Six-year-old Annie's world is shattered when she is forced to carry a horrible secret: Under the pretense of reading to her, an older boy molests her, threatening her if she ever tells. Only when her mother pries out the secret is Annie released from her horror and isolation. Slowly she begins to heal, and before the summer is over, she even learns to swim. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

"Using spare vignettes laid out like poetry, Turner recalls the summer she was six years old, when she was sexually abused by a neighbor," wrote PW. "The emotional truth comes through clearly." Ages 12-up. (June) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Gr 6 Up-"Telling is what matters./You have to catch/the words you've been hiding/inside-pulling the words up/and out-dropping them into someone's/surprised face that/is what matters-." In this honest, touching, subtle book of free verse, the author examines a summer she'd rather forget. A long ago season of swimming and picking blueberries sent her spirit sailing, until one dreaded day when the child's world was shattered. An older neighborhood boy sexually assaulted her over the course of that vacation, and Annie was silenced. Her days of floating and buoyant joy left her gasping for air and sinking instead of swimming. Each illuminating one-page poem is filled with images of pain, longing, and questions. She imagines herself, "flying out/of my body/to the corner of the room-I will stay here/until it is safe/to come down." Once the child realized that admitting her pain would free her, she could return to learning to swim-both figuratively and literally. The metaphor is carried throughout the pages effectively, and the book is divided into three chapters-"sailing," "sinking," and "swimming." It closes with a brief insight into the author's personal experience with assault, and the final page is a list of related hot lines and Web sites. A moving and powerful memoir.-Sharon Korbeck, Waupaca Area Public Library, WI Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information