Seasons of growth

Anna Rose Johnson’s book The Star That Always Stays was a runner-up for WORLD’s 2022 children’s fiction book of the year. In her latest book, The Blossoming Summer (Holiday House, 288 pp.), Johnson continues her trend of building heartwarming stories around heroines with Native American heritages.

Thirteen-year-old Rosemary spent the last three years living with her aunt and uncle while her parents attempted to find better jobs elsewhere in England. The spread of World War II throughout Europe, though, spurs her father to relocate the entire family across the sea to the safety of his estranged mother’s home in northern Wisconsin.

The Blossoming Summer Anna Rose Johnson

Rosemary is delighted to be reunited with her family and has high hopes for their future in America, but she soon discovers that reconnecting with her two younger brothers and parents is not as simple as she had hoped. When Grandmother recruits Rosemary to help her cultivate a prize-winning garden in time for the county fair, Rosemary sees the perfect opportunity to get her family to work together—and hopefully convince her father to put down permanent roots.

Although the brewing conflict within the family occasionally feels forced and the character development is at times a bit wooden, Johnson sprinkles the text with faith references and shows a broken family healing together. Rosemary experiences a blossoming of her own as she embraces her Anishinaabe heritage and realizes that you don’t have to be a perfect family to still reap rich rewards.

Never Curse the Rain S.J. Dahlstrom

Tween and teen boys looking for ways to beat the heat during the dog days of summer will find refreshment in S.J. Dahlstrom’s Never Curse the Rain (Paul Dry Books, 192 pp.). Wilder, 13, and his cousin Frankie, 16, are spending their spring break at Papa’s West Texas ranch. Frankie’s city-kid ways contrast starkly with life in the harsh Texas frontier, and his thoughtless actions trigger a wildfire during drought season. In the aftermath of the fire, Papa models a magnanimous attitude, noting that “blame is worthless as a west wind,” even as he suffers the costly consequences of Frankie’s foolishness.

Like other books in the Wilder Good series, the boys find adventure and more character-building opportunities, and Dahlstrom intertwines sage advice throughout the plot that subtly instructs boys how to be capable, strong men. He also builds respect and understanding as his characters consider the beauty of God’s order and design in creation, as well as the proper stewardship of resources on a ranch.

Some of the dialogue intermingles discussion about omens, myths, and folklore, and there is matter-of-fact talk about bull anatomy and behavior. But by book’s end, Frankie has undergone a transformation, and young readers would do well to heed the lessons he has learned.