Umbrella+Summer

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Umbrella Summer **by Lisa Graff**

Annie Richards knows there are a million things to look out for—bicycle accidents, food poisoning, chicken pox, smallpox, typhoid fever, runaway zoo animals, and poison oak. That's why being careful is so important, even if it does mean giving up some of her favorite things, like bike races with her best friend, Rebecca, and hot dogs on the Fourth of July. Everyone keeps telling Annie not to worry so much, that she's just fine. But they thought her brother, Jared, was just fine too, and Jared died.

It takes a new neighbor, who looks as plain as a box of toothpicks but has some surprising secrets of her own, to make Annie realize that her plans for being careful aren't working out as well as she had hoped. And with a lot of help from those around her—and a book about a pig, too.

Will Annie ever find a way to close her umbrella of sadness and step back into the sunshine? (source: publisher-HarperCollins)

** Learn more about the Author ** author web site: - [|Lisa Graff]

Website for a Kids List of Phobias  []