Book Review: The Blossoming Summer
Guest Post: Ali Timmer
When I first read Anna Rose Johnson’s debut novel, The Star That Always Stays, I fell in love with her style of writing. So, when I found out from her newsletter that she was recruiting launch team members for her third book, The Blossoming Summer, I jumped at the chance to read it.
Genre: Historical Fiction(WWII)
Series: None, a stand-alone novel
Summary(taken from Goodreads): “When English thirteen-year-old Rosemary is sent to stay with her American grandmother at the start of World War II, she uncovers the family secret: they are Anishinaabe.
The year is 1940. England is all Rosemary has ever known . . . but as World War II changes the world, her life is altered as well. With France conquered, she, her parents, and her little brothers flee to America to escape the coming Blitz. Her grandmother’s house in Northern Wisconsin is safe, but unfamiliar, and she soon discovers that her parents have kept a tremendous secret.
Rosemary and her family are Anishinaabe... and her father is not proud of it.
Grandmother, however, is. A fashionable, independent, and fiery-minded old lady, she begins to teach Rosemary Anishinaabemowin. Far from home, but newly connected to a once-hidden part of her identity, Rosemary develops a warm, close relationship with Grandmother Charlotte—and with a local boy whose love of gardening helps her to see the beauty in her unexpected circumstances. As Rosemary grows into her new life like a flower in bloom, she realizes that maybe she’s not as far from home as she thought.”
Content Warnings:(Note: This book is one of the lightest, cleanest WWII novels I have read, although there are): War, bombings, fear of bombs, fear, hints at a crush, family fighting,
Age Recommended For: 11+
Personal Takeaway: I found this book a little disappointing compared to some of Johnson’s other novels. Maybe that’s just because I’m not a huge flower-lover, and most of the book revolved around gardening. But on a more positive note, this book is different than what you’d usually expect of a WWII novel. Instead of telling the story of a girl in a Nazi camp, or a tale of refuge children, The Blossoming Summer tells another side of the story, which I don't think I've ever seen in another WWII novel.
It tells the story of a family, after being apart, fleeing the war, and heading to America to start a new life.
In America, the family faces some interesting challenges, including Rosemary’s father’s steel-against-steel relationship with her grandma, and their rediscovered heritage, Anishinaabe, which her father refuses to pay attention to. It's a very creative idea!
Although not one of my favorite Johnson novels, this book was still sweet and easy to read. I like how the author showed Rosemary’s determination to get and to keep her family together, no matter what. I also liked how Johnson made Rosemary’s brothers’ personalities different, original, and true to where they had grown up. It made sense because the family of the father's lack of work, and so the children had been spread around to relatives and friends, and had grown up differently.
(SPOLIER!)Johnson also uses a symbolic, thematical expression of longing by having Rosemary bring to America a flower she found in England. This flower shows her longing for peace and, as she thinks in the book, “paradise”.(END OF SPOILER!)
Reading her quest for paradise in The Blossoming Summer is full of flowers and lost hopes. I would rate this book around 3 stars. You can read the whole book review soon to come out on here: https://redeemingfamily.substack.com/s/book-reviews
Who Should Read This? Anyone looking for a simple and easy historical fiction read. Anyone looking for a new World War 2 novel? Anyone who loves gardening novels. Anyone who loves gardening or flowers.
Thanks for reading, God bless!
-Ali Timmer
https://www.redeemingfamily.com/ali-timmer
