A Summer Without Anna

Written by Kate Jenks Landry

Illustrated by Risa Hugo

Kids Can Press

978-1-5253-1025-6

32 pp.

Ages 3–7

June 2025 

 

For children, every summer is different and still the same. There may continuity in activities undertaken or camps attended, in visits with family or in hanging out with friends. But with each year that a child gets older, things will change for them and for their families. Some changes will be welcome and others not. For Junie, this will be a summer without her sister Anna.

From A Summer Without Anna, written by Kate Jenks Landry, illustrated by Risa Hugo

This summer Junie will be visiting her Nan and Pop's house while her parents take care of her hospitalized sister. To help ease Junie into this new set of circumstances, Anna lends her little sister her camera, instructing her to use it if she sees Edmund, a very old turtle. As Junie continues to do many of the activities she and Anna had often done at her Nan and Pop's, such as swimming and catching minnows for bait, Junie takes photos of what she sees, keeping a record of her time away from Anna, and always looking for Edmund.

From A Summer Without Anna, written by Kate Jenks Landry, illustrated by Risa Hugo

But even as she bakes and fishes, swims and relaxes, Junie has a quiet solitude about her. For her, a summer without Anna means so much more than just missing a companion with whom to play and to look for Edmund. Her parents arrange phone calls with Anna so the girls can keep in touch, and Junie takes lots of pictures of everything from the recipes she and Nan use to the water as it ripples with the wind. And when Anna's return home is delayed, Junie is both angry and saddened. 

     I run down to the lake and hurl Anna's tarts into the water.

     The air feels electric. Rain is coming. I tilt the camera straight up to the sky. A fat drop hits the lens and turns the world all wibbly-wobbly.

From A Summer Without Anna, written by Kate Jenks Landry, illustrated by Risa Hugo

When the two sisters are finally reunited, there is much sharing that happens, demonstrating that the two were never far apart in their thoughts and their hearts.

 

This is the first book that I have reviewed of Kate Jenks Landry and Risa Hugo (though both have written or illustrated others). Both take a sensitive perspective to the story, emphasizing Junie's muted experience of a summer without her sister. Though there would be no story without Anna's illness and hospitalization, that all happens outside of Junie's immediate experience. Kate Jenks Landry makes the story all about Junie; in fact, Risa Hugo does not include Anna until the older sister is set to come home and be reunited with Junie. The tenderness of the girls' relationship and the lingering days of summer that Junie experiences are paramount. Without that closeness, there would be no wistfulness or the stillness of play without a playmate. Kate Jenks Landry makes us feel Junie's longing for her sister and the stillness of her summer, even as she is occupied by her grandparents with typical bonding experiences in and outside of their house. 

From A Summer Without Anna, written by Kate Jenks Landry, illustrated by Risa Hugo

The quiet of A Summer Without Anna calms me, even as I feel for a family dealing with an ill child. That quiet, which comes through in both Kate Jenks Landry's words and Risa Hugo's art, is both reassuring and hopeful, and I was left knowing that all would be well in the end. Whether I hear that assurance in Kate Jenks Landry's poetic language ("My belly's full of moth-wing flutters") or in the emotions of her words ("The smile in her voice feels like a promise") or in Risa Hugo's illustrations rendered in gouache, coloured pencils and soft pastel, or in both, I could not speculate. All I know is that, if I had child undergoing medical treatment and wanted to comfort a younger sibling, a reading of A Summer Without Anna would be restorative.