The Summer Book

I am devouring books while watching the lake. It is very restful. I am reading The Summer Book by Tove Jansson now and it is strangely fitting. The Summer Book is a series of vignettes involving a six year old girl, Sophia, and her grandmother as they spend the summer on a small island in the Gulf of Finland.

We are not on an island, but there is the island mentality here. We are alone in our sea of grass and by the shore of our lake. The wind whistles around us. My daughter's name is Sophia and she is spending quality time with her grandparents. While she is older than the Sophia in the book, there is still a timeless quality to her activities on our shore. She moves rocks around, explores secret rooms in the undergrowth, skips rocks into the lake.

I recommend this quiet book for a summer read. Nothing much happens, but you enjoy the rhythm of their lives on the island and envy their self-contained solitude.