• Age: 10 to 13
• Grade: 5 to 8

Summer has just been made captain of her junior high school basketball team when her coach is “lost' in a plane crash.

Returning to school, Summer discovers: a) the most popular all-star player's step-dad is now the coach, and he's a jerk b) the team's already working hard to lump her in with the team “loser', Dodie, and c) she can see the woeful ghost of Coach Nola when she plays ball.

Although Dodie's keen to help Summer work on the ghost problem “and turns out to be a quick thinkerwho's good at getting out of trouble — Summer's popularity is so fragile she can't afford to be friends with her. The team ostracizes both of them, and the coach makes it worse by never allowing Dodie on court, even in practice! With a crappy coach and a broken team that refuses to acknowledge its captain, they begin their worst season ever.

Summer's running out of ideas, and facing blocks at every play. If the ghost is sending her energy through Summer to try to help them, Summer's failing her miserably. Or could it even be Dodie controlling Coach Nola's ghost to get her revenge on the team?

Autumn, One Spring is Patti Grayson's first novel. A popular book clubs selection, it was short listed for The Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction and the Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher at the 2011 Manitoba Book Awards. Her short fiction collection, Core Samples (Turnstone Press, 2004), also garnered nominations for two Manitoba Book Awards. Patti has worked as a school librarian, advertising copywriter, puppeteer, and actor. She lives near Winnipeg, Manitoba.

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