Item Detail

A few hours after nine-year-old Garnet Linden finds a silver thimble in the dried-up riverbed, the rains come and end the long drought on the farm. The rains bring safety for the crops and the livestock, and money for Garnet's father. Garnet can't help feeling that the thimble is a magic talisman, for the summer proves to be interesting and exciting in so many different ways.

There is the arrival of Eric, an orphan who becomes a member of the Linden family; the building of a new barn; and the county fair at which Garnet's carefully tended pig, Timmy, wins a blue ribbon. Every day brings adventure of some kind to Garnet and her best friend, Citronella. As far as Garnet is concerned, the thimble is responsible for each good thing that happens during this magic summer-- her thimble summer.

---

'One of the best written of this season's juveniles.... will interest both girls and boys, since it is about Garnet Linden and her brother Jay, and can find readers up to twelve and over. The setting is a middle-western farm, and the descriptions of wind and weather are vivid and authentic. There is a truly American quality about it that delighted me.' - Rosemary Carr Benet, The Saturday Review of Literature.

Elizabeth Enright (1909-1968) was born in Oak Park, Illinois, but spent most of her life in or near New York City. Her mother was a magazine illustrator, while her father was a political cartoonist. Illustration was Elizabeth Enright's original career choice and she studied art in Greenwich, Connecticut; Paris, France; and the Parson's School of Design in New York City.

After creating her first book in 1937, she developed a taste, and quickly demonstrated a talent, for writing. Throughout her life, she won many awards, including the 1939 John Newbery Medal for Thimble Summer and a 1958 Newbery Honor for Gone-Away Lake. Among her other beloved titles are her books about the Melendy family, including The Saturdays, published in 1941.

Translated into many languages throughout the world, Elizabeth Enright's stories are for both the young and the young at heart.