The "step" in stepsister comes from the Old English word stéop-, which meant "bereaved" or "orphaned." It traces back to a root that means bereft or pushed out.
This extraordinarily wise and tender graphic novel for 9-to-12-year-old readers grapples with those feelings of loss — and with where essential connections remain. Stepsisters Kenzie and Quinn overhear their stepparents (Kenzie's dad and Quinn's mom) arguing. With barely a word, Smith visually depicts the anguish of listening to their stepparents fight and the cling-to-each-other consolation of siblings who know exactly how freaked out the other feels.
Aware of the household strife and wanting to give the girls a reprieve, their grandmother takes them with her for the summer to the barrier islands of North Carolina's Outer Banks, famous for herds of wild horses. There they can begin to grapple with the uncertainty of their future — will they will even continue to live together as part of the same family, if their stepparents split up? Yet they also build new layers of closeness around their shared fascination with and protective feelings towards the horses, feelings that come to a head when an intense storm endangers the foal they've come to love.
Nike Smith is an artist, a lover of comics, and the author of a variety of award-winning and -nominated graphic novels, including Sea Legs (a collaboration with Jules Bakes), The Golden Hour, and the Lambda Literary Award-nominated works The Deep & Dark Blue and Crossplay. In Midsummer Sisters she deftly captures a complex array of feelings and family dynamics with skillful understanding and plenty of humor. You could not find a better book for realistically portraying, in a fraught and beautiful world, what's true about resilient love.
