The Bridges of Summer

In the Bridges of Summer, a Junior Library Guild selection, Sarah Jane Brown who calls herself Zarah didn’t remember her grandmother who lived on a jungly island in South Carolina. She wanted to stay in New York City and her life of ballet and acting but her mom had this opportunity to sing with Johnny and the Maroons on tour for the summer and off she went sending Zarah by herself to find Domingo Island and her grandmother Quanamina. It was worse than Zarah had thought: no running water, no electricity, no stores, no microwaves, yogurt, TV, a grandmother ruled by superstitions, a small cousin Loomis who scratched the dirt yard with a twig broom and was afraid of owls and a lot of other things. Zarah is afraid of snakes and failing like her talented but flighty mother. She meets Benicia from California visiting her grandmother on the next island and the two become friends until their grandmothers almost wreck it. That summer Zarah crosses bridges she didn’t even know were there.