. They named it Happy William Abbot-Brady.

Through it all, and with help from those who love her, Meg finds the jealousy she once had for her sister has changed into pure love, and eventually she must choose to accept that bad things happen to good people. In the end, she does.