Mem comes through it all and proves an even stronger character than she seemed in the previous book, facing her work with plenty of worry, but very matter of fact about the necessity of toiling on.

Tragedy all but inevitably strikes when Mama and Lily disappear into the bitterly cold countryside, where Mama dies. Papa, hoping to keep the family's troubles private, becomes increasingly taciturn, and is angry when Mere writes her grandmother for help. Mere names the baby Lily, shoulders Mama's chores and her own, and attempts to keep up with her studies and her dream of becoming a schoolteacher. Far worse than the crops is Mama's mental state after giving birth to a child she doesn't even name, she slips into homesickness and depression, and abandons all maternal and domestic responsibilities. One after another of Papa's corn plantings turns black he's out of seed and nearly out of resources. n the Genesee Country of western New York, where the Nyes moved from Connecticut to make a decent living farming, the planting and growing season of 1816 has been plagued by unexpected frosts. (Dec.The second installment of a frontier trilogy that began with Auch's Journey to Nowhere (1997) is the vivid story of courageous Mem Nye, who faces responsibilities that would tax a strong adult. Auch's attention to the unromantic details of pioneer life, combined with evocative description and unusually involving dialogue, gives her work uncommon dimension. Though the story is often heartbreaking, it concludes on a hopeful note, after a final tragedy unclouds Papa's vision and helps him recognize his family's needs. Though she longs to be attending school, Mem takes over the chores in their one-room cabin and lovingly cares for both baby Lily and their five-year-old brother, while their father stubbornly conceals his wife's condition from neighbors and others who would offer help. Homesick for her family and demoralized by the rigors of pioneering, Mama slips into one of her ''spells,'' and these become more frequent and more severe as the cataclysmic summer unfolds. For Mem, whose family moved from Connecticut the year before, the day is even more momentous: during the sudden blizzard her Mama gives birth to a baby girl then slides into a terrible depression.

As 12-year-old Mem, the narrator, recounts, June 6, 1816, is a date ''nobody in the Genesee Country of New York will ever forget.'' The day brings the first of a number of freak snowstorms and late-season frosts that kill the crops and threaten survival. Even better than its predecessor, Journey to Nowhere, this sequel gets its title and some of its exceptional historical color from the dire weather conditions that afflicted New England and New York in the summer of 1816.

Frozen summer mary jane auch