Song For A Summer Night

"Song for a Summer Night" is a great book for anyone who grew up with a backyard, woods, park, or pond nearby. Author Mark Dennis reminded me, how big the world really is. In our busy lives, we forget the wonderful world around us. In his creative way, Dr. Dennis reminds us of where our creativity and sense of adventure originated, our childhood backyard. I would recommend "Song for a Summer Night" to all readers, of any age, who appreciate the sounds of a summer night. I will think of this book every time I hear a cricket sing and pause to remember that life's an adventure, and full of wonder.

In the Acknowledgments of Song For A Summer Night, author Mark Dennis credits philosophers and writers Sohren Kierkegaard, Sun Tzu, Friedrich Nietzsche and James Joyce for inspiration, "all of whom I quoted or paraphrased liberally with the hope and understanding that certain people would recognize and appreciate their application." However, after spending a few pleasant hours reading this book (on a hot summer evening) my impressions tended toward authors like Kenneth Grahame, A.A. Miline, Lewis Carroll, and even Thorne Smith. Song For A Summer Night is a young teen's book in the classic tradition where a boy -- in this case twelve-year-old Peter Phye -- on the verge of manhood, or at least what most civilized cultures now call adolescence, is granted the power to converse with animals and nature for a short time and embarks upon a difficult and sometimes dangerous quest. In this story, Peter Phye's mission for the Queen Of The Night is to bring back the songs of nature which have mysteriously disappeared. The setting is also classic, a rural, or at least still mostly wild suburban, environment of shadowy woods, sunny meadows, leafy glades, a pond, a graveyard, and a field with an old abandoned car, all vividly described; the heat of August afternoons, the coolness of mornings and late at night, the clinging damp of a sweaty T-shirt, the rasp of stickers (or "pickers") on bare arms and legs, the sting and itch of mosquito bites, and the razor-like rake of cat claws. There are villains and friends, human, animal, insect and supernatural; hip-hop blue jays, a gangster raccoon, and devious, drunken bugaboos. Peter has real-world problems, too; an alcoholic mother and a workaholic dad. He also feels the impending ordeal of adolescence... caught hugging his pillow one night. As with most really good books for kids, Song For A Summer Night will also appeal to adults who haven't forgotten the trials, fears, both real and imaginary, and the simple pleasures of being a kid and living in the moment. It's been too long since I read a book like this.

Song For A Summer Night by Mark Dennis is a young adult book that is written in a classic style like The Wind In The Willows by Kenneth Graham and Alice In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. There are also some elements in this book that made me think of Lazy Bear Lane by Thorne Smith. Because of these facts this book will be liked most by more advanced readers or kids and teens who usually read adult books. Even though this is a book for kids the author doesn't talk down to kids and uses many complex words. The story is about a 12-year-old boy named Peter Phye who lives in the country where there are forests and fields and ponds and an old graveyard. He usually wears T-shirts and shorts and doesn't like to change his boxers. Like in many classic kids stories Peter has the ability to talk to animals and supernatural or legendary entities like pixies, fairies and The Queen Of The Night. This ability is granted to him by the Queen so that he can go on a quest to find out what happened to the normal sounds of the country at night like frogs croaking and crickets chirping which had suddenly disappeared. The only human character in the story about Peter's age is a boy a year older who is named Pixie Anderson. He is a bully who is very stupid, and mean to Peter and animals. Other characters are a gang of blue jay birds with a hip-hop lean, an evil cat named Boog, a magicada (insect) named Dillon Hopper, and a gangster raccoon named Rocco Colossimo who might make you think of the Godfather movies. There are also evil bugaboos who drink too much. Peter Phye goes on a quest for several days and nights to find out what happened to the songs of the summer night. This quest leads him into many dangers and he meets many more characters good and bad. In the end he is able to restore the summer night sounds. Peter also has some problems on the material plane. His mom drinks too much in secret in the basement where Peter is forbidden to go. Peter has a good dad but he is always working and doesn't have much time to spend with Peter. These issues get resolved at the end of the story. If you can handle mature writing in a classic style like The Wind In The Willows or Alice In Wonderland you might like this book.

This is about a twelve year-old boy with a lonely, troubled childhood. Through the use of enchantment - or his own imagination, whichever way you choose to interpret the circumstances - he finds a world within his own back yard to help him sort through the absurdities that confront him. It's a positive story written in a garrulous, humorous style, similar to Mark Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn. Words, and the turn of the phrase, in fact, are the charm of this novel, although a young adult might not be the perfect audience for this one unless they are brighter than average. It is, as are all great children's stories, a good adult story as well. This story is reminiscent of Pan's Labyrinth and Bridge to Terabithia, and if you like those, you will like this. I recommend it as a pleasant surprise from a small publisher and debut author