Twelve-year-old Franklin comes to Yokum—a large vacation lodge in Western Massachusetts—as part of a family plot to curb his Mother’s embarrassing suffragist work after Mother gets herself arrested in Washington. For a season they manage the lodge, while Mother, undaunted and unstoppable, recruits the local farmwomen to her cause. Yokum’s set up for happy adventures, and the story galumphs along like an overgrown puppy until a surprising, but wholly believable, tragedy gives it weight and resonance. Hurst has her historical details just right—gassed soldiers from Ypres are among the lodge guests—but the finely drawn characters and excellent dialogue are what bring her story to life. Readers will be drawn in before they know it, and will find the whole more than the sum of its chapters. (Fiction. 9-12)
