What Happened Then

Gr 3-7–Gr 3-7–Aunt Robbie calls her estranged siblings and their families back to Crooked Lake for a “last-chance summer” with grim news: she wants to prepare the island with its ramshackle cabins for quick sale before she succumbs to recently diagnosed ALS. Cousins Avery and Jax may be near-strangers, but both recognize this rare reunion could be their only chance to understand why their extended family shattered. Coventry gloriously captures every beam of Avery’s “full-strength laser lemon and shocking pink” energy, even when she longs to be “quiet tan and soft cornflower blue” so she could “just blend.” Cross poignantly embodies observant, thoughtful Jax, silenced by his father’s disappointed surveillance. Between their “she said/he said” discoveries are the scattered diary pages the cousins discover, bravely, tenaciously voiced by Morris, revealing the fateful “Then” that broke the family—until now.