Rereading The Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars

On this episode, we reread Betsy Byars' The Summer of the Swans, which won the 1971 Newbery Medal. It's an evocative story of a 14-year-old girl who's preoccupied with her big feet and her puce sneakers until the disappearance of her younger brother, who has an intellectual disability, forces her to look beyond her own adolescent thoughts. 

Mentioned on the podcast:

The 1970 Kirkus Review review of the book 

1971 Newbery Honor Book Enchantress from the Starsby Sylvia Louise Engdahl

Another 1970 book about an adolescent girl's search for identity that, in Mary Grace's opinion, should have won the Newbery: Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret?. 

Two post-Sumer of the Swans movies whose titles make startling appearances in the book: Bull Durham and Thelma and Louise. 

Byar's 1980 National Book Award winner The Night Swimmers

Byars' 2020 New York Times obituary

Children's Books and Their Creators by Anita Silvey

The 1974 afterschool special, which has appearances by two kids from The Brady Bunch but little else to recommend it. 

Recommended for fans of The Summer of the Swans: The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers (Mary Grace), M.C. Higgins, the Great by Virginia Hamilton and Flight of the Doves by Walter Macken (Deborah). 

The podcast is hosted by Buzzsprout at rereadingourchildhood.buzzsprout.com and is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other platforms.

You can find Deborah’s author interviews on her blog, Books Q&A by Deborah Kalb, and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Podcast website at rereadingourchildhood.com