A Summer to Die

By Lois Lowry and Jenni Oliver

Thirteen-year-old Meg envies her sister Molly's beauty and popularity, and these feelings make it difficult for her to cope with Molly's illness and death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Apr 27, 1977
• ISBN: 9780547345543

Lois Lowry

Lois Lowry is the author of more than forty books for children and young adults, including the New York Times bestselling Giver Quartet and the popular Anastasia Krupnik series. She has received countless honors, among them the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award, the California Young Reader Medal, and the Mark Twain Award. She received Newbery Medals for two of her novels, Number the Stars and The Giver.

Book preview

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IT WAS MOLLY WHO DREW the line.

She did it with chalk—a fat piece of white chalk left over from when we lived in town, had sidewalks, and used to play hopscotch, back when we both were younger. That piece of chalk had been around for a long time. She fished it out of a little clay dish that I had made in last year’s pottery class, where it was lying with a piece of string and a few paper clips and a battery that we weren’t quite sure was dead.

She took the chalk and drew a line right on the rug. Good thing it wasn’t a fuzzy rug or it never would have worked; but it was an old, worn, leftover rug from the dining room of our other house: very flat, and the chalk made a perfect white line across the blue—and then, while I watched in amazement (because it was unlike Molly, to be so angry), she kept right on drawing the line up the wall, across the wallpaper with its blue flowers. She stood on her desk and drew the line up to the ceiling, and then she went back to the other side of the room and stood on her bed and drew the line right up to the ceiling on that wall, too. Very neatly. Good thing it was Molly who drew it; if I had tried, it would have been a mess, a wavy line and off center. But Molly is very neat.

Then she put the chalk back in the dish, sat down on her bed, and picked up her book. But before she started to read again, she looked over at me (I was still standing there amazed, not believing that she had drawn the line at all) and said, "There. Now be as much of a slob as you want, only keep your mess on your side. This side is mine."

When we lived in town we had our own rooms, Molly and I. It didn’t really make us better friends, but it gave us a chance to ignore each other more.

Funny thing about sisters. Well, about us, anyway; Dad says it’s unacademic to generalize. Molly is prettier than I am, but I’m smarter than Molly. I want with my whole being to be something someday; I like to think that someday, when I’m grown up, people everywhere will know who I am, because I will have accomplished something important—I don’t even know for sure yet what I want it to be, just that it will be something that makes people say my name, Meg Chalmers, with respect. When I told Molly that once, she said that what she wants is to have a different name when she grows up, to be Molly Something Else, to be Mrs. Somebody, and to have her children, lots of them, call her Mother, with respect, and that’s all she cares about. She’s content, waiting for that; I’m restless, and so impatient. She’s sure, absolutely sure, that what she’s waiting for will happen, just the way she wants it to; and I’m so uncertain, so fearful my dreams will end up forgotten somewhere, someday, like a piece of string and a paper clip lying in a dish.

Being both determined and unsure at the same time is what makes me the way I am, I think: hasty, impetuous, sometimes angry over nothing, often miserable about everything. Being so well sorted out in her own goals, and so assured of everything happening the way she wants and expects it to, is what makes Molly the way she is: calm, easygoing, self- confident, downright smug.

Sometimes it seems as if, when our parents created us, it took them two tries, two daughters, to get all the qualities of one whole, well-put-together person. More often, though, when I think about it, I feel as if they got those qualities on their first try, and I represent the leftovers. That’s not a good way to feel about yourself, especially when you know, down in the part of you where the ambition is, where the dreams are, where the logic lies, that it’s not true.

The hardest part about living in the same room with someone is that it’s hard to keep anything hidden. I don’t mean the unmatched, dirty socks or the fourteen crumpled papers with tries at an unsuccessful poem on them, although those are the things that upset Molly, that made her draw the line. I mean the parts of yourself that are private: the tears you want to shed sometimes for no reason, the thoughts you want to think in a solitary place, the words you want to say aloud to hear how they sound, but only to yourself. It’s important to have a place to close a door on those things, the way I did in town.

The house in town is still there, and it’s still our house, but there are other people living in it now, which does something terrible to my stomach when I think about it too much. My room had red-and-white-checked wallpaper; there is a place in one corner, by a window, where I played three games of tic-tac-toe on the wallpaper with a Magic Marker. Cats’ games, all of them. I played against myself, so it didn’t matter much, but it’s funny how you want to win anyway.

The university clock in its high brick tower was just across the street from the house; at night, when I was supposed to be sleeping, I could hear it strike each hour, the chimes coming clear and well defined as silhouettes from the ivied circle of the numbered face in the dark. That’s one of the things I miss most, living out here in the country, out here in the middle of nowhere. I like quiet. And it sure is quiet here. But there are times when I lie awake at night and all I can hear is Molly breathing in the bed next to mine; cars seldom go past on this road, and no clocks strike, nothing measures the moments. There is just this quiet, and it seems lonely.

The quiet is why we came. The university has given my dad just this year to finish his book. He worked on it for a while in the old house, shut in his study; but even though he was officially on leave from teaching, the students kept stopping by. I just thought I’d drop in for a minute to see Dr. Chalmers, they’d say, standing on the porch, looking embarrassed. My mother would say, Dr. Chalmers can’t be disturbed, and then my father’s voice would call from upstairs, Let them in, Lydia, I want to stop for coffee anyway.

So my mother would bring them in, and they would stay for hours, having coffee, talking to Dad, and then he would invite them for dinner, and Mother would add some noodles to the casserole, wash another head of lettuce for the salad, or quickly peel a few more carrots for the stew. We would take hours eating, because everyone talked so much, and my father would open a bottle of wine. Sometimes it would be late at night before they left. I would be in bed by then, listening to the clock chime across the street as they said goodbye on the porch, lingering to ask questions, to exhaust an argument, to laugh at another of my father’s anecdotes. Then I would hear my parents come upstairs to bed, and I would hear my father say, "Lydia, I am never going to finish this book."

The title of the book is The Dialectic Synthesis of Irony. When Dad announced that, very proud of it, at dinner one night, Mom asked, Can you say that three times fast? Molly and I tried, and couldn’t, and it broke us up. Dad looked very stern, and said, It is going to be a very important book; Molly said, What is? and he tried to say the title again, couldn’t, and it broke him up, too.

He tried to explain to me once what the title means, but he gave up. Molly said she understood it very well. But Molly is full of bull sometimes.

It was at breakfast the Saturday morning before Thanksgiving that Mom and Dad told us we were leaving the house in town. I had figured that something was going on, because my mother had been on the phone all week, and my mother is not the type of woman who talks on the phone very much.

We’ve found a house, Mom said, pouring more coffee for herself and Dad, out in the country so that your father can have some peace and quiet. It’s a lovely house, girls, built in 1840, with a big fireplace in the kitchen. It’s on a dirt road, and surrounded by one hundred sixty acres of woods and fields. When summer comes we’ll be able to put in a vegetable garden—

Summer. I guess Molly and I had been thinking the same thing, that she was talking about a month or so, maybe till after Christmas vacation. But summer. It was only November. We sat there like idiots, with our mouths open. I was born while we lived in the house in town, thirteen years before, and now they were talking about leaving it behind. I couldn’t think of anything to say, which is not unusual for me. But Molly always thinks of things to say.

What about school? she asked.

You’ll go by bus, to the Macwahoc Valley Consolidated School. It’s a good school, and it’s only about a twenty-minute bus ride.

Can you say that three times fast? asked Dad, grinning. Macwahoc Valley Consolidated School? We didn’t even try.

Consolidated school. I didn’t even know what that meant. To be honest, it sounded to me as if the school needed a laxative. Anyway, school wasn’t my main concern. I was thinking about my Thursday afternoon art class, which was just about to get into oils after umpteen weeks on watercolors, and my Saturday morning photography class, where my photograph of the clock tower at sunset had just been selected Best of the Week, beating out the eight others in the class, which were all taken by boys.

But I didn’t even ask about my classes, about what would

Reviews for A Summer to Die

[atreic · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Although the title makes it sound like a horror story, this book is actually the sad story of the summer Meg's older sister Molly dies of leukaemia.As an adult reader, Meg is so naive for so long about her sisters illness... but maybe her denial is the point of the story. (It's not the story the book is telling, but I found it hard that her loving and intelligent parents try to shelter her by shutting her out of what is going on.) The central sad story is surrounded by a sweet host of other characters - Meg's dad (writing his academic book), Meg's mum (simple and sweet and sewing a quilt), Will (their landlord, but a dear friend and mentor to Meg) and Ben and Maria, idealistic home birthers. It is a bit 'babies are the happy ending', but it's very light touch - the real ending is to see and be seen, and know and accept that bad things are going to happen.

[aneesah88 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Golly! I had this book on my mind recently for some reason. I probably read it about 30 years ago but thinking about it and all the other Lois Lowry books I read way back when (I freakin' LOVED the Anastasia series) made me realize how much I have ALWAYS loved reading. Sure, my taste has morphed a great deal from the angsty middle grade fiction that is A Summer to Die but that tingle felt when opening a new book, the excitement from walking into a library/bookstore, and general PASSION for all things literary are still there. I like to think authors like Lois Lowry, Mildred D. Taylor, Ellen Conford, Judy Blume, Beaverly Cleary, Anne M. Martin, Barthe DeClements, and Louis Sachar are largely responsible for very early in life shaping my love of books.
I only vaguely remember the plot of A Summer to Die but I do recall being deeply engrossed and even staying up late one night to finish reading it with the door closed and a flashlight under the covers because my dad had yelled at me for the 4th time "Go to bed, tomorrow is a school day!". Parents, right? Go to bed? Are you nuts? I still have 45 pages to go! A great read!

[thnguyen-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Margaret Chalmers is telling the story but everyone calls her Meg. Meg is 13 years old and she moves away to a little house in the middle of no where in the country. Her parents, her older sister, Molly, and her move so that her dad can finish his book in peace with no distraction from his students. Molly and Meg have to share room and just like any siblings they sometime get along and sometime doesn't. Meg always talks about how beautiful her sister, Molly, is. She also talks about how she is nothing like her sister. Meg enjoys photography alot. Meg meets a 70 year old man name Will Banks and he owns the house they are renting for a couple of months so her dad can write. Will is so kind to Meg, he shows alot of interest in photography like her. One day he asked her if he let her use his German camera he has, can she teach him how to use the darkroom that her father built for her behind the house. So she did, they shared alot of ideas how to bring the pictures out. Molly had alot of nose bleeds but they thought nothing of it they just thought it was the cold weather that was making her nose bleed. When winter went away and it was spring her nose bleeds stop. Meg and Molly had an argument that day and they went to bed mad at each other. Meg all of a sudden woke up and felt something is wrong and Molly had blood all over her. She was in the hospital for weeks and they could not find out what was wrong with her. One day they decide to give her these pills and it worked but it made her lose alot of her. She always complain that she was not beautiful anymore but Meg still thought she was always going to beautiful even thought she is sick. There was another house Will let a couple rent out and they were Ben and Maria. Maria was pregnant and Molly was so happy because she wanted to help Maria with the baby. Meg got a long with them also, they ask Meg to take pictures of their labor. It was summer now and one day Meg had found black spots all over Molly's leg. Molly thought nothing of it so she beg Meg not to tell their parents but Meg was so worried for her that she did. The parents brought molly to the hospital and she was their for months. Molly was really sick and she has acute myelogenous leukemia disease. Meg never thought her sister was any different she always thought Molly as a beautiful, fun, and laughing person and never a sick person. One day, Molly closed her eyes and never open them again. Summer was over and they were moving back into town. Meg said goodbye to her friends, Will, Ben, and Maria and promise she will back again one summer.

[amberthehuman · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I always thought the name of this book was so bizarre - but it does accurately describe what happens. It's also such a blast from the past - the town the girl moves into is super concerned about the "hippies" that move into the house down the way from her. But I enjoyed the writing and reading about how this girl felt in the moment.

[teenielee · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Holy shit... my sister and I loved this book. So tragic and weird for a fourth grader to be reading. Two things I remember: The family sings the song, "Michael Row Your Boat Ashore" and I've never heard that sung in real life AND it was the first time I read the word "taut"... it was used during a birth scene and I've disliked that word (like moist and mucuous) from that point on.

[vpliving · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Meg and Molly are forced to share a room when their father moves them to the countryside where he can peacefully finish his book. The sisters could not be more different. Meg likes to spend time by herself, enjoys arts, and can be terribly messy. Molly is the popular, beautiful cheerleader who gets everyone's attention. It becomes even harder for these two opposite sisters to get along when they move to a small country house with only one bedroom for them to share. Meg quickly adapts to country life, making friends with the next door neighbors, but Molly seems to become grumpier and lazier. Meg finds it more and more difficult to be in the same room with her. Along with Molly's new attitude come some physical changes, but those are blamed on the recurring flu that has plagued Molly since coming to the country.But when Molly is rushed to the hospital and endures test after test, Meg realizes that Molly is much sicker than she has been told. Meg now must find a way to help her sister know that she really does love her. She must find a way to keep her happy despite her sickness. And she must find a way to keep loving herself in spite of all of this change.

[joannachilders · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In this poignant novel of a young girl's first experience with the death, Lois Lowry manages to steer away from being overly maudlin and instead presents a heartfelt picture of a close knit family dealing with the grief of terminal illness. Meg, the younger sister who has always felt inferior to her older sister Molly, is just coming to terms with her jealousy of Molly when Molly is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Meg learns to deal with her grief by finding who she is outside of her family - in her photography and her friendships. Ultimately, Meg comes through her ordeal changed and matured - "Nothing will be the same, ever, without Molly. But there's a whole world waiting, still, and there are good things in it."

[pokylittlepuppy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A gift from Amy! Thank you Amy! I finished reading this at 2:30am this morning when I couldn't sleep.I almost didn't want to read this because it is like a little dandelion poof of a book, it is so super small I was like, I'll blink and I'll miss it! What if I hurt it! I'd never read it before because as a kid I was snotty about the kill-me-now melodramas of Lurlene McDaniel and ilk. (Please see Somewhere Between YA Lit and Death.) However, this meant I overlooked a lot.The handling of these experiences of death is so elegant here. I liked how most of the biggest information is told not through first-person dialogue (declaration, reaction) but by simple narrative statements, sometimes right in the middle of a chapter. The news itself is important and dramatic enough to make impact in a few sentences. And I liked how once it was clear Molly was dying, her disease still wasn't named for a while -- this isn't a book about leukemia, it's a book about Meg and Molly and their family and neighborhood.The jaw-drop factor came from the birth scene, for which I am giving the book an extra eleventy stars though GoodReads only shows 5. It is just... it is just. The detail is incredible, and everything that is said couldn't be more perfect. The symbolism of this entire subplot is perfect, but this is a 100% perfect chapter of book.The ending is also perfect: not just leaving us with a meaningful moment in Meg's connection to her sister, but viewing Meg having a personal lesson that is just as important.

[notemily · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I first encountered this book when my library was weeding its children's paperback collection. I grabbed several out of the pile destined for the recycling bin, including this one. I knew Lowry's work, but I didn't know this was her first novel, or how good it would end up being. I loved it. It was beautifully written from start to finish. The setting was rich with detail and made me want to move to the New England countryside and start my own garden. It was a bit slow to get going, but once the older sister started to get sick, I couldn't put the book down. I'm not sure whether to classify it as children's or YA. The protagonist is young, but the tone is sophisticated enough for teenagers. It was in the children's section of my library, but with the recent explosion in YA publishing, I have to wonder what it'd be classified as if it came out now. I had to wonder if it was partly autobiographical--and it seems it is--because the family dynamics in the book seemed so real to me. Several of the passages, such as this one, could have been lifted directly from my own childhood. I'm a younger sister of a sister, and my father's a professor, so I especially identified with those aspects of the book: the older sister being the "easy" one, while the younger one was more rebellious; the absentminded professor father who invites his students over for Thanksgiving and spends hours alone in his study. My one complaint is the title. Not only does "A Summer to Die" make it sound like an R.L. Stine thriller, but it gives away the entire plot. There's a reason why Bridge to Terabithia isn't called "Bridge to Terabithia... OF DEATH." No wonder the library weeded it--if I were a kid I wouldn't pick up a book called "A Summer to Die" either. There are so many great recurring images and themes in this book--flowers, photography, country houses, gardens, quilts--I find it hard to imagine that it was impossible to pull a better title out of one of those. If I ever meet Lois Lowry, I'll ask her if it was her first choice. Title aside, though, this book was a wonderful surprise. I was in the mood to read something from the 70s-80s era of children's lit after reading Shelf Discovery, and I'm glad I picked this one.

[marilynpx2014 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A Summer to Die is a story about the relationship of a girl named Meg and her sister. In the story, Meg is the type of person who concentrates harder on winning pointless games, like Monopoly, while Molly is the type who focuses harder on things like becoming a cheerleader. Meg is jealous of Molly's blond curls and long eyelashes. She and Molly just moved to the country, leaving their friends at school behind. They are forced to share a room, which upsets both of them very much. One night, after an argument the two of them had, Molly became sick, bleeding. Meg felt sorry, sad, and guilty for arguing and yelling at her. As both of their lives went on, Molly spent most of her time at the hospital, or sitting down holding her nose, while Meg spent more time with photography and her friend, Will. I think that even though the book was slightly depressing, overall, it was really great to read.

[pottery_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book will never get old. The morals still live on for me, and I first read it at age 11...I have re-read it countless times and tears come every single read.Meg is so relatable and Lowry writes in such a simple style that the sadness is amplified when Molly becomes so ill.You must read this.