Fiction - Young Adult, American Jewish History, WWII 

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The Summer Everything Changed

A stirring, poetic, heartfelt novel - tender, true, and touching. 

     — Sonya Sones, author of What My Mother Doesn't Know

         and other young adult novels in verse

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Ruth Lercher Bornstein's novel pulled me in with Janet's story of love and betrayal and the secrets her parents kept from her. I learned so much about ordinary Americans and how they coped while WWII raged a continent away.

      — April Halprin Wayland, poet and author of award-

          winning books, including Girl Coming in for a Landing

          and New Year at the Pier

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          It was a summer of war.​

          The summer of Rudi but mostly of that other boy.​

          The summer of Lilly, a girl I never met but who has always been  ​

          with me.
          It was the summer everything changed. ​​
 

​So begins this story of a teenage girl's awakening during the height of WWII in the summer 1943. Meet Janet Kessler, daughter of immigrant parents and the sole Jewish family in town. THe novel, told in diary form, reveals the mid-forties culture of small town mid-west America, the yearning for love, as well as Janet's growing awareness of the horrors of war and the discovery of her true values.

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