Friday Finds: A Summer Secret by Kathleen Fuller

Title: A Summer Secret
Author: Kathleen Fuller
ISBN: 9781400315932
Publisher: Tommy Nelson/2010
Pages: 268

A Summer Secret is targeted for young adults and is the first in a series called The Mysteries of Middlefield. It is based in Middlefield. Ohio and focusses on an Amish family. Mary Beth is a 13-year-old Amish girl, who is sick of her three brothers. She hates their pranks and the way they thrust their responsibilities on her. She also has a lot of chores which includes babysitting her youngest brother, Micah. To escape from all this, she has a hiding place in a dilapidated old barn, where she also writes a journal in the form of sketches and words.

One day she discovers that someone has been coming into her barn. First she thinks it is her twin Johnny but he denies it. So they set out to find out who has been visiting the barn. When they do get to know about that person, they set out to help him in the form of food and clothes. Now both of them are keeping a secret from their Mami and Daed.

Mary Beth and Johnny know that they can't hide the secret for long and have to tell their Mami and Daed. Before they can do that, the barn is struck by lightening and is burnt down. Mary Beth has to tell them the secret. However, the person who had been living there had left it much before the fire as he and Mary Beth had fought before that.

Mary Beth and Johnny are lying to their parents. Even if it was for a good cause, that didn't gel with me. I also found that Mary Beth is given too much chores and she doesn't have any time for herself. But I had all sympathies for the person hiding in the barn. He really had a tough life and had nowhere else to go.

As I have three brothers, I could relate to Mary Beth to a certain extent but truthfully speaking I never had to do so much work in my teenage years. I truly can't comment on the Amish way of life as I don't know much about it. But I do think, kids deserve so much better. Mary Beth and Johnny get closer to each other as twins ought to be and that is a good thing. With simplistic prose, somewhat predictable ending, it is a clean read for young adults.

Thanks to Thomas Nelson for my copy.