It’s shaping up to be a rotten summer for 10-year-old Rusty, a sailing buff who lives on an island off the New England coast. He’s just flunked math and has to go to summer school. His older sister is bossier than ever. Worst of all, his mom is far away on the mainland—undergoing treatment for her sudden, confusing, and exhausting “sadness”—while his dad struggles to keep the household together. Rusty’s only refuge is in caring for and teaching himself to sail a small, beloved sailboat.

A character-driven novel about the unlikely friendship between a 10-year-old boy and an elderly woman. The old woman badgers the boy into taking her sailing, but when the weather turns bad, it becomes a wild sail. It becomes the last trip before she goes into the hospital where she dies: but not before the two of them share memories of their last sail together. Hazel helps build the boy's confidence during a tough time in his home life. Both moving and joyful, Into the Wind is a poignant s...