Cross My Heart

Lucy’s hopes started to drop like pebbles tossed overboard that slowly settle into the sand. “And, uh, we can find the house.” Lucy didn’t feel so confident now. How? Where? We don’t eve know anyone here. Remember? That’s why you want to stay with Grammy this summer. She didn’t know anyone and nothing good was going to happen. Lucy let the paper drift onto the table by her dad’s papers.

Book: Cross My Heart (Hidden Diary) by Sandra Byrd, Bethany House Publishers, 2001

(Links are for e-book, paperback collections of books 1-4, and paperback of #1)

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Target Audience:  Girls 11-14

Subjects: Friendship, Parent relationships, Prayer, Faith

Summary: Yet another summer stuck in some random remote place where she knows no one. Lucy is pretty much fed up with her parents’ summer work trips. Between her dad’s scientist duties and her mom’s painting, no one has time for Lucy. All she wants is to go back and stay with her Grammy and spend the entire summer with her cousin – a kid her age for once! That starts to slowly change when she finds the hidden letter though. One thing leads to another, to another and soon she and an ancestor of the original writers of the letter are reading an old diary written by two best friends. It describes their summer adventures. Lucy would like to read through it with Serena, but she’s all too aware of her “new girl” status. In fact, when she starts trying to make friends with the group of girls her age, one makes it quite clear that Lucy is NOT welcome! Lucy just doesn’t know what to do anymore!

Notes: Cross My Heart is the first in the Hidden Diary series. The series tells of two twelve year old girls on an island for the summer. One is a local, the other has parents doing projects for their jobs while on the island. When the girls find a hidden diary they pledge to read a section a week and do the same kind of adventure the girls from long ago wrote about.

In this first book, the focus is on setting up the friendship and the details for how to read the diary and how to respond to what they read.

The spiritual emphasis in this book has to do with Lucy’s parents coming back to the Lord. Their whole family was saved at a family camp years ago but drifted away from it. Now her parents have reaffirmed their decision and are trying to not only grow themselves, but encourage Lucy to as well. Lucy is reluctant to start in this first book. But when she finally does pray, she is reminded that God is always there, hearing and listening to prayers.

Spiritual Content Recommendation Scale: 4/4

Reviewer: J:-)mi

Deuteronomy 31:8 - The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged."