The Hot & Cold Summer (Novel) by Johanna Hurwitz

This book was about friendships and how bad situations can turn around with a little belief. Rory and Derek are best friends and are looking forward to summer vacation so they can spend every day together. These two friends live two houses down from each other and in between their houses lives an elderly couple with no children left in their house. This summer the couples great-niece is coming to visit and tell the boys they will love her! The boys were not excited and disguised a plan of how to ignore and stay away from this girl, Bolivia. Derek starts to play with Bolivia which leads to a big fight between the two best friends. Right after the fight Derek ends up going to camp leaving Rory alone with Bolivia.

While Derek is at camp Rory discovers that Bolivia isn't as bad as he thought she would be. His fight with his best friend was a mistake because Rory was wrong about Bolivia. At the end of the summer Derek and Rory realized that they both loved being with Bolivia. In the beginning they didn't want her to come but in the end they didn't want her to leave.

This might not be a new book, it was published in 1984, but I saw that it was an IEMA winner in 1988-1989 and thought it would be a great book to read; and it was. It brings back childhood memories of selling lemonade, going to the pool, camping out on summer nights, and barbeque's with friends. It's a book that all children should read because it teaches the children that things don't always go the way they originally planned.