About this item
Julia and Eliza are best friends, spending the summer together. Julias 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 Elizas 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.,
About the Author
Truth- I started writing seriously in 5th grade. I began with poetry. All I remember about my first poem, was that it had something to do with reincarnation. It was short but startlingly profound (so I thought) . But what I remember most was my teacher's reaction. She loved it. My life was changed. I had discovered the power of words. By 6th grade I was writing short stories and keeping journals. I read constantly and my early writing was always influenced by what I was reading. At one point I became interested in Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan. I wrote a short story, in first person, about a blind and deaf girl struggling to express her thoughts. By high school I had attempted my first short novel, weaving my life into the events of World War II. I was a Jewish girl escaping Nazi Germany after my mother's death and searching for mymissing father. Writing was my way of articulating all the emotions and all the drama I found myself exploring during those years. Even my senior thesis in college was a jumble of feelings and experimentalwriting based on my life experiences. It was, of course extremely terrible. I think I was trying to make sense of all the confusion and unanswered questions. And I believed I could find some kind of truth if I put it down on paper. I was young, and I believed inwords- as my father would say. Now, I'm not so young (not as young) but I still believe in words.However, it did take me a long time to realize that truth is only the way you remember it. It is all in the interpretation. I realized that my truth was mine to manipulate. And I began to write fiction. I was finally able to care more about the story than the facts. Take what you need and what you want and let go of everything else.And the amazing thing was when I did just that , I was free. I was free from the burden of my own history. I was free as a writer to create. To write.
