2021 BLUEBONNET NOMINEE: Caterpillar Summer by Gillian McDunn

 “Caterpillar Summer” by Gillian McDunn

This is a touching story of a mother and her two children Cat (11yrs old) and her brother Chicken (7 yrs. old). Their father died when they were little. So, Cat had to take care of her brother a lot. They had been planning a three-week summer vacation to visit some friends that lived in Atlanta. The mother had some work there to do. So, once they arrived in Atlanta the vacation plans had changed the family that they were visiting had to go out of country. So, their mother had to make a quick decision where to take the children to stay because she had to do some work in Atlanta, and she could not leave the kids by themselves. The children are force to go stay with the grandparents in North Carolina on an island who they had never seen or knew about them. Their mother and her father had not talk to each other during all this time. During this time, the children bonded with their grandparents and fell in love with them. Cat began to wonder why their mother never told them about their grandparents. Cat and Chicken enjoyed it there and made some friends. Cat found out from the grandfather why her mother never mentions anything about them, so she plans to get them together to talk out their problems and become a family again. The grandparents show a lot of love for them. Cat for the first time was able to be a kid again without having to worry about her brother. There is a lot of action that the children go through and at the end the family learns a lesson about forgiveness.