Killykinick

Two boys. One summer. A world away from the halls of Saint Andrew's. Freddy Neville is frail, haunted by his father's disappearance, still recovering from illness that has left him feeling fragile in body and spirit. Dan Dolan is sharp-tongued and proud, a scholarship boy from the wrong side of the tracks who fights twice as hard for every inch of respect. When these unlikely companions are dispatched to Killykinick for the summer, they must navigate more than just the excitement of escape from school walls. A dangerous fall, a health scare, and the quiet intimacy of shared secrets gradually strip away the defenses that protect two very different boys from the same loneliness. Waggaman writes with tender specificity about the particular ache of childhood vulnerability and the fierce, clumsy tenderness of learning to trust someone unlike yourself. This is an old-fashioned tale of growth, friendship across class lines, and the summer that teaches two boys they are more than the circumstances of their birth.