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Summary
Summary
Olive Barstow was in Martha Boyle's class until she was killed by a hit-and-run driver while riding her bicycle. Martha didn't know Olive--not really. But after Olive's mother gives her a section from Olive's journal, Martha knows they could have been, would have been friends. And now Martha and her family are going to visit Godbee, Martha's grandmother, on Cape Cod for the rest of the summer--as they do every year. The Boyles descend on Godbee's small house in a flurry of exuberance, mini-crises, diapers, and humor all mixed together. The ocean is still there. And the five Manning boys still live next door. There is Jimmy Manning with his ever-present video camera. Jimmy Manning, who gives Martha her first kiss. And Tate, who seems to follow Martha with his eyes. And then there is Olive, who had always wanted to see the ocean, and who now haunts Martha's thoughts and dreams. An exquisite coming-of-age story--with just a hint of romance--from a bestselling author.
Author Notes
Kevin Henkes was born in Racine, Wis. in 1960 and graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. One of four children in his family, Henkes grew up with aspirations of being an artist. As a junior in high school, one of Henkes's teachers awakened his interest in writing. Falling in love with both writing and drawing, Henkes realized that he could do both at the same time as a children's book author and illustrator.
At the age of 19, Henkes went to New York City to get his first book, All Alone, published. Since that time, he has written and illustrated dozens of picture books including Chrysanthemum, Protecting Marie, and A Weekend with Wendell. A recurring character in several of Henkes's books is Lily, an outrageous, yet delightful, individualist. Lily finds herself the center of attention in the books Chester's Way, Julius, the Baby of the World, and Lily's Purple Plastic Purse.
A Weekend With Wendell was named Children's Choice Book by the Children's Book Council in 1986. He recieved the Elizabeth Burr Award for Words of Stone in 1993. Owen was named a Caldicott Honor in 1994. The Year of Billy Miller was named a Newbery Honor book in 2014.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-8-As Martha and her family prepare for their annual summer visit to New England, the mother of her deceased classmate comes to their door. Olive Barstow was killed by a car a month earlier, and the woman wants to give Martha a page from her daughter's journal. In this single entry, the 12-year-old learns more about her shy classmate than she ever knew: Olive also wanted to be a writer; she wanted to see the ocean, just as Martha soon will; and she hoped to get to know Martha Boyle as "she is the nicest person in my whole entire class." Martha cannot recall anything specific she ever did to make Olive think this, but she's both touched and awed by their commonalities. She also recognizes that if Olive can die, so can she, so can anybody, a realization later intensified when Martha herself nearly drowns. At the Cape, Martha is again reminded that things in her life are changing. She experiences her first kiss, her first betrayal, and the glimmer of a first real boyfriend, and her relationship with Godbee, her elderly grandmother, allows her to examine her intense feelings, aspirations, concerns, and growing awareness of self and others. Rich characterizations move this compelling novel to its satisfying and emotionally authentic conclusion. Language is carefully formed, sometimes staccato, sometimes eloquent, and always evocative to create an almost breathtaking pace. Though Martha remains the focus, others around her become equally realized, including Olive, to whom Martha ultimately brings the ocean.-Maria B. Salvadore, formerly at District of Columbia Public Library (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
With his usual sensitivity and insight, Henkes (The Birthday Room) explores key issues of adolescence, through the observations of aspiring 12-year-old writer Martha Boyle. In the opening scene on an August morning in Madison, Wis., Martha receives a visitor: the mother of her classmate Olive Barstow, who was hit by a car the month before. The woman hands Martha a journal entry, in which Olive describes her own wish to be a writer-and to "get to know Martha Boyle next year... the nicest person in my whole entire class." Since Olive kept to herself, these revelations forge an unexpected bond between Martha and this classmate she never knew. The other hope Olive confides in the entry is that she could "one day... go to a real ocean such as the Atlantic or Pacific." Martha begins an unwitting pilgrimage of sorts: she strolls with her toddler sister to the corner where Olive died and, when she goes to visit her grandmother, Godbee, on Cape Cod, Martha experiences the ocean for Olive and for herself. In brief chapters, Henkes reveals Martha's discovery of life's fleeting qualities, her deepening bond with Godbee, and her first stirrings of romantic feeling and betrayal. Readers can peer through this brief window into Martha's life and witness a maturation, as she becomes a young woman, appreciates life anew and finds a way to give something back to Olive. Ages 10-up. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Intermediate, Middle School) Martha opens the door. A strange woman holding an envelope announces: ""Olive Barstow was my daughter."" Olive, a schoolmate that Martha had barely noticed, has recently been killed in a car accident; the envelope contains an extract from Olive's diary in which she shares her dreams, including the hope that Martha, ""the nicest person in my whole entire class,"" would become her friend. With this original and compelling opening scene Henkes draws us into one summer in the life of a familiar, convincing, fully realized twelve-year-old girl. Olive's Ocean has all the elements of a traditional summer novel: a grandmother with a house by the sea, sandcastles, Parcheesi, a summer crush, and the idea of summer as the time between, the hinge time of growth and change. The book is a web of relationships with Martha at the center. A beloved older brother begins to pull away. Martha sees her grandmother with new eyes. Martha and her mother can't seem to stop irritating each other. The crush-object turns out to have feet of clay. In other hands this might be too much material, but Henkes has a jeweler's touch, strong and delicate. All of Henkes's strengths as a fiction writer -- economy, grace, humor, respect for his characters, a dramatist's eye for gesture, and an underlying good-naturedness -- are given wonderful play here. In her diary Olive reveals that she dreamed of writing a book. ""Not a mystery or adventure one, but an emotional one. Maybe I can make kids change their opinions on emotion books like some authors did to me."" Who were those authors, we wonder. Very likely somebody just like Kevin Henkes. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
On her family's Cape Cod vacation, Martha is haunted by a journal entry left by a dead classmate. Olive, an unremarkable loner, hoped to have Martha ("the nicest girl in the class") as a friend. This summer 12-year-old Martha is noticing her grandmother's aging, experiencing adolescent alienation from her affectionate family, and feeling the self-consciousness of yearning for her neighbor Jimmy. Jimmy, 14 and an aspiring filmmaker, surprises Martha with his attentions, inquires whether she has ever been kissed, and asks to film her for his video. Their kiss captured on film, as it turns out, is the result of a wager. Well-plotted, the working out of Martha's feelings of humiliation, her renewed connection to family, and her final gesture towards the dead Olive are effected with originality and grace. Henkes's characters never lack for the inner resilience that comes from a grounding in the ultimate decency of family. Characters and setting are painted in with the deft strokes of an experienced artist. Few girls will fail to recognize themselves in Martha. (Fiction. 10-13) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Gr. 5-8. More than anything Martha wants to be a writer. The problem is that her father does, too. Is there room for two writers in a single family? This is only one of the many questions that beg to be answered during Martha's twelfth summer. Here are others: Is Godbee, the paternal grandmother whom the family is visiting at Cape Cod, dying? Why is Martha's father so angry? Couldimmy, the eldest of the five neighboring Manning brothers, be falling in love with her (and vice-versa)? And what does all this have to do with Olive, Martha's mysterious classmate, who died after being hit by a car weeks earlier? Olive, who also wanted to be a writer and visit the ocean, and hoped to be Martha's friend. Like Henkes' Sun and Spoon (1997), this is another lovely, character-driven novel that explores, with rare subtlety and sensitivity, the changes and perplexities that haunt every child's growing-up process. He brings to his story the same bedrock understanding of the emotional realities of childhood that he regularly displays in his paradigmatically perfect picture books. This isn't big and splashy, but its quiet art and intelligence will stick with readers, bringing them comfort and reassurance as changes inevitably visit their own growing-up years. --Michael Cart Copyright 2003 Booklist