The Night Swimmers

Retta, Johnny, and Roy have no parental rules to follow, so they’ve made up their own
After their mother passes away, Retta, Johnny, and Roy don’t have much parenting in their lives. Their dad is a country singer who keeps them well fed but isn’t around much. Older sister Retta takes control, leading her brothers on all sorts of unwise adventures and promising that one day they’ll have money, safety, and a nice home. When their dad is away performing at night, they slip into a neighbor’s pool to swim and pretend to have a glamorous life beneath the light of the moon. But freedom doesn’t mean happiness, especially when a new crisis emerges. National Book Award winner The Night Swimmers is a moving story of siblings who can count on nobody but one another. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Betsy Byars including rare images from the author’s personal collection.
“Byars has the uncanny ability to know the secret lives . . . the outward postures, and the exact words her characters would surely use.” —The New York Times “. . . a solidly realized story propelled by original, huggably vulnerable characters.”—Kirkus Reviews
Betsy Byars (b. 1928) is an award-winning American author of more than fifty children’s and young adult titles, including The Summer of the Swans (1970), which earned her the Newbery Medal. She has also received a National Book Award for The Night Swimmers (1980) and an Edgar Award for Wanted . . . Mud Blossom (1991). Byars began writing in college and submitted stories to magazines while raising four children. Her first novel, Clementine, was published in 1962, and in the decades since, she became one of America’s best-loved authors for young readers, with popular series including Bingo Brown and the Blossom Family stories. Byars and her husband, Ed, are both licensed aircraft pilots and live above their own private hangar on an airstrip in Seneca, South Carolina.