Book Description
Twelve-year-old Mitch Sinclair is spending the summer after his parents separate with his grandparents at Bird Lake, and ten-year-old Spencer Stone returns to the lake where his brother drowned long ago. The whole time Spencer and Mitch hang out together at Bird Lake, there are secrets keeping them apart - and maybe a secret knowledge keeping them together. There are ghosts at Bird Lake, and they're haunting Mitch and Spencer. Not the Halloween kind, but ghosts of the past. Memories of how life was before - before the divorce, before the accident. Can their ghosts bring Mitch and Spencer together, as friends? Or will their secrets keep them apart? Either way, it is a summer that neither Mitch nor Spencer will ever forget.

About the Author
Kevin Henkes was born in 1960 in Racine, Wisconsin. Throughout his childhood, he and his family visited the local public library, making an important ritual out of selecting and carrying home books. Inspired by such illustrators as Crockett Johnson and Garth Williams, Kevin decided at an early age that he would be an artist, and enjoyed frequent visits to the nearby art museum. It was a high school teacher's encouragement of his writing, however, that gave Kevin the idea for his future career. His first picture book, drafted while he was still in high school, was accepted for publication when Kevin was just 19, an art major at the University of Wisconsin. Since then, he has worked steadily, writing and illustrating picture books and writing novels for young readers. He was awarded the Caldecott Medal for Kitten's First Full Moon, a Caldecott Honor for Owen and a Newbery Honor for Olive's Ocean. He lives with his family in Madison, Wisconsin.