Tween stepsisters Kenzie and Quinn, who don't even "remember not being sisters," try to enjoy what they believe is their final summer together in this thoughtful, luminous middle-grade graphic novel.
Midsummer Sisters by Niki Smith (The Golden Hour; illus. of Sea Legs) opens with sharp-cornered, red dialogue balloons of Kenzie's dad and Quinn's mom yelling. The young stepsisters (Quinn red-headed and freckled, Kenzie brown-haired and light-skinned with nevus flammeus on her forehead) huddle together under a blanket. Soon, Kenzie's grandma--who sees both girls as hers--sweeps them away so they can escape the arguing and spend the summer on the Outer Banks in North Carolina. As a duo, the girls fawn over the local wild horses, especially the vulnerable newborn foal. Individually, Kenzie beachcombs, searching for a megalodon tooth (Quinn doesn't get it) and Quinn texts and video chats with Willow, a friend from home who makes her blush. Quinn is upset Willow will be far away once Quinn moves due to the divorce; Kenzie is hurt because she really wants Quinn to pay attention to her. The sisters' time in close quarters magnifies their disparate ways of handling the divorce: "I NEED TO BE MAD," Quinn explains to Kenzie, who Quinn thinks simply "sniffle[s] and hide[s]." Neither of the lifelong sisters wants the inevitable: that with their parents' divorce, they "will just be strangers."
In this gorgeous ode to horse girls and the magic of summer, Smith portrays a nuanced, messy, and beautiful blended family with painful realism. Quinn tearfully laments what she'll lose by moving: "I'll never get to come back home! I'll never see my room again... my teachers... our favorite pizza place." Kenzie, whose mother died when she was young, particularly embodies the unusual circumstances that can surround a blended family's split-up: "I'm not even gonna have a mom anymore." Buffering the sadness is an infectious love between the sisters: not-so-stealthy shut-up kicks under the table, good-natured teasing ("Dingbatter! You are such a tourist"), and laughing fits over Gramma's "absolutely ancient" dog. Smith's loose-lined illustrations and borderless panels depict expressive features and tons of action, showing the girls bonding as they preserve fossils, smash open geodes, and traipse the beach at night to send crabs scurrying. Smith's wild horses seem especially lifelike, manes flowing and gentle eyes gleaming, allowing the reader to find in them the same mesmerizing wonder that the sisters do. Spectacular. --Samantha Zaboski, freelance editor and reviewer
Shelf Talker: Two tween stepsisters stay at their grandma's beach house for what may be their last summer together in this marvelous middle-grade graphic novel about sisterly love.