In her novel for middle grade readers entitled What Happened Then, Erin Soderberg Downing writes about family and the generational trauma that gets passed down.
Twelve-year-old Avery knows she’s best in small doses. “Every time I try to fade, I fail . . . and flare instead. In a crayon box of colors, I’m the shocking pink and laser lemon” (5). Although she wishes to be less exuberant and less talkative, she hasn’t yet mastered moderation. “I know I’m too much. Too loud, too annoying, too big for any room I step into. . . . I wish I could edit and refine myself, like we do with our writing at school, so that no one ever has to see the rough draft that is me” (68).
When Avery’s Aunt Robbie invites the family to the island on Crooked Lake where they all used to spend summers as children, Avery hopes that time on the island will help her dad relax and get a break from his daughter’s energy and from everything else that stresses him out. She also hopes that her mom will “remember some of the old, good times from when she was a kid and help her find her happiness” (19).
But once all of the siblings and their current families arrive on the island, they all seem uncomfortable. Avery wonders why they never spend time together. “What broke this family into a collection of shattered pieces that never got glued back together” (25).
Avery’s cousin Jax is similarly unhappy with himself and with his current situation off the grid. “My dad makes it very clear that I’m not worth being friends with in real life. Online, I can fake it. Here on the island, there is no online world. No bars on my phone, no PC to dive into. Nowhere to hide from the real world and my real family and the real fact that I’m not the kind of guy who’s worth spending much time with” (86).
When the group collectively wonders why Aunt Robbie hijacked their summer to spend it trapped on an island, Robbie tells them she has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as ALS. This nervous system disease makes a person lose muscle control. With fewer than two years to live, Robbie wants to get the island ready for sale and wishes for the family to have one final summer together.
With everyone so on edge, Avery and Jax decide to dig into the mystery of what happened when their parents were kids spending summers on an island estate in the middle of Crooked Lake. How could so many good memories have soured with time? How could this place that holds so much magic and wonder turn into something so broken and dark?
As the two tweens discover diary pages written by one of their aunts and gradually piece together the family’s tragic story, they discover that “even broken things can be pieced back together with the right love and care” (93). The duo further learns that we all need the opportunity “to escape from the anchors other people have tied to us and show everyone that we can do more, that we can shape our own adventures” (135).
- Donna