Sea Glass Summer
Sea Glass Summer - Front Cover
Sea Glass Summer by Michelle Houts and illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline is a quiet book and probably one that may even be looked over. It’s a simple story about a boy spending the summer with his grandmother who lives by the sea. No talking animals, mystical creatures, or potty-humor; however, as I read this book there is a special love that quietly slips from the pages.
I love the take of a boy with his grandmother. It’s not a relationship that usually comes to mind and that’s part of the uniqueness of this book. Grandfather has passed on and the comfort you read and see through the illustrations makes me believe that this is what Thomas, the boy, does every summer.
One morning, Grandmother gives Thomas his grandfather’s old magnifying glass and they take it with them as they walk along the shore. Thomas investigates sand and shells. Along the way, his grandmothers picks something up he hasn’t seen before.
She opened her hand. “A piece of sea glass.”
I’ve found sea glass before and I keep every piece, but I never thought of the story behind it nor the specialness of it. Thomas’s grandmother has changed all that for me and for Thomas. She explains that glass found along the shore was once a full piece or an entire bottle - it used to be a whole something - then it somehow made its way to sea. Then it’s eventually broken up into bits, tossed and turned in salt water and sand, turning the pieces smooth and cloudy.
From this sweet lesson, Thomas learns a bit about this grandfather - he used to say that “each piece of sea glass has a story all its own”.
Thomas takes his treasure and places it on his nightstand and as he sleeps we get to drift into his dreams. He dreams of what the sea glass may have been in its “former life” and we get to see full-page, black and white illustrations of a bottle of champagne christening the USS Frank Knox.
On another night, we dream with Thomas of an old schooner caught in a storm and sinking with all its contents to the bottom of the sea.
This is Thomas’ “uneventful” summer.
“Each morning that summer, Thomas and his grandmother hurried down to the beach to see what the tide had left behind.”
Eventually, summer ends. They take the ferry to return to the mainland and Thomas drops his grandfather’s magnifying glass. We see from the illustrations that Thomas takes the broken pieces of glass and drops them into the sea (kind of like the old lady in Titanic only better).
Now, this would be a huge, sad ending, but there’s more! Many years later, it says, a girl named Annie arrives at a cottage with her family. This cottage is also by the sea. She is also on the shoreline, collecting. She finds a piece of…seaglass. She runs and takes it to her Papaw. His name is Tom. He takes a moment to study the piece of cloudy white glass and it feels familiar to him somehow. He echoes the words we’ve heard before, “You know, they say each piece of sea glass has a story all its own”.
Our ending is one of Annie, asleep, sea glass and shells resting on her nightstand. We get to float into one last dream - a dream about a boy named Thomas.
This book is about bonds. The bond between family and the bond to an actual physical thing that can carry some history with it. Now, who knows where the glass came from, but if we think about the possibility - what stories we could know! I find it fascinating. Again, it’s a soothing book - think of a quiet day at the beach where naptime is a must. The waves roll in and out upon the shore, the breeze is perfect, and the sun is warm. That’s this book.
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