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Summary
Summary
This beautifully written, emotional debut perfect for fans of Lynda Mullaly Hunt or Ali Benjamin tells the story of a girl, her special needs brother, and the summer they will never forget.
"An engaging, honest book." --Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, Newbery Honor-winning author of The War That Saved My Life
" A beautiful story of family, forgiveness, life on an island, and growing up."--Kate Messner, author of Breakout and The Seventh Wish
Cat and her brother Chicken have always had a very special bond--Cat is one of the few people who can keep Chicken happy. When he has a "meltdown" she's the one who scratches his back and reads his favorite story. She's the one who knows what Chicken needs. Since their mom has had to work double-hard to keep their family afloat after their father passed away, Cat has been the glue holding her family together.
But even the strongest glue sometimes struggles to hold. When a summer trip doesn't go according to plan, Cat and Chicken end up spending three weeks with grandparents they never knew. For the first time in years, Cat has the opportunity to be a kid again, and the journey she takes shows that even the most broken or strained relationships can be healed if people take the time to walk in one another's shoes.
An Indies Introduce Pick
A Parents Best Book of the Year
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year
An Amazon Best Book of the Year
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 3-6-Rising sixth-grader Caterpillar has a lot on her mind. She has a younger brother on the autism spectrum, her father died recently, and her mother's artistic temperament is leaving Cat with a lot of responsibility at a young age. Cat is excited to go to Atlanta for the summer so that she can spend time with her best friend and just enjoy being a kid. All this changes when her best friend has a family emergency that takes him to India. Cat finds herself on a small island in North Carolina with grandparents she's never met and she doesn't know the real reason her mom has kept her away from her grandparents. Over the course of the summer, Cat learns to love her mothers's parents. She also learns to let go of some of her feelings of always needing to be there for her brother by allowing others to help. While Caterpillar and her brother are both biracial, this is not a critical component of the plot. Readers may question whether race was a factor in the degeneration of Cat's mother's relationship with her own parents, but this turns out not to be the case. There are minor references to Caterpillar's struggle with her hair and her white mother's inability to style it effectively. The representation in this case is important from the standpoint of biracial visibility. Though this is not an uncommon family structure, it is seen infrequently in middle grade fiction. VERDICT A sweet summer story that middle grade readers will appreciate.-Kristin Lee -Anderson, Jackson County Library Services, OR © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Intensely responsible Cat, 11, looks after her seven-year old brother, Chicken, whose unique stressors and focused intensity require patience and attention, particularly since the death of their father. When the family's summer plans unexpectedly fall through, the biracial siblings are sent to stay with their estranged maternal grandparents, Macon and Lily, on an island off the North Carolina coast, while their mother-who writes children's books loosely based on her children's lives-works in Georgia. Cat's curiosity about the troubled history between her mother and Macon brings her insecurities about her often overwhelming role as Chicken's caretaker to the fore, leading to a summer of difficult conversations and necessary change in family dynamics. Cat's developing relationship with her grandparents, shifting role in Chicken's life, and growth toward a more honest relationship with her mother are deeply moving in their realism, as are Cat's burgeoning self-awareness and self-advocacy. Set against a cushioning backdrop of fishing, beach trips, and ice cream, McDunn's poignant, gratifying debut about friendship and family encourages both empathy and hope. Ages 8-12. Agent: Marietta B. Zacker, Gallt and Zacker Literary Agency. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A sudden change in vacation plans leads to an unforgettable summer for 11-year-old Cat and her younger brother, Chicken, who has special needs.Cat and Chicken are the namesakes of characters in their mother's picture-book series, Caterpillar Chicken. In the books, Cat looks out for Chicken and does everything she can to make him happy. This is true in real life as well: Chicken has special needs (undefined, but he is sensitive to noise and touch, has difficulty governing himself, and has a tendency toward fixations), and Cat is responsible for taking care of him while their mother works. Cat and Chicken are biracial; their mother is white and their late father was black. Cat can't wait to visit her best friend, Rishi, in Atlanta during summer vacation. But when Rishi's parents are suddenly needed in India, Cat and Chicken find themselves staying on Gingerbread Island, North Carolina, with their mother's parentsgrandparents they've never met before. Cat's mother is tight-lipped about why she's estranged from her parents, but Cat is determined to protect Chicken, like she always does. The poignant story of Cat's unexpected adventures on Gingerbread Island is told with tenderness and a keen sense of what can makeand breakfamily bonds. While race isn't central to the story, it's also not incidental. Through debut author McDunn's vivid storytelling, issues related to race and bias are deftly woven into the larger narrative. An engrossing, heartwarming, beautifully written debut about building and rebuilding family ties. (Fiction. 8-13) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
New York Review of Books Review
One day Cat and her younger brother, Chicken, are in the car riding east, eagerly anticipating a summer visit to friends in Atlanta, when their mother, Amanda, abruptly detours to North Carolina. She leaves them with grandparents they've never met, on a coastal island they've never visited. From the opening of Gillian McDunn's debut, caterpillar summer (Bloomsbury, 295 pp., $16.99; ages 8 to 12), we know that 11-year-old Cat is the de facto caretaker of her 7-year-old brother, a boy who is supersensitive to noise and prone to run off impulsively. She has embraced this role in the years since their father died, while Amanda, an artist, creates picture books (which appear throughout the novel as illustrated metastories about an actual caterpillar who selflessly cares for a chicken). "You're the glue holding the three of us together," Cat's mother says to her. Sometimes, though, Cat just wants to be a kid. In Cat's family, forgiveness comes in time: Their grandparents' home will become "a soft place to land." Years ago, Amanda ditched medical school for art, got pregnant and eloped - triply angering her father, a workaholic surgeon. On the island, Cat gets to know him - and know her mother's own back story as an ace fisherwoman. Cat makes it her mission to heal her mother and grandfather's rift. Frustrated at one point, Cat confronts Amanda: "So he wasn't around a lot. But at least he was alive." Then Chicken runs off and disappears. This absorbing, heartfelt novel seamlessly blends the challenges of life with a neurodivergent child into a story of one tween's burgeoning self-awareness as she figures out how to reclaim her childhood. "I'm starting to get the idea that perfection might be overrated," Cat says.