The Six Summers of Tash and Leopold by Danielle Binks

Title: The Six Summers of Tash and Leopold

Author: Danielle Binks

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Publisher: Hachette Australia

Published: 28^th August 2024

Format: Paperback

Pages: 312

Price: $17.99

Synopsis: A new middle-grade novel for fans of Danielle Binks’ bestselling The Year the Maps Changed and for anyone who enjoys a big, hopeful, coming-of-age middle-grade book that features complicated families and life-changing summers.

Alytash and Leopold – Tash and Leo – are neighbours who used to be best friends, but aren’t anymore, for reasons that Leo doesn’t entirely understand. But now it’s the last week of Year Six and Tash is standing in Leo’s front yard with a misdelivered letter – and a favour to ask.

It’s a request that will set off a chain of events in their little crescent in Noble Park, a suburb that is changing, and fast.

As they solve an unfolding neighbourhood mystery and help Ms Shepparson, a reclusive neighbour with a tragic past, Tash and Leo each has to confront fault lines in their own recent histories and families.

They will discover that friendships can grow and change, that bravery takes many forms, and that, most of all – whatever the future holds – friends and family are what matter.

Six Summers of Tash and Leopold is for fans of Katherine Paterson’s Bridge to Terabithia and Nova Weetman’s The Secrets We Keep, as well as Danielle Binks’ previous bestseller, The Year the Maps Changed – and for anyone who enjoys a big, hopeful, coming-of-age middle-grade book that features complicated families and life-changing summers.

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Alytash and Leopold live in the same neighbourhood, and were best friends years ago – but one day, Tash ended things abruptly, and Leo has never really understood why. During the last week of Year Six, Tash turns up at Leo’s door with a misdelivered letter. And she also has a favour she wants from him – a message to deliver to her newer friends at school. This request is what kicks off the novel as Tash and Leopold find out about the goings on in Noble Park, the suburban development they live in. Beyond number 7, where the final owner-resident, Ms Shepparson lives, there’s a development going up. These new changes will bring things to light about Ms Shepparson’s tragic past, and why she’s reclusive.

But there’s more than that going on. Leo is about to start at a fancy private school, away from Tash and everyone he has gone to school with. He’s not sure about the new school, and everything he is going through with Tash is forcing them to re-examine their relationship. Coupled with this, they both have tragic histories and family pasts to contend with that will complicate things. Leopold’s father is living in another state, working elsewhere, whilst Tash’s family is home-schooling her. And Leo is finding Como College hard – he doesn’t want to go, but he finds he can do the work well enough. But at the heart of this school refusal are deeper issues to do with his father’s absence and the fact that Leo doesn’t feel like anyone is listening to him. Nobody asked him what he wanted – he sat the scholarship exam and went because he thought it was what everyone wanted for him. As this novel is set in a post-COVID world (the term the book uses), it explores the years that kids like Leo and Tash spent doing at-home learning during the lockdowns, and how this affected them.

Whilst Leo was happy at his primary school where he was a library leader with his friend, Rami, now he’s adrift. Things aren’t certain in anyway as he transitions from childhood to being a teenager. It’s a tough time for all kids, for a range of reasons, and Tash and Leo’s story highlights some of the ways these transitions can be hard for them. I found this to speak to a wider experience that many kids might have had – giving these children and teens a voice to speak about why they don’t want to go to school. In Leo and Tash’s case, it could be about fear and anxiety. Fear about starting something and having to stop because you get sick or have to move away. Fear and anxiety about not fitting in, or spending the long journey thinking about why you don’t belong. I felt that Danielle did this sensitively and eloquently because not wanting to go to school and school refusal can happen to anyone at any time. What Leo and Tash’s experiences showed was that these students need support from the school and families to find a way to deal with the situation or find a different solution if that’s what works.

The Six Summers of Tash and Leopold is also filled with wonderfully diverse characters. Leo has Polish heritage, Tash has mixed race South African heritage, and the peripheral characters come from various backgrounds: Rami is Indian, Fatemah has Muslim heritage, and the librarian at their primary school is non-binary. This representation is important to show readers how diverse the world is on the outside and the inside. In this novel, issues around mental health, addiction, invisible illness or disability and agoraphobia are shown. It highlights that nobody is immune to getting sick in some way. I loved that it showed people from a diverse array of backgrounds getting along, and the lovely way two characters that at first, may not have been friends came together. It showed growth and development at a time in childhood when friendships can change and fracture or repair.

I’ve read each book that Danielle has released over the years, and they just seem to get better with each book. She explores diverse themes in every book, and lets each character develop as they need to, in ways that help them grow. It is a great middle grade novel that young adult readers may also be able to relate to. This is a touching novel of hope, friendship and coming-of-age in tough times and circumstances.