Three Summers: A Memoir of Sisterhood, Summer Crushes, and Growing Up on the Eve of the Bosnian Genocide
by Amra Sabic-El-Rayess with Laura L. Sullivan
Intermediate, Middle School    Farrar    352 pp.
4/24    9780374390815    $18.99
e-book ed.  9780374390822    $11.99

After eleven-year-old Amra’s brother’s death from complications of Marfan syndrome, her mother’s remedy for Amra’s grief is to arrange for her cousin Žana to spend summers with Amra in Bihać, Bosnia. This vividly told and moving memoir takes place over three consecutive summers in the years leading up to the Bosnian Genocide (preceding the events of The Cat I Never Named, rev. 1/21). The first summer of romantic crushes and days spent lazing on the banks of the River Una helps Amra to heal. “I am ancient in the ways of trauma…but [Žana] shows me another way of being.” A sense of impending violence, however, undergirds the book’s carefree summer setting as simmering political and sectarian tensions slowly heat up. Tata (her father) is detained, interrogated, and loses his job, while anti-Muslim sentiments become more freely voiced. An author’s note provides a timeline for the Bosnian Genocide along with a “where they are now” update. The book smartly contrasts more lighthearted preteen drama with looming ethnic and religious tensions, resulting in an engaging reflection on disability and ethnic difference.

From the July/August 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.