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The Summer When It All Comes Down to This
She was a woman who was not going to like me.
So begins 12-year-old Sophie LaBranche’s summer, the summer the new housekeeper, Mrs. Baylor, arrives. Right away, Sophie takes a dislike to the older woman, who is not anything like their former housekeeper, Shirley, who was young and friendl, but prone to having her boyfriends stay overnight. Nope. Mrs. Baylor is older, rounder, and downright mean. With her dad spending a lot of time at his office, her mother working at her art gallery, and her older sister Lily scoring a summer job at a fancy boutique, Sophie could be spending a lot of time with Mrs. Baylor.
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Thank goodness there’s Jennifer right across the street. They’d become friends when Sophie and her family moved to the neighborhood earlier that spring. It didn’t matter to the girls that Sophie and her family were one of the few black families in the neighborhood. They’d bonded over a mutual love of the Beatles, reading, and Doris Day, and that was enough. Or it had been. But one extra-hot day, Jennifer decides she wants to join the neighborhood kids in swimming at the Bakers’ pool. Despite Sophie’s reluctance, Jennifer talks her into it, and when the Baker sisters let Sophie know, in no uncertain terms, that she is not wanted or allowed on their property, it’s Jennifer who sticks her nose up in the air, turns around, and marches right back home again with Sophie in her wake. That’s the kind of friend Jennifer is. But that event is just the first of a series of little and big moments that summer that force Sophie to look at herself differently, and to recognize differences between herself and Jennifer that she’s never noticed before.
Meanwhile, back at home, Sophie’s parents’ marriage hits a rough patch, while her sister Lily strikes up a friendship with Mrs. Baylor’s son, Nathan. As one relationship dissolves and another blossoms, Sophie finds herself drawn into a new relationship of her own, with none other than the prickly Mrs. Baylor. As summer progresses, tensions rise both inside and outside the walls of the LaBranche home. Sophie learns how multi-faceted people can be, the way our past can shape our present, and how forgotten hurts can bubble to the surface at unexpected times. By the time tension boils over into violence in nearby Watts, Sophie has grown more aware of the world around her and her role in it. She’s a little bit older and a little bit wiser, a little bit more jaded, but still not prepared for what will be the pivotal point of her summer.
Through Sophie’s growing voice and churning thoughts, author Karen English weaves a story about prejudice, tension, and anger that is at once historical and contemporary. While It All Comes Down to This confronts head-on views and emotions that for some readers may hit close to home, the story ends with something important in all middle grade reads: strength. Strength of family, strength of friendships, strength of self. That in the midst of turbulence and change, we can find strength in unexpected places, and from that strength may grow new beginnings. It All Comes Down to This is a must for home and school libraries.
It All Comes Down to This is available on B&N bookshelves now. You can read a guest post from author Karen English here.