Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
Summer at Forsaken Lake
With their father en route to Africa for Doctors Without Borders, city-kids Nicholas and younger twin sisters Haley and Hetty are off to spend the summer with their Great-Uncle Nick at his house on Forsaken Lake. Despite some initial doubts, Nicholas is right at home in the country: he learns to sail, learns about his father as a boy, and makes fast friends with a local-gi...more
Paperback, 336 pages
Expected publication:
June 11th 2013
by Yearling
(first published June 12th 2012)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
This book is not yet featured on Listopia.
Add this book to your favorite list »
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
294)
Summary:
Nicholas and his twin sisters (Haley and Hetty) are being shipped from New York City off to their Uncle Nick's house for the summer. At first Nicholas does not want to go; however, he is soon learning how to sail, attempting to hit the greatest curve ball he has ever seen, and reading everything about sailing he can get his hands on. He also finds out some new things about his father. In a secret compartment in the room his father used to stay in, he finds an old movie and script. The mo...more
Nicholas and his twin sisters (Haley and Hetty) are being shipped from New York City off to their Uncle Nick's house for the summer. At first Nicholas does not want to go; however, he is soon learning how to sail, attempting to hit the greatest curve ball he has ever seen, and reading everything about sailing he can get his hands on. He also finds out some new things about his father. In a secret compartment in the room his father used to stay in, he finds an old movie and script. The mo...more
Nicholas is not looking forward to spending the summer with his twin sisters, Haley and Hetty at his Uncle Nick’s house at Forsaken Lake. Nick’s Dad is a doctor and he is going to Africa to help out people who need it in the Doctors Without Borders program. Things start to get interesting when Nick finds a secret compartment in his Uncle’s house. The compartment is filled with stuff from Nick’s dad. One of the things in the compartment is a movie made by Nick’s father. The movie is about the leg...more
view 2 comments
12 year old Nicholas Mettleson and his younger twin sisters have been sent to spend the summer in Demming, Ohio where their father spent summers growing up. It's a different world from NYC, but "Uncle Nick" - who doesn't have a tv - turns out to be a really great guy and soon he's teaching them how to sail on the lake. Nicholas makes friends with a girl named Charlie who can throw a curve ball no one can hit, learns how to ride a bike, and discovers a secret compartment with an unfinished movie...more
Summer At Forsaken Lake
by
Michael D. Beil
My" in a nutshell" summary...
Nicholas and his twin sisters are sent to live with their great Uncle Nick for the summer in his house on a lake. Adventure and mystery are par for the course!
My thoughts after reading the book...
This is such a lovely wholesome book...the opportunity to spend the summer with a really wonderful uncle on a lake with access to sailboats and bikes and diners and new friends and animals and ice cream parlors and onion rings! Big bas...more
by
Michael D. Beil
My" in a nutshell" summary...
Nicholas and his twin sisters are sent to live with their great Uncle Nick for the summer in his house on a lake. Adventure and mystery are par for the course!
My thoughts after reading the book...
This is such a lovely wholesome book...the opportunity to spend the summer with a really wonderful uncle on a lake with access to sailboats and bikes and diners and new friends and animals and ice cream parlors and onion rings! Big bas...more
I LOVED this Book!
At first, because of all the family drama and the "sent away to grandpas house" I thought it would be drawn out stupidly. Stereotype: "I hate my grandpa I wish I never came here", and then find out some mysterious thing that makes them want to stay and whatever. Instead I found familial love, pure love, and true friendship - the kind that is never really lost but only forgotten.
Nicholas and Charlie make a dynamic duo - all fun here! I fell in love with both their characters and...more
At first, because of all the family drama and the "sent away to grandpas house" I thought it would be drawn out stupidly. Stereotype: "I hate my grandpa I wish I never came here", and then find out some mysterious thing that makes them want to stay and whatever. Instead I found familial love, pure love, and true friendship - the kind that is never really lost but only forgotten.
Nicholas and Charlie make a dynamic duo - all fun here! I fell in love with both their characters and...more
Just saw this book in store (haven't read yet), but title caught my eye as it reminds me of two of my favorites for re-reading, GONE-AWAY LAKE and RETURN TO GONE-AWAY by Elizabeth Enright (who, after I'd been a fan of her books for many decades, I found out recently was a niece of architect FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT. BTW, his distinctive style was alluded to when describing new home built for an adventurous elderly woman at end of Enright's SPIDERWEB FOR TWO).
Readers of any age in mood for books about...more
Readers of any age in mood for books about...more
Meh. About a third of the way into this novel I completely lost interest. I debated at first whether this was because the book is geared toward a younger audience than many of the other books I've read this summer, and if that was why the stakes seemed so low in the plot. But then I remembered that I had just finished "Diamond Willow" by Helen Frost, and how much I love Jeanne Birdsall's Penderwicks novels, and that made me change my tune.
The big problem seems to be what I'm experiencing in anot...more
The big problem seems to be what I'm experiencing in anot...more
Random House
June 2012
Ask Tim
Kirkus Reviews (May 1, 2012)
Summer is indeed a time for mystery and adventure. Instead of spending the summer with their divorced father, 12-year-old Nicholas Mettleson and his younger, identical twin sisters leave New York City and head to rural Ohio to live along Forsaken Lake with their great-uncle Nick, an arm amputee who never misses a beat. It's not long before Nicholas teams up with local star baseball player Charlotte "Charlie" Brennan, and the pair discovers...more
June 2012
Ask Tim
Kirkus Reviews (May 1, 2012)
Summer is indeed a time for mystery and adventure. Instead of spending the summer with their divorced father, 12-year-old Nicholas Mettleson and his younger, identical twin sisters leave New York City and head to rural Ohio to live along Forsaken Lake with their great-uncle Nick, an arm amputee who never misses a beat. It's not long before Nicholas teams up with local star baseball player Charlotte "Charlie" Brennan, and the pair discovers...more
Nicholas and his twin sisters Hayley and Hetty are sent to a small Ohio lake front town to stay with their great Uncle Nick while their father is off with Doctors Without Borders and their mother (from whom he is divorced) is busy with work in New York City. At first, Nicholas thinks that the summer will be completely boring... until he finds a movie his father made, meets Charlie (a really great baseball player and a girl), and learns to sail. His sisters are deep into Arthur Ransome's We Didn'...more
Richie’s Picks: SUMMER AT FORSAKEN LAKE by Michael D. Beil, Knopf, June 2012, 256p., ISBN: 978-0-375-89791-7
“Seldom stumble, never crumble
Try to tumble, life’s a rumble
Feel the stinging I’ve been given
Never ending, unrelenting
Heartbreak searing, always fearing
Never caring, persevering
Sail on, sail on sailor”
--The Beach Boys (1973)
“On the mound, the girl took a deep breath and let go. The pitch was chest high and well inside, and Nicholas instinctively jerked his head back—just in time to watch s...more
“Seldom stumble, never crumble
Try to tumble, life’s a rumble
Feel the stinging I’ve been given
Never ending, unrelenting
Heartbreak searing, always fearing
Never caring, persevering
Sail on, sail on sailor”
--The Beach Boys (1973)
“On the mound, the girl took a deep breath and let go. The pitch was chest high and well inside, and Nicholas instinctively jerked his head back—just in time to watch s...more
Nicholas dreads being sent away for the summer from bustling New York City to stay with his Uncle Nick in quiet Deming, Ohio, but when he settles into his tower bedroom overlooking the lake, he discovers a secret compartment that conceals a 30-year-old mystery—a mystery that Nicholas knows he must solve. Beil is the author of the successful Red Blazer Girls series, and he uses his nostalgic style to create the mystery in this novel, snagging the reader’s curiosity with Nicholas’s discovery of hi...more
This is a great MG novel that I highly recommend to parents and teachers alike. Filled with adventure, mystery, and intrigue, Beil takes his young readers on a ride that they won’t soon forget.
Originally, I thought that this novel was going to be a type of horror/suspense novel, with a seaweed monster and the like, but it actually turned out to be more focused on family values and coming of age, which I enjoyed. While I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t more dealing with a real live s...more
Originally, I thought that this novel was going to be a type of horror/suspense novel, with a seaweed monster and the like, but it actually turned out to be more focused on family values and coming of age, which I enjoyed. While I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t more dealing with a real live s...more
Nicholas and his twin sisters spend the summer with their Great Uncle Nick while their dad is in Africa working with Doctors Without Borders. Initially Nicholas is not thrilled with spending the summer in a small town in Ohio, (being from NYC). He gets struck out by a girl pitcher, Charlie, his first day in town, then befriends the girl for the summer. Nicholas learns to bike, sail, and uncovers some interesting secrets about his dad when his dad spent the summer of his fourteenth year on Forsak...more
Staying with their Uncle Ned while their father is away in Africa with Doctors without Borders, city kids, Nicholas, Hetty and Hayley, think they will be having a boring summer, but it turns out quite the opposite. Besides learning how to sail, they uncover a mystery about their dad when he was 14 years old - an unfinished movie that he was making and the script, a love letter and an unfinished sailboat. Along with their new friend, Charlie, who is the best pitcher Nicholas has ever encountered,...more
Sep 01, 2012
P Heath
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
children-s,
friendship
Swallows and Amazons fans, this one is for you! It's a feel good book about a NYC boy spending the summer at a lake in Ohio. He meets a girl (Charlie) who throws a mean curve ball and, improbably, is the daughter of his dad's crush when he was a kid at the lake. The mysteries to be solved include: a mysterious boat that can only be seen at night, a home made movie left unfinished by his dad and a love note found in a secret cupboard. Some are solved and some are left to interest us in the sequel...more
Nicholas Mettleson and his 10 year old twin sisters are sent to Ohio from their life in busy NYC to spend the summer with an uncle they barely know, while their parents are busy working. Needless to say, they are not very excited—what is there to do in the country? Once they get arrive and get to know their Uncle Nick and have time to explore, they start to have some fun. Nicholas meets Charlie, a girl with a mean curveball, she strikes him out on the first attempt. They become great friends any...more
Summer at Forsaken Lake by Michael D. Beil (of the Red Blazer Girl mysteries)
Very retro feel to this mystery adventure – homage to Arthur Ransome/We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea (another GREAT English SERIES/Swallows and Amazons from the 1940’s) Kids visit their great uncle in Ohio on a lake and take up sailing – hunt for the Seaweed Strangler, make a movie, friends, solve a mystery – great clean fun! Especially for the sailors or wannabe sailors. 4th-5th- 6th graders ? Give to those who liked the P...more
Very retro feel to this mystery adventure – homage to Arthur Ransome/We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea (another GREAT English SERIES/Swallows and Amazons from the 1940’s) Kids visit their great uncle in Ohio on a lake and take up sailing – hunt for the Seaweed Strangler, make a movie, friends, solve a mystery – great clean fun! Especially for the sailors or wannabe sailors. 4th-5th- 6th graders ? Give to those who liked the P...more
I enjoyed this little novel, with its well-developed characters and old-fashioned feel. It isn't flashy, but is a good solid read. It has inspired me to read Arthur Ransome's "We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea". It takes a little while to get into the plot, but once you are invested in the story, it moves right along to a satisfying conclusion. This would be a wonderful read for upper elementary and above who have an interest in sailing, with its many sailing terms and descriptions. It's also a nice b...more
When Nicholas and his sisters are sent to Ohio from New York City to stay with their great-uncle Nick they're sure it will be the worst summer ever. Yet when they arrive they soon discover there is a lot more to Deming, Ohio than they realized. They discover a love for sailing, meet new friends, and become involved in several mysteries.
I enjoyed the audio for the most part, but found the voices for the twins to be really forceful and unnatural for their age. Otherwise an enjoyable listen.
This i...more
I enjoyed the audio for the most part, but found the voices for the twins to be really forceful and unnatural for their age. Otherwise an enjoyable listen.
This i...more
The summer Nicholas is twelve and his twin sisters are ten, they go from New York City to a small town in Ohio, to spend the summer on Forsaken Lake with their father's uncle Nick. Their father spent some summers there when he was a kid--now he's a doctor, spending the summer working with malaria sufferers in Africa--but after something happened his fourteenth summer, he never went back. Nicholas and the twins soon settle in to an adventurous summer, learning to sail, making friends, reading Art...more
This is good, old-fashioned middle reader mystery at its best. No one died in this book. That need to sensationalize to keep up with today's youth was pleasantly absent. Nicholas and his twin sisters go to spend the summer at their uncle's house on Forsaken Lake and wind up on all sorts of adventures. They solve a case their dad had been accused in back in his youth, build a sailboat, milk cows, camp on the lake. It's a great age-appropriate story that still has plenty of depth. I thoroughly enj...more
As their father goes to Africa on a mission trip Nicholas and his younger twin sisters aren't crazy about leaving their home in NYC for a nice quiet summer with their great uncle Nick on Forsaken Lake in Deming, Ohio. Nicholas soon discovers that he, his sisters, and his new friend, a girl named Charlie, are having the time of their lives! Nicholas and Charlie work together to complete the sailboat his father started some 25 years ago, as well a complete a film his father had hidden away and nev...more
This is a quietly entertaining book with moments of suspense and excitement. Three children from NYC spend the summer with their great uncle Nick near a lake in Ohio where they have a very good time much to their surprise. Librarians will be pleased by the role of the local library in their summer activities. There is mystery, romance, and danger while sailing but the pace is leisurely.
This was a sweet mystery, perfect for those kids who parents don't want them to read anything with controversial topics. 12-year-old Nicholas and his younger sisters go to spend the summer with their great uncle at Forsaken Lake - something their father did for many years when he was a boy. During their stay they make new friends, learn how to sail, and discover and solve a mystery surrounding their father and a controversial incident that happened during his last summer at the lake.
I thought this was going to be a story about the horrible uncle the children have to stay with for the summer but he turned out to be a really great guy. The mystery that the children are trying to solve make the book interesting and me wanting to know "what happens next". This would be a great book for my 11 and 15 year old and for school libraries and teacher classrooms.
A treat as sweet and satisfying as my first butterscotch sundae! Seen through the lens of childhood nostalgia, this is summer as it should be. Endless days of sun, sweet awakenings, perfectly choreographed adventures (sailing, a summer tempest, boat building, film-making) with a topping of mystery and intrigue tasty enough for the most weary of readers.
New book that I hope will be nominated for the Twain Award next year. A 12 year-old boy and his sisters from NYC are sent to a great uncle's home in Ohio to spend their summer. They enjoy becoming part of the community, learning new skills, and making new friends. Good read for reluctant readers.
This book is about a 12 year- old boy named Nicholas who goes to spend the summer with his great uncle Nick. While there he finds a an old super 8 film reel entitled "The Seaweed Strangler" and a notebook that has the script for the film. In the notebook it says it was made by Nicholas's father. He then tries to find out the truth.
I was surprised when I started to read this. It had a pretty new idea. Some books I can tell that the idea's been done a million times before. It was well- paced, had...more
I was surprised when I started to read this. It had a pretty new idea. Some books I can tell that the idea's been done a million times before. It was well- paced, had...more
Amazing book! It is about a boy and his twin sisters that go to visit there great uncle Nick. He meets a girl named Charlie and together, they uncover secerets about her mom and his dad. They make a movie, a boat, and a friendship.
It is now one of my favorite books!:)
It is now one of my favorite books!:)
I really enjoyed the setting and characters of this book. It is definitely a read-alike for The Penderwicks series. However, boys would like Summer at Forsaken Lake as well. It was a sweet tale about kids enjoying life during a slow summer. Sigh.
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Michael D. Beil grew up in rural Ohio , where he learned to milk cows and other important lessons. He was a sailor, sailmaker and lawyer before finding his true calling in 1997: Teacher.
Since 2001, he has taught English and drama at Saint Vincent Ferrer, an all-girls Catholic high school in Manhattan, where he also wrote and produced Aftershocks, a play based on the challenges facing the immigrant...more
More about Michael D. Beil...
Since 2001, he has taught English and drama at Saint Vincent Ferrer, an all-girls Catholic high school in Manhattan, where he also wrote and produced Aftershocks, a play based on the challenges facing the immigrant...more
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
