Olive's Ocean

by Kevin Henkes

A quick read.

file under:
grandmothers/granddaughters
death, thinking about
summer
family

The summer starts with Martha finding out that a girl in her grade died in a bicycle accident. Martha didn't really know Olive, but Olive's mother brings by a page from her journal where she'd written her hopes--she'd write a book, live by the ocean, and become friends with Martha Boyle.
The spooky coincidence is that Martha herself has just decided that she will be a writer--it’s a secret she’s keeping from her family.

With this, Martha goes off to spend vacation with her family at her grandmother's on Cape Cod. She spends the summer trying to become a writer, getting to know Jimmy Manning (14-yr-old neighbor, aspiring film-maker), and processing Olive's death.

Some funny family scenes. Some page-turning boy-liking scenes. Some wincey cringey disappointing scenes. Neat descriptions of scenes, feelings, and people-dynamics--potentially encouraging for young readers who identify with wanting to be writers. A lot of internal-thinking, cerebral-writing...but in simple language.

I really enjoyed it.

Reading it as an adult, I wondered a bit if the thought-heavy writing would keep it from being a favorite book among kid readers--but I asked a seventh-grader who read it last year, about it, and she said “oh my gosh, that’s such a good book!” and told me about how she started with the book and then passed it to so-and-so and then so-and-so needed to read it, and so on, and that she'd almost forgotten how good it was and maybe she'd read it again... so there you go.
Sixth grade is probably the grade to read this and really like it.