Book Review: My Mixed-Up Berry Blue Summer by Jennifer Gennari

Genre:
Realistic Fiction

Interest Level:
Age 10-13

Reading Level:
Lexile 570, Grade 3-8

Book Theme:
LGBT parents, bullying

Books with Similar Themes:  
Arilla Sun Down by Virginia Hamilton, Blue Heron by Avi


Bibliographic Information: 
Gennari, J. (2012). My mixed-up berry blue summer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children.

Plot: 

Twelve-year-old June Farrell’s life is turned upside down the summer that her mother and her girlfriend Eva decide they want to have a civil union and have a wedding ceremony. June wants to focus the summer and the upcoming Champlain Valley Fair pie baking contest but after she finds a Take Back Vermont sign in front of her mother’s Stillwater Marina Shop life take a difficult turn. People begin boycotting the shop and June sees Take Back Vermont signs everywhere. June started to be teased and bullied by other children and feels outcast from her friends. June feels angry at Eva and wishes her mother had never met her. Life was fine before Eva came! June still had friends and nobody put signs in front of the shop. June struggles to make sense of her new family, to understand society’s negative reaction to them, and to find her own strength to stand up for what’s right.

Review:

My Mixed-Up Berry Blue Summer is an incredible book that touches on difficult issues like adjusting to new family members, being raised by gay parents, homophobia in society, and bullying. The book really captured June’s feelings of confusion and reflected them a way to make both children and adults understand how confusing and difficult it is to understand these tough issues. The dynamic between June and Eva shows the conflict tweens feel when adjusting to a new parent. The book did an especially good job of explaining June’s feelings of loss and final acceptance of the fact that she’d never have a father, and her how she felt as she slowed started to warm to Eva. This is an excellent book for any tween who is being raised by a new gay parent and is learning to understand their conflicted feelings about the situation. It is also an excellent book for any tweens who want an understand of how their friends might feel who have gay or lesbian parents.