Caterpillar Summer

Gillian McDunn's Caterpillar Summer is a warm, anxious, very kind story for 9 year olds about a girl who has spent years being the one who keeps everything steady.

What happens

It's the last day of primary school for Cat. Her little brother Chicken is seven, and looking after him is simply what her days are made of.

Has his shirt tag been cut out. Is his teacher using the name he hates. Will he be the one child left behind at the aquarium. On a good day Chicken wanders. On a bad day he bolts.

Their mum writes and draws a picture book series about the two of them, and teaches, and does shifts at a bakery. Three jobs. Their dad died when Cat was small, and there are hospital bills nobody mentions.

So Cat says no to ice cream with the nicest girl in her class, because Chicken would wriggle off the seat and drip.

Then, standing outside the fish market, she turns to nudge him and there's nobody there.

That scene is where this book showed me what it was. It is not long and nothing terrible happens, and I still read it with my shoulders round my ears. She finds him. She doesn't tell their mum. She can't, because if Mum knew, Mum might stop trusting her, and then what.

If you have a child who takes responsibility for a sibling, they will recognise all of this, including the bits that aren't noble. Cat loves Chicken enormously. She is also sometimes furious, and tired, and left out.

The three weeks away are meant to be the good bit. They aren't what anyone planned, and the two of them end up staying with grandparents they have never met.

Chicken himself is a joy to read. He gives Cat a wilted dandelion every single day. He talks about sharks in questions that shouldn't be questions. He hides his shoes in different places on purpose because he likes a little mystery.

A note on the sad part. Their father's death is before the book opens, not in it, and it is handled through small things rather than scenes, his wedding ring on their mother's thumb, the way he used to let Cat crack the eggs. It sits quietly in nearly every chapter, so a child who has lost someone may find it close to home, and may also find it one of the truest things they've read.

What to read next

Another girl, another summer somewhere new with a parent missing and a whole town to work out. Opal walks into a supermarket for groceries and walks out with a stray dog, and after that nothing about her town stays the same. That one is Because of Winn-Dixie.