Twelve-year-old Summer and her younger brother, Jaz, live in Kansas, but spend months every year on the road, following the wheat harvest. Summer's parents and grandparents are combine drivers and join the Parker crew each season. This year, with her parents in Japan helping relatives, it's just Summer and Jaz and their grandparents. Jiichan is driving a combine and Obaachan is the cook for the harvest crew, with Summer as her assistant. Cynthia Kadohata's thoughtful novel is grounded in Summer's point of view, which broadens and brightens over a season of incredible hard work and unexpected challenges. Summer is convinced her family is plagued by bad luck, but it turns out luck is like people-never simple. From her prickly grandmother, to critical Mrs. Parker and other members of the crew, to Jaz, who has a hard time socializing and a hard time with anger when he's frustrated and who is never defined or explained with a label, Summer is challenged to embrace the complications and contradictions that come with people and with life. It's not about luck, it's about perspective, and the willingness to try. Kadohata's characters are revealed, slowly, skillfully, and beautifully, over the course of this quietly compelling narrative that also illuminates a fascinating dimension of American farm life. (Ages 10-13)

'Kouun is "good luck" in Japanese, and one year my family had none of it.'

Just when Summer thinks nothing else can possibly go wrong, an emergency whisks her parents away to Japan, right before harvest season. But the mortgage has to be paid, and so Summer's grandparents are going to help with harvest instead - taking Summer, her little brother Jaz and their dog Thunder with them.

Obaachan and Jiichan are… well, they're old fashioned, and demanding. Between helping Obaachan cook for the workers, covering for her when her back pain worsens, and worrying about her little brother, who can't seem to make any friends, Summer has her hands full. Then one of the boys who Summer has known forever starts paying extra attention to her. But what begins as a welcome distraction from the hard work soon turns into a mess of its own… and once again Summer ends up disappointing Obaachan.

But that's the thing about luck - bad luck can always get worse. And when that happens, Summer has to figure out how to change it and save her family, even if it means further displeasing Obaachan. Surely kouun is coming soon…?