by Kevin Henkes

Greenwillow Books, 2003

Image from author’s website

Martha receives a journal page from Olive’s mom that reads: “I hope I get to know Martha Boyle next year (or this summer).  I hope that we can be friends.  That is my biggest hope.  She is the nicest person in my whole entire class.”  But Olive died, weeks ago, when she was hit by a car.  The Boyles takes their annual summer trip to visit Godbee, Martha’s grandmother, at her beach house, and it is here that Martha considers all of the feelings that have sprung up since she received the note; Martha feels connected to Olive, and she ponders why Olive held her in such high regard, the friendship that could have been, death, and the appreciation of life among her other 12-year-old worries.  She learns more about the idea of mortality when Godbee begins to share how she is aging, and as Martha learns to say goodbye to Olive the prospect of saying goodbye to Godbee becomes less impossible.  Martha reads as a very relatable girl, with mixed and sometimes contradictory emotions, frustrations with her family, feelings for boys, and aspirations to be a writer. While it is not a “feel-good” book, Henkes provides wonderfully warm descriptions of growing up: “home was the same as when Martha had left it, but because she had changed, her world seemed slightly different, as though she were seeing everything in sharper focus.”

(This review was originally submitted to my Materials for Children class)