Heron Cove

By Ruth Wallace-Brodeur

Sage lives with her flighty mother, who is always dropping one dream to chase another. When her mother packs her off to her great-aunts’ house in Maine for the summer, Sage worries she’s being... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0525473939
• ISBN13: 9780525473930
• Release Date: May 2005
• Publisher: Dutton Juvenile
• Length: 170 Pages
• Weight: 0.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.6" x 0.8" x 5.5"
• Age Range: 9 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 4 to 6

Customer Reviews

Heron Cove

This delightful book gives us hope that there are children out there who can entertain themselves for an entire blissful summer with no regard to televisions, computers or cell phones. Sage Miller is a thoughtful 12-year-old who is sent off to Maine for the summer by her inattentive mother who enrolls in a 6-week herb institute. (This milk-wary mother insists Sage mix juice with her morning cereal.) Sage is at first apprehensive about staying with her two great-aunts, Bea and Addie, in the family home by the shore, but she soon can't resist the joys of the natural setting and the kind people she meets. During the course of her stay with her aunts, she learns enough of her family history to be able to explain her mother's flightiness and distrust of relationships; all the while helping her to learn important truths about growing up. The reason the book is so charming is that the characters and situations are sweetly old-fashioned, but still very real to children of today. For instance, when Sage meets a local boy, there is no hint of romance and first kisses, just friendship that readers know will continue for many summers to come. Also, instead of someone tragically drowning while balancing on the rocky shoreline, the kids spy a secret rendezvous between the town busybody spinster and an unknown suitor. However, the story isn't all sweetness and light. Sage must deal with the loss of a father she never knew, a mother who has not been able to lovingly connect with her child, and a family history that isn't always pretty. Her stay at Heron Cove helps her to realize that, according to the author; "You do not have to give up one home to claim another". Recommended for ages 9 - 12.