The First Magnificent Summer

Twelve-year-old Victoria Reeves, a budding writer navigating anxiety, initiates a “No-Fail Plan to Win Dad Back” in this 1990s-set novel from Toalson (The Woods). Two years after her father was revealed to have a second family, Victoria and her two siblings live in Texas with their mother. This summer is the first time since the split that the siblings will see their dad, who will road-trip with the kids back to Ohio for a monthlong visit. Envisioning their “First Magnificent Summer” together, Victoria plans to impress with her wit and maturity, smarts and smile. But when their father arrives with his new family—The Replacements—Victoria remembers that he’s domineering and impossible to please. Over the course of 30 days, she endures comments about her body and is forced to handle her first period on her own. Victoria, who takes Virginia Woolf’s daily writings as a model, records in raw prose each painful humiliation and her palpable heartbreak. Realistic descriptions of emotional abuse and its impact come with later insight into her father’s internality, giving way to affirming messages about staying true to one’s core and realizing where love lies. Most characters cue as white; Victoria’s father has brown skin. Ages 10–up. Agent: Rena Rossner, Deborah Harris Agency. (May)