How Tia Lola Saved the Summer

  acknowledgments

  Just as Tía Lola gave each camper

  a magical sword,

  I am awarding

  each of you

  who helped me write this book

  a special sword

  to help you

  slay monsters,

  cut flowers,

  achieve your dreams,

  and much, much more.

  Also and always,

  my thanks and gracias

  to la Virgencita de la Altagracia.

  Swords go to: Brad Nadeau, Weybridge Elementary School, Weybridge 2009 Little League team, Coach Charlie Messenger, Roberto Veguez, Erica Stahler, Lyn Tavares, Susan Bergholz, Erin Clarke, Bill Eichner

  about the author

  Julia Alvarez’s novels for young readers include Return to Sender, Finding Miracles, Before We Were Free, How Tía Lola Learned to Teach, and How Tía Lola Came to Visit Stay, which Kirkus Reviews praised as “simple, bella, un regalo permanente—simple and beautiful, a gift that will stay.” She is also the award-winning author of How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, ¡Yo!, and In the Time of the Butterflies. She lives in Vermont with her husband and is a writer-in-residence at Middlebury College.

  Julia Alvarez grew up in the Dominican Republic with dozens upon dozens of aunties, or tías. “They were like my second mothers, and there always seemed to be one for any occasion or mood.… When I started writing my story about an aunt, I couldn’t pick just one. So I took a pinch of this aunt, a spoonful of that one, and a cup of this other one—whatever I needed to make up my Tía Lola!”