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When My Sister Started Kissing

This novel in verse alternates between the voices of two sisters, 11-year-old Claire and 13-year-old Abigail, with occasional contributions in the voice of the lake where they are spending the summer with their dad and pregnant stepmother. Abigail (who now asks to be called “Abi”) is diving into adolescence, and is struggling between her feelings for two boys: TJ, a longtime summer friend whom she kissed at the end of the previous summer, and Brock, this year’s hot new guy. Claire is wary of the new Abi, and resents being asked to cover for her when Abi breaks their father’s rules. Claire also misses the way things were when it was just the three of them, before Pam, her stepmother, came into the picture. The pending arrival of a baby brother is yet another transition in the family structure. Frost’s deft skill with poetic form (including quatrains, kayak poems, free-verse, and acrostics) keeps the focus on the relationship between the sisters, as well as providing insight into the thoughts they keep private. Although their history includes a tragedy—their mother was struck and killed by lightning many years earlier—this is a summer without melodrama, but rife with the usual challenges of adolescence, family, friends, and change. ©2017 Cooperative Children's Book Center

CCBC Age Recommendation: Ages 10-13
Age Range: Grades 3-5 (Ages 8-10) Grades 6-8 (Ages 11-13)
Format: Novel
Subjects: Babies Change Love and Romance Novels in Verse Stepfamilies Vacations

Publishers: Farrar Straus Giroux, Margaret Ferguson Books
Publish Year: 2017
Pages: 187
ISBN: 9780374303037

CCBC Location: Fiction, Frost

When My Sister Started Kissing