acknowledgments

I was doing a last-minute check of my laptop’s trash one day when I opened a story I’d started over a year before. I’d only written a few chapters and didn’t know what to do with it anymore, and being the hater of clutter than I am, I had tossed it. But then I gave it one last read, and something stopped me. How could I throw out a story set in Disney World, my favorite place in the world, during the eighties, the time I grew up? I’d make it work somehow. I had to finish it! Those chapters turned into Summer of Yesterday, a love letter to a place and time forever etched into my heart.

Like Haley, there are people in our lives who believe in us. Like Jason, they risk a lot to support us. But those who bring us down are important as well. They give our lives obstacles, conflict, so our victories can be sweeter. So I’d like to thank everyone who played a part in getting this book out. To the one who said, “She won’t succeed,” thank you for pissing me off, making me want to win even more. To the one who said, “She doesn’t have what it takes,” thank you for forcing me to work harder. To the one who said, “I don’t believe in her,” thank you for helping me find angels who do. But mostly, thanks to my children—Noah, Murphy, and Michael—for keeping me focused and filling my life with purpose; my mother, Yolanda, for being the only person who read the entire draft when the world was too busy; my father, Oscar, for taking me to Fort Wilderness when I was little and shooting video of River Country and the train that’s no longer there; SCBWI Florida, my thirteen-year-long support system; my editor, Patrick Price, for understanding how important this story was to me and for fighting for it; my amazing agent, Deborah Warren, for taking a risk and believing in me when I needed it most.

Without these “folks,” a new generation would never know about River Country, an awesome, forgotten place in time. But most of all, my husband, Chris, who’s always said, “Don’t worry about anything . . . just write.” You have no idea how important that was to me. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.