For as long as Ryanna Stuart can remember, her summers have been spent with her father and his new wife. Just the three of them, structured, planned, and quiet. But this summer is different. This summer, she’s received a letter from her grandparents—grandparents neither she nor her dad have spoken to since her mom’s death—inviting her to stay with them at an old summer camp in the Poconos.
Ryanna accepts. She wants to learn about her mom. She wants to uncover the mystery of why her father hasn’t spoken to her grandparents all these years. She’s even looking forward to a quiet summer by the lake. But what she finds are relatives…so many relatives! Aunts and uncles and cousins upon cousins—a motley, rambunctious crew of kids and eccentric, unconventional adults. People who have memories of her mom from when she was Ryanna’s age, clues to her past like a treasure map. Ryanna even finds an actual, real-life treasure map!
Over the course of one unforgettable summer—filled with s’mores and swimming, adventure and fun, and even a decades-old mystery to solve—Ryanna discovers a whole new side of herself and that, sometimes, the last place you expected to be is the place where you really belong.
This might be a first: a book I might not have ever heard about if it hadn’t been for some garbage person’s homophobia. Someone (I assume a librarian) posted a picture of Morgan Matson’s THE FIREFLY SUMMER on Threads, along with a note that had been scrawled on the due date slip by a library patron, warning parents that the book features a gay couple and “presents it as perfectly normal.”
It made me angry to see it. It made me sad. And it ultimately made me really excited to track down a copy of the book on Pango and give it a whirl. It’s so important that kids see themselves and their unique families represented in the books they read. THE FIREFLY SUMMER features an incredibly diverse cast of characters, and it will always break my heart to live in a world where this a problem for some people.
I mentioned it in my last review, but I had made a very loose summery TBR, and because I’m bad at planning, I’m reading/reviewing all these books as summer comes to an end. Maybe someday I’ll get better at planning/spacing things out, but it’s not today!
For a brief but very impactful part of my childhood, my whole family (including aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents) would spend a few weeks of the summer in a big lake house on Lake Winnipesaukee. My memories of this place are somehow both hazy & incredibly vivid? They exist more as feelings and impressions. As colors, flavors, textures, and smells….ice cream sandwiches, pine needle yards, gasoline for the boats. There are plenty of still photos and possibly some old Betamax home movies (my grandfather, always on the cutting edge of technology), but the memories of this place are kind of locked down in my heart mostly.
I’m not sure I’ve ever read anything that got me as close to that feeling as THE FIREFLY SUMMER. This book just glows with the magical feeling of summer vacation as a kid. Somehow, Morgan Matson perfectly captures the vibe of summer days when you’re a kid…when everything seemed to stretch out forever. Like you were never going to run out of daylight. And then somehow, it was over too soon.
Eleven-year-old Ryanna Stuart is getting ready to start her summer vacation. And there’s a whole plan in place. Lots of travel with her stepmother, and joining her filmmaker father in Hungary while he works on his latest movie.
But then the letter arrives. A letter from her grandparents she’s never known, inviting Ryanna to join them at their summer home (a former summer camp) in the Poconos in Pennsylvania. Ryanna’s mother died when she (Ryanna) was very young, and her father had a falling out with his wife’s family. So Ryanna has never known the Van Camp’s. Why would she get invited to Camp Van Camp after all these years of no contact?
Despite her intitial reaction of HECK NO, Ryanna spends some time thinking it over and decides to give it a shot. It’ll be an opportunity to learn more about her mother, as that’s where she spent all her summers as a kid. It’s a big deal, this trip. She’s going to be away from her father & stepmom all summer, with relatives she doesn’t know. But off she goes.
Ryanna was under the misconception that it would just be her & her grandparents, so she’s expecting a somewhat quiet summer. So imagine her surprise when she finally arrives at Camp Van Camp to find the place just crawling with relatives! Aunts & uncles & cousins…just SO MANY Van Camps!
I think the real magic of this book is in its pacing. As I said earlier, somehow this book just perfectly captures that essential summertime feeling…the days feel wide open & endless, full of possibility. Swimming in the lake, exploring the woods, making s’mores or going into town for ice cream. Seeing fireflies at night. Making up silly games with complicated rules.
As Ryanna spends time getting to know her family, she also gets totally wrapped up in a bit of a treasure hunt, courtesy of her own mom. Her mother left behind maps and clues and a tantalizing mystery that keeps Ryanna and her cousins quite busy. Ryanna has a deep love of mystery novels, so she’s more than up to the task.
There’s so much more I want to say about this book, but I’ll try to wrap up. This one just really worked its magic on me. It’s a long book by middle grade standards, just shy of 400 pages. And the story is in no hurry, which feels so deliberate. I could almost feel my pulse slowing as I read this. I felt like I was there at this lakeside camp, surrounded by forest, hearing the water lapping against the dock. There’s so much joy in THE FIREFLY SUMMER, and it’s hysterically funny at times, too. But of course there’s a sweet kind of sadness as well, with Ryanna learning so much about her mother that she barely knew.
Oof. This was such a perfect summer book & I’m so happy it came across my feed, regardless of the way it happened. This is a magical summertime read, and one of my favorite books of the year.
Grimdark Dad 