(++++) SEASONAL SEASONINGS

Summer Is for Cousins. By Rajani LaRocca. Illustrated by Abhi Alwar. Abrams. $17.99.

     No matter what season the calendar tells us it is, there is always room for some warm-weather fun – and it can be found in books, even when real-life weather may be a touch on the chilly side. Rajani LaRocca’s Summer Is for Cousins is as warm and warm-hearted as can be, neatly presenting the simple summer story of a large and varied Indian family enjoying vacation with “all of us cousins,” as the caption on one photo puts it. Indeed, there are no fewer than seven cousins, plus the parents of narrator Ravi, plus two uncles, two aunts, and a set of grandparents (Thatha and Pati). LaRocca makes the straightforward tale entertaining by including small homespun touches (“I used to be the youngest, but now there’s baby Leela”) and a little bit of uncertainty/mystery (will Ravi’s oldest cousin, Dhruv, still share Ravi’s preference for a certain specific flavor of ice cream?).

     The inside front and back covers and their facing pages, very nicely illustrated by Abhi Alwar, encapsulate the mood of the entire book, showing what appear to be Polaroid photos (certainly not cellphone ones) that make everyday occurrences into the stuff of which memories are made. One photo is captioned “Headstand Contest” and shows two of the kids standing on their heads; one shows a double-scoop ice-cream cone and is captioned “MMMMM”; another, showing a rowboat being paddled in the lake near the summer home where everyone is staying, is captioned “Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Merrily”; still another shows everyone gathered around a birthday cake and is captioned “Surprise!!”

     And those are just the non-narrative parts of the book. The actual story starts with everyone arriving at “a house that’s not any of ours” but is near both the ocean and a lake, after which everyone tumbles inside and then comes right back out again to go for ice cream. There are beach scenes and lake scenes, experiments and gentle competitions involving paddleboarding and floating and mini golf, games with a rope swing, and lots of time in the water. “We spend our days biking, playing, reading, napping,” Ravi explains, and Alwar’s illustrations of these ordinary-but-meaningful activities bring LaRocca’s simple narration alive and help cement the underlying idea of the book, which is as much about family togetherness as it is about summertime fun.

     Nothing derails the pleasures of this time for this group, even when the weather occasionally fails to cooperate: “When it rains, we stay inside and work on a huge puzzle with tiny pieces.” And food – not just ice cream – is a big part of the extended get-together. Some of it is ethnic (fish curry with naan, lemon rice and korma), some of it is quintessentially American (veggie burgers and corn, “pizza oozing with gooey cheese”), and all of it is thoroughly enjoyed by everyone – as the illustrations make abundantly clear. And the theme of ice cream recurs again and again, not only through Ravi’s mild concerns about Dhruv’s flavor preference (which, of course, turns out not to have changed) but also through an amusing scene in which Ravi offers to make dessert for everyone, does some things in the kitchen, then brings a big and heavy ball outside and gets everybody to roll the ball around – it turns out to be an ice-cream-making ball, so the game concludes with a delicious homemade after-dinner treat.

     Everything is delicious, literally and figuratively, in Summer Is for Cousins: the time of year, the travel, the temporary residence, the games and other activities, and, most of all, the interactions among the many members of the family (including the dog). There is no conflict, no trouble, no arguing, no sign of unhappiness anytime or about anything – it is about as perfect a summertime as anyone could wish for, no matter what season it may be when kids read the book and imagine experiencing or re-experiencing similar times in their own lives. It is simply a very sweet story, and not just because of the ice cream – although that certainly helps.