Rating: 
Summary: Summer of the Swans
Review: "Charlie's missing. I'm going to see if he's down by the lake." Sara said to her best friend Mary. The Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars is a book that anyone who likes family stories would love. Sara the main character, is a person who criticizes herself over everything wrong with herself. "I have the biggest feet in my school." She said. Wanda, Sara's older sister, is perfect in Sara's eyes. Nevertheless, she's still an older sister that's supportve of her siblings. "You should ignore the things that are wrong with you." Wanda told Sara. Aunt Willie, their grandma, is loving and caring but can sometimes be a little overprotective. "Wanda's not going anywhere on that motorcycle." Even though it was a harmless motor scoter. And then there's Sara and Wanda's brother, Charlie. He's mentally challenged and doesn't talk, but is loved anyway. The plot of the story is that Charlie dissapears. After Charlie and Sara sees the swans, Charlie gets fascinated by them. Sara had to haul Charlie from the lake. "Well, let's go home." "Come on, Charlie." "Come on." She finally stayed for five more minutes. He got so interested that in the morning, when he was gone, everyone suspected to find him by the lake. But was he? The symbolism in this story is Sara compared to the swans. An infant swan is very unsightly and blunt. This is how Sara felt at the beginning of the book. Towards the end, she thinks she's more loved and attractive. Just like a swan. Lovely and charming. I recommend this book to anyone ages 8-12 and a RL of 4.6. My overall opinion of this book on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the best, I'd give it a 6.
Rating:
Summary: Summer of the Swans
Review: "Charlie's missing. I'm going to see if he's down by the lake." Sara said to her best friend Mary. The Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars is a book that anyone who likes family stories would love. Sara the main character, is a person who criticizes herself over everything wrong with herself. "I have the biggest feet in my school." She said. Wanda, Sara's older sister, is perfect in Sara's eyes. Nevertheless, she's still an older sister that's supportve of her siblings. "You should ignore the things that are wrong with you." Wanda told Sara. Aunt Willie, their grandma, is loving and caring but can sometimes be a little overprotective. "Wanda's not going anywhere on that motorcycle." Even though it was a harmless motor scoter. And then there's Sara and Wanda's brother, Charlie. He's mentally challenged and doesn't talk, but is loved anyway. The plot of the story is that Charlie dissapears. After Charlie and Sara sees the swans, Charlie gets fascinated by them. Sara had to haul Charlie from the lake. "Well, let's go home." "Come on, Charlie." "Come on." She finally stayed for five more minutes. He got so interested that in the morning, when he was gone, everyone suspected to find him by the lake. But was he? The symbolism in this story is Sara compared to the swans. An infant swan is very unsightly and blunt. This is how Sara felt at the beginning of the book. Towards the end, she thinks she's more loved and attractive. Just like a swan. Lovely and charming. I recommend this book to anyone ages 8-12 and a RL of 4.6. My overall opinion of this book on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the best, I'd give it a 6.
Rating: 
Summary: Touching
Review: A touching novel. It's hard to describe how you will feel after reading it, as you have to read it to feel the emotion. Perhaps you can describe it as a nostalgic type of feeling after reading the book.
Rating:
Summary: The Summer of the Swans
Review: Betsy Byars gives readers insight on living and coping with a mentally handicapped person in this fiction book. Sara Godfrey is a young girl who lives in a town in West Virginia. Her mother is deceased and her father is almost nonexistent in her life. She lives with her aunt, an older sister, and a mentally handicapped brother, Charlie. Sara is having the worst summer of her life. Her lack of self-esteem and her frustration with Charlie provide the dark clouds shadowing over her life. Sara awakes one morning and discovers that Charlie is missing. Through her search for Charlie, she learns valuable lessons that enable her to love herself and be more patient with Charlie's disorientation. Betsy Byars' characterization of Sara as a stubborn, vengeful, insecure, young girl allows readers to empathize with her problems. Young readers can relate to the life dilemmas of Sara and learn to appreciate the small things that make life enjoyable. This is an excellent book that displays life with a handicapped person as challenging, but yet rewarding. Aunt Willie's humorous actions allow readers to laugh and appreciate the silliness of fussing over simple things. This Newbery Medal book contains humor, suspense, sorrow, and joy making it delightful reading for young and adult readers.
Rating:
Summary: SUMMER OF THE SWANS
Review: Ever heard of Betsy Byars. Well she is a great author who wrote Summer of the Swans. It is a story about a girl who is self-willed.
The main character in this book is Sara and her self-pity,"i have the biggest feet in the school." Charlie is her brother wo is mentally handicap and can't speak, Wanda,her sister, who she thinks is a prefectionist, Aunt Willie, their gardian for the time being, Mary, sara's best friend and most helpful,"Mom, I am going to help Sara look for Charlie," and Joe Melby,aka fink.
The story takes place in West Virginia in the summer at their house and lake There are two plots or problems in the story. One is Sara's fellings about herself and the other one is that charlie becomes missing in the middle of the book,"Sara, have you seen Charlie." and they can't find him.
The symbolism is explainable. The symbol is a swan. It is a swan because at the beginning of the book Sara feels bad herself and at the end feels good about herself. This is related to a swan because when swans are young the're not that pretty but when they grow up they're beatiful..
I really liked this book because it teaches you about life. I would reccomend this book to 6th through 8th graders because the problems that are in this book would be reccognozed by these ages. I really hope you read this book because it makes you look at life in a different angle.
Rating:
Summary: SUMMER OF THE SWANS
Review: Ever heard of Betsy Byars. Well she is a great author who wrote Summer of the Swans. It is a story about a girl who is self-willed.
The main character in this book is Sara and her self-pity,"i have the biggest feet in the school." Charlie is her brother wo is mentally handicap and can't speak, Wanda,her sister, who she thinks is a prefectionist, Aunt Willie, their gardian for the time being, Mary, sara's best friend and most helpful,"Mom, I am going to help Sara look for Charlie," and Joe Melby,aka fink.
The story takes place in West Virginia in the summer at their house and lake There are two plots or problems in the story. One is Sara's fellings about herself and the other one is that charlie becomes missing in the middle of the book,"Sara, have you seen Charlie." and they can't find him.
The symbolism is explainable. The symbol is a swan. It is a swan because at the beginning of the book Sara feels bad herself and at the end feels good about herself. This is related to a swan because when swans are young the're not that pretty but when they grow up they're beatiful..
I really liked this book because it teaches you about life. I would reccomend this book to 6th through 8th graders because the problems that are in this book would be reccognozed by these ages. I really hope you read this book because it makes you look at life in a different angle.
Rating: 
Summary: The greatest book on earth.
Review: I give this book an a++ because of the family Sarah,and Charlie because of when he got lost.His sister tried to find him after he got los in the woods .After that she looked and looked.Thats why .
Rating:
Summary: Gold Medal Material!!
Review: Sara Godfrey is a fourteen year-old girl whose mother is dead; she also has an absentee father and a mentally slow little brother. She thinks she has big feet and that she is unattractive. In a nutshell, her life is unlivable. Sara, her brother Charlie and her sister Wanda live with their Aunt Willie who worries incessantly about everything and drives Sara crazy and she is slightly jealous of her sister, even though she would never admit it. However, she is sweet on her little brother. Even though Charlie never talks to Sara, she knows without a doubt that he always listens to her. He is the only one who ever does. Anyone who gives him a hard time has to answer to her.
One afternoon Sara takes Charlie to see the swans that have flown in and settled on the pond out side of their neighborhood. He is so enamored with them that he does not want to leave when it starts to get dark. Sara drags him, kicking the entire way home. The next morning everyone in the house wakes to a missing Charlie. Sara's world comes crashing down around her.
During her crusade to find her brother, Sara grows up. She learns to take life around her more seriously and to stop wallowing in self-pity. She realizes that life is not always easy to figure out and that we are all along on a different ride to the same destination. She even makes an unlikely friend along the way.
This book is a good one to give to any teenager going through the "oh, whoa is me" phase. It teaches us to open our eyes to the lives of others and realize that everyone has problems, some of which are worse than others, and that things usually work out. Nevertheless, even when they do not work out, we have to pick ourselves up and move on because we only get one go around in this ride we call life.
Rating:
Summary: The summerr of the swans
Review: Summer of the Swans
By: Betsy Byars
Reviewed by: Cody Faas How would you like to stay with your Aunt instead of being with your mom and dad until you forget who they were?
The Summer of the Swans is a realistic fiction story about Sara. She is discontented with herself because she thinks looks are important. One-minute she thinks she has big feet the next minute she doesn't think her feet are big. Sara also thinks Charlie is retarded. Charlie is mentally retarded. Charlie has troubles with suckers because the top of the sucker always falls off. Charlie left in the middle of the night and nobody knew where he was until they saw his bed was empty. Sara, Joe, and Aunt Willie went looking for him. The searched the trees. If you want to find out the ending you have to read the book.
I think this book is good. If you like realistic fiction I think you should read this book. I think you should read this book because you will like the ending. I think this book is good for all ages. I think all ages should read this book because it tells a little bit about patens, age and a kid's life. The author helps us to know the characters by telling us a little bit about each character. Betsy Byars helps us know how much we love our families.
Rating:
Summary: The summer of the swans
Review: The name of the book I read was The Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars. The theme that I chose was Loyalty. The book was about a little girl "Sara" who has a sister Wanda who is older, pretty, and well formed, and there is Charlie who is disabled. When he was three he had very high fevers that almost took his life away, and damaged his brain. Since then he hasn't spoken a word. Sara is a girl who thinks "looks" is all that counts. She is jealous of her sister because she gets all the boys. One day Wanda wanted to go see the swans with her boyfriend Frankie. They want to go on his motor scooter, but aunt Willie thinks it is dangerous. Aunt Willie is the one who takes care of the three because their mom died when they were young, and when their mom died thier dad left them in aunt Willies care. Frankie asked Aunt Willie to go for a ride to show her that it was safe. Aunt Willie went and then let Wanda go. Sara wanted to go see the swans and Aunt Willie tells her to take Charlie with her and some bread to feed the swans. Sara and Charlie feed the swans and then watch them for a while. When Charlie knew it was time to go he refused. Sara had to drag him home. That night Charlie couldn't sleep, all he could think about was the swans. Charlie gets up and goes to the window and he thinks he sees a swan in the bushes.
When he gets down there it was only a cat. Charlie wants to see the swans again so he goes out of the yard and head down the road. He loses his way and starts to head up the hill. Dogs in the neighborhood start barking. They frighten Charlie and he starts to run. Charlie is running into everything until he gets to a ravine and somehow gets stuck. When Charlie was running he lost one of his bedroom slippers. In the morning Wanda, Sara, and Aunt Willie find out he is missing, and she calls the cops. The cops set up a search to find Charlie. Sara and her best friend, Mary go up behind the lake and walk behind the houses toward the woods. Joe comes along to help, and gives Sara Charlie's lost bedroom slipper. Meanwhile Charlie is stuck in the ravine. Sara can hear Charlie crying in the distance and runs toward the ravine. She finds Charlie. They go home and Sara and Joe stay behind. Joe asks Sara if she will go to a party with him. Sara says yes and goes home to get ready for the party. Sara discovers that she does really love her brother. She used to think that he was a pain in the but, but when he was lost she couldn't give up looking for him, and when she found him she didn't think that Charlie was a pain any more. She thought that Charlie interfered with her life, but she found out that she was loyal to him after all.
| 
