The Summer I Learned to Fly

Amazon Best Books of the Month, July 2011: It’s 1986, and 13-year-old Drew Robin Solo is waiting. Waiting for things to happen; waiting to feel moved by something--or, as it turns out, someone. Drew’s summer begins in her mother’s cheese shop, making pasta alongside handsome Nick and caring for her pet rat and constant companion, Hum. The mysterious nightly disappearance of the old cheeses Drew leaves behind the shop lead to Emmett Crane, a boy who effortlessly brings color to her monochrome life. By the end Drew is no longer waiting for life to happen, but instead asking, "How could people sleep when there was so much at stake, so much happening, when there were so many reasons to be awake and alive?" Nostalgic and beautifully written, The Summer I Learned to Fly is the coming-of-age story of a gentle and unassuming girl asserting her independence and experiencing meaningful friendship for the first time. --Seira Wilson

A Letter from Author Dana Reinhardt
Dana Reinhardt writes about her inspiration for her latest novel, The Summer I Learned to Fly. She has written four previous novels including the Sidney Taylor Award-winning Things a Brother Knows.

My mother, like Drew's, owned a gourmet cheese shop when I was growing up, and I spent many of my afternoons and weekends working there. It was a place where I felt at home, where I loved to go and just hang around. And like Drew, at age thirteen I had a much easier time relating to adults than to other kids, so my mother's store offered me a place to be with people I could talk to while escaping the puzzling world of junior high.

Though I did leave the day-old food in the alley, and though it did always disappear, I never found out who took it. That is to say, I didn't find my Emmett there. Real friendship came later for me. It took a while to find the people among whom I could be my true self.

I think of this book as an old-fashioned coming of age story--the kind I really loved when I was a young reader. The kind that's about the moment when we first begin to discover who we are, what matters to us, and what we would risk everything for.

This is my fifth book, but it just might be the closest I've gotten to the book I've always wanted to write, so I hope you enjoy it. Thanks, as always, for giving it a chance.