It’s the summer of 1959 in the seemingly tranquil suburbs of Washington, D.C. But our young narrator, John, and his best friends, Ivan and Max, know the truth: every door on their street could be hiding an escaped Nazi or a spy with secrets about the A-bomb. The entire city is being plagued by an inexplicable spider infestation—surely evidence of “insect warfare” by the Russians! So when a rare vinegaroon—a whip scorpion—is discovered on Capitol Hill and sequestered for study at the Smithsonian, the boys, along with their tomboy accomplice, Beatriz, hatch a risky midnight plan to steal the deadly creature for their own devious purposes. Yet when the friends discover some very real instances of anti-Semitism and prejudice in the neighborhood, it’s the shocking and tragic events stemming from a well-intentioned community-building potluck party that change their lives forever. A vibrantly voiced, heartfelt, and charming Cold War coming-of-age story, Summerlings captures the crystal-clear moments that mark the bittersweet reckoning of childhood’s end.
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Lisa Howorth was born in Washington, DC, where her family has lived for four generations. In 1979, in Oxford, Mississippi, she and her husband opened Square Books—Publishers Weekly‘s 2013 Bookstore of the Year. She received the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in 1996 and a MacDowell Colony Fellowship in 2007. Her writing has appeared in Garden & Gun and the Oxford American. This is her first novel.
Fred Berman has won several AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as the prestigious Audie Award for best narration. He is an actor of theater, film, and television whose credits include Broadway’s The Lion King, Law & Order, and Directing Eddie, among others. He was featured in Entertainment Weekly for his work on the Walking Dead audiobook series.