Where do the crows go in the summer

Dust storms rabbit drives hobo camps and riding on freight trains were all a part of life for many throughout the Midwest during the Great Depression Polio and many other diseases had not yet been conquered and the huge dust storms that killed livestock and ruined crops also caused life threatening respiratory ailments such as asthma and pneumonia In the spring of 1935 thirteen year old Brady Foster s family is forced to leave their dusted out wheat farm in southwest Kansas when his mother s asthma takes a turn for the worst Deciding her only hope lies in California s cleaner air Brady and his little autistic sister are sent to live with their grandfather a county sheriff in the northcentral part of the state until their parents can return In his new school Brady is bullied and ostracized but he finds a friend in Eddie Peel the son of the town drunk a boy with a pet crow Selected for the Kansas State Reading Circle Catalog and Winner of the J Donald Coffin Memorial Book Award The Summer of the CrowIn the Dust Bowl farmland of Kansas during the middle of the Great Depression Brady Lee Foster and his family lead hard lives Brady s mom is suffering with asthma while his father can no longer grow crops and his sister Sarah is in a world of her own imprisoned by autism When his father makes the vital decision to take his wife to California in order to escape the dust storms that aggravate her condition Brady is passed on to the grandfather and great aunt he hardly knows Living with them in the town of Sentinel he makes friends with a boy who has a pet crow and who is similarly an outsider from the school cliques As various secrets of the small town unfold Brady and his new friend Eddie hatch a plan that puts both their lives at risk This is a novel chock full of history and adventure which keeps the pages turning Boeve manages to teach without preaching about bullying family love and friendship She also manages to educate the reader about this era in American history without it seeming like a history class and with the added benefit of small details that school classes would never include While school history classes might concentrate on wars and Presidents Boeve has taken one small moment in time and made it come to life with extraordinary clarity Her descriptions are so lucid and engaging that I was quite ready to hang wet blankets at my windows for the next dust storm Yet even with this historic background there are plenty of adventures that Brady and Eddie concoct to keep even the most restless young man or woman reading Quite honestly if I lived in Kansas I would be petitioning to make this required school reading As it is I cannot recommend it highly enough for ALL young adults and their parents as well 1939054060