See the hottest books publishing this Summer

Book Summary and Reviews of The Summer Before Boys by Nora Raleigh Baskin

The Summer Before Boys by Nora Raleigh Baskin

The Summer Before Boys

by Nora Raleigh Baskin

  • Critics' Consensus (1):
  • Published:
  • May 2011, 208 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

Julia and Eliza are best friends, spending the summer together. Julia's mother is serving in the National Guard and Julia spends all of her time trying not to think about what could happen. So the girls lose themselves in their summer, hanging out at the resort where Eliza's father works. But when they meet a new boy, neither one of them is prepared for what it does to their friendship.

Nora Raleigh Baskin delivers a poignant look at the way a first crush can come between best friends and the importance of hanging on to the time you have as a kid before rushing into growing up.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"The intimate tone and absent-mother theme found in several of Baskin's previous books...echo in this coming-of-age novel about the growing pains endured by Julia, the daughter of an American soldier." - Publishers Weekly

"Baskin perfectly captures friendship among girls on the edge of puberty, especially the way big dramas work out in small moments...A poignant story of children on the homefront and the ways that a first love can break up longtime friendships and change things forever." - Booklist

"Starred Review. Baskin adeptly portrays Julia’s ambivalence and anxiety in this thoughtful tale that artfully brings the war to the homefront." - Kirkus Reviews

"[C]ombining the discovery of the opposite sex with serious concerns about war, compounded by the unusual family dynamics, makes the book feel unfocused and less than satisfying." - School Library Journal

This information about The Summer Before Boys was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Nora Raleigh Baskin Author Biography

LIsa Bevis

Nora Raleigh Baskin was chosen as a Publishers Weekly Flying Start for her novel What Every Girl (Except Me) Knows. She is the author of novels for middle-graders and teens, including The Truth About My Bat Mitzvah and Anything But Typical, which won the ALA Schneider Family Award. Nora lives with her family in Weston, Connecticut.

Link to Nora Raleigh Baskin's Website

Name Pronunciation
Nora Raleigh Baskin: rah-ley (like the explorer) bas-kin (like the icecream company)

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more literary fiction...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    The Girls of Good Fortune
    by Kristina McMorris
    Brave the Shanghai tunnels in this tale of love, identity, and resilience passed through generations.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Erased
    by Anna Malaika Tubbs

    In Erased, Anna Malaika Tubbs recovers all that American patriarchy has tried to destroy.

  • Book Jacket

    Awake in the Floating City
    by Susanna Kwan

    A debut novel about an artist and a 130-year-old woman bound by love and memory in a future, flooded San Francisco.

  • Book Jacket

    The Original Daughter
    by Jemimah Wei

    A dazzling debut by Jemimah Wei about ambition, sisterhood, and family bonds in turn-of-the-millennium Singapore.

  • Book Jacket

    Songs of Summer
    by Jane L. Rosen

    A young woman crashes a Fire Island wedding to find her birth mother—and gets more than she bargained for.

Who Said...

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

T the V B the S

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.