It's interesting to read books that have belonged to family members, but especially charged after that person's death. It's hard to know what to bring to the text. The idea of this kind of childhood / summer is always very alienating to me -- I think there's something particular about the boy's perspective that is hard, because I've very much enjoyed Elizabeth Enright's "Thimble Summer" even though it's about a summer and childhood that is equally alien to me.