{"id":13360,"date":"2022-05-21T11:57:04","date_gmt":"2022-05-21T17:57:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/?p=13360"},"modified":"2022-05-21T11:57:04","modified_gmt":"2022-05-21T17:57:04","slug":"summers-idyll-by-don-gutteridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/?p=13360","title":{"rendered":"Summer’s Idyll by Don Gutteridge"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A brilliant YA coming-of-age story with magnetic characters and literary flair\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set against the backdrop of World War II, Gutteridge\u2019s latest is a leisurely exploration of a boy\u2019s young life in a fictional Ontario lakeside town. It\u2019s summer of 1944. War is raging in Europe. Eleven-year-old Junior\u2019s father is away because of war, and things between his mother and grandparents are tense with whom they are living. With long summer days stretched ahead, Junior and other boys plan to put on a home-grown circus. Meanwhile, weird happenings are keeping the townsfolk on the edge. Gutteridge is an experienced writer and has created a wonderful character in Junior, who is sensitive yet tough and keenly aware of his surroundings. He also has a wicked way with observations. Readers will feel his agony over his mother and grandmother\u2019s dwindling relationship, his adolescent trepidations around opposite sex, and his growing fear about his father\u2019s posting in the active war zones. Through Junior\u2019s personal journey, Gutteridge brings out the spirit of the small Ontario lakeside town while delving into questions of love, familial relationships, longing, old-fashioned teenage angst, adolescent sexuality, and how war affects not only nations but the individuals fighting it and those close to them. Despite its exploration of weighty subjects, the narrative never gets bogged down with heaviness; on the contrary, Gutteridge\u2019s writing keeps the things light and fun. The novel alternates between Junior\u2019s home life and his leisurely outings with his friends, capturing the group of friends as passionate, occasionally rancorous adolescents. Readers will root for the boys as they try to make their circus a success. Steeped in the rhythms of the small Canadian town, this beautifully rendered coming-of-age story is a must-read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Summer’s Idyll<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don Gutteridge<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buy now<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pub date August 4, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ISBN 978-0887535932<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Price $20.00 (USD) Paperback, $3.15 Kindle edition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A brilliant YA coming-of-age story with magnetic characters and literary flair\u2026 Set against the backdrop of World War II, Gutteridge\u2019s latest is a leisurely exploration of a boy\u2019s young life in a fictional Ontario lakeside town. It\u2019s summer of 1944. War is raging in Europe. Eleven-year-old Junior\u2019s father is away because of war, and things between his mother and grandparents are tense with whom they are living. With long summer days stretched ahead, Junior and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145610851,"featured_media":13361,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[],"tags":[7223,91,3328,178,1747,1136176,91586,1473,1008073,856121,309,349],"class_list":["post-13360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-author","tag-blogging","tag-book-reviews","tag-books","tag-fiction","tag-indie-books","tag-literary-fiction","tag-reading","tag-review-blog","tag-review-website","tag-reviews","tag-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pajKJn-3tu","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/summers-idyll.jpg?fit=333%2C500&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/145610851"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13360"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13375,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13360\/revisions\/13375"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}