Review by H0LD0Nthere -- The Boys of Summers Run

H0LD0Nthere · Post by **H0LD0Nthere** » 18 May 2016, 21:20

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Boys of Summers Run" by James L. Cotton.]

3 out of 4 stars

Share This Review

Twelve-year-old Claude Kincaid has no father. A military brat, he has moved around a lot in his short life. His mother, a young and attractive singer, is considering marrying a wealthy and controlling man whose daughter looks down on Claude.

This might sound like the makings of a dark, gritty, angst-filled YA novel. But it’s not. And, though the story is set in the 1990s, Claude is not the typical cynical, detached YA hero who had to grow up too early with no help from the adults in his life.

Claude is very grounded. He spends the summer in Summers Run, Pennsylvania, where his father grew up, surrounded by his father’s loving extended family. (His father, Blake, was killed in Kuwait, shortly before he was due to return home. He’s an adored war hero.) Blake’s cousin, “Nathean” Summers, takes Claude under his wing, becoming the foremost of at least three or four father figures in Claude’s life. Nathe also coaches the Little League team, the Pickett Township Panthers, through which Claude and several other fatherless boys receive lots of instruction in baseball, teamwork, and wholesome, grounded manhood. After many ups and downs in this long, gentle coming-of-age story, Claude and the other Panthers have made great strides toward becoming adults.

Claude’s rural boyhood often seems more like something out of the 1950s than the 1990s. At Summers Run, he learns farm work, hunting, and tree identification, for example, often being instructed by older folks with materials that they themselves used growing up, or that were once used by Claude’s father. For those who care about these dying arts, it is reassuring to see a boy learning them now just as he could have fifty or one hundred years ago. In Summers Run, the past is never far away.

The book is well-written, reflective, often poetic at times. The following passage from Chapter 29 gives a feel for it:

For these past six months of my life, I have become a resident of a world known as Summer’s Run. I ford its waters. I snooze in the cooling shade of its oaks, birch, and maples. I climb the rocks where it reveals a hint of its geological design. I marvel at its hills in the moonlight and in the afternoon, I harvest hickory nuts from its slopes and the loganberries hidden in the little patches Nature perfected for them alone. My father Blake did likewise and I look for him within these places.

The book begins with a dreamy hot-air balloon ride over the Pennsylvania forests and farmscapes. That balloon ride is a fitting metaphor for the book itself. It glides slowly and gently over storied lands of family, connectedness, and natural beauty. Life there is not whitewashed – tragedies do happen in the book – nor is the book’s positivity one of pat answers. Still, its basic movement is one of gently gliding forward motion, not one of struggle. There is some dramatic tension during some of the baseball scenes, but not in the book as a whole. This overall lack of tension keeps this beautiful book from being exactly a page-turner. I give it three out of four stars.

******
The Boys of Summers Run
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon

Like H0LD0Nthere's review? Post a comment saying so!