Manatee Summer
by Evan Griffith
Intermediate     Quill Tree/HarperCollins    288 pp.         g
6/22     978-0-06-309491-8     $16.99
e-book ed.  978-0-06-309493-2    $9.99

“Why doesn’t the world have a pause button?” eleven-year-old Peter Harrison wonders. A lot is happening in his world: he’s on Official Caregiver Duty for his beloved grandfather who has Alzheimer’s; his best friend, Tommy, is moving away; he’s nervous about starting middle school in the fall; and he’s trying to save the manatees in the Indigo River near his central Florida home. Spending their days playing along the canal, Tommy and Peter are the founding (and only) members of the Discovery Club, constantly in search of animal species to document in their “Discovery Journal.” Their biggest find is a huge manatee near mean old Mr. Reilly’s dock. It’s injured, with long scars on its back, indicating that it’s been hit by a motorboat, and Peter blames Mr. Reilly. In fact, Peter’s angry finger-pointing accusation of Mr. Reilly is caught by the local news, and the story goes viral. Peter’s attempts to save Zoe (his name for the manatee) become the heart of the novel, and debut author Griffith adroitly weaves in the other threads of the tale around it. Peter grows up that summer and finds an apt metaphor for his life in his love of nature. His story is full of sadness, adventure, and beautiful scenes on the Indigo River. Any writer who can make readers cry about “a gray, rubbery island” of a manatee has done his job well.

From the September/October 2022 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.