It starts out with Karen, Hannie, and Nancy talking about what they're going to do on summer break. It turns out that Hannie's family is going on vacation and Nancy's family is having guests, so neither one of them will be available to play with Karen. Instead of being a giant brat about this and getting in a fight with her friends, Karen says she will plan something for the Fourth of July when Hannie will be back and Nancy's guests will be gone. Then Karen goes to help with corn for a cookout with her family.
Here is a picture of Karen eating corn with a couple of her stepbrothers. The smaller one is David Michael, who is supposed to have curly hair but rarely does in the illustrations [source: Kristy's Great Idea], and the other one, well, I don't know if that's meant to be Sam or Charlie but it is a very special drawing. As you can see, they are eating corn, hamburgers, possibly chicken, a bowl of scribbles, and a pan of scribbles. This book makes me hungry.
Karen finds out that some swimmer is going to be in Stoneybrook for the summer coaching the swim team for all ages. He got to the Olympic trials as a swimmer and now wants to coach. Watson calls for information and the community center says that the swim team is a fun summer activity open to swimmers of all ability levels, so he agrees to sign Karen up for the swim team for the summer. Karen makes a new friend there, Kristin, who is visiting in her aunt for the summer. Karen's classmate Terri is also on the swim team, even though she's not a very strong swimmer. Terri's twin sister Tammy is taking tennis lessons and not swim lessons. I appreciate that for once, the books actually don't have the twins doing the same activity.
So Karen makes better friends with Kristin and Terri. She invites them over and they make invitations and plans for the Fourth of July party Karen wants to have with Hannie and Nancy, and they also invite Terri's twin sister. The Kormans are out of town and have let Karen's family use the pool while they are gone, and Karen gets permission from her parents and the Kormans to have her party at their house and use their pool in the afternoon. Nannie helps Karen make red, white, and blue taffy. They also have a no-drip Popsicle eating contest. The main menu isn't spelled out, but they do have watermelon. The kids have fun because who doesn't like picnics? Communists that is who. Okay, well, I'll be honest and say that I don't personally really like picnics, but for some reason the one in this book always sounds fun to me. Maybe it's because most of the menu is left to imagination, and the foods they do have are not ones that get gross and dried out and kind of warm when eaten outside. So I can imagine eating watermelon outdoors and spitting the seeds, and I don't object to that the same way I object to taking a perfectly good sandwich and eating it outside so the pleasant breeze can dry it out and blow specks of dirt onto it. Another thing I like about the party is that even though Karen spent the summer playing with kids who were not Hannie and Nancy we do not have to read about anyone getting in a big fight. They just enjoy each other's company and it is a really sweet ending for the book.
Oh wait I left out the entire part with the main plot because the main plot sucked, oops. It turns out that Coach Awesome Swimmer is an asshole to the kids, because he wants them to be super good swimmers and win all the swimmer meets. He only helps the best swimmers during practice and doesn't help the sucky swimmers and then when the kids don't win the swim meets he is a dick. There's a chapter where is mean to Terri for doing the breaststroke poorly and makes her do it while everyone watches and he says hey kids this is how not to do the breaststroke! Look how bad Terri sucks at it! I can barely read this particular chapter because it ramps up my anxiety level so much. In another chapter, he forces Karen to do flip turns over and over until she is dizzy. Karen and the other kids talk to their parents and they say they will watch the coach, but then the coach is a lot nicer to the kids. Karen says she almost wishes he would be mean so the parents can see how he acts, but I don't know why she wants that. Wouldn't it be nicer if he had just randomly stopped being an asshole? But it doesn't last, and eventually he makes the kids do a bunch of dives off blocks in the rain and Watson confronts him and says, "Why are you making the kids practice in the rain?" The coach runs away and quits being the coach instead of saying "Well I'm not the one who drove the kids to practice in the rain so you don't have tons of room to talk asshole" so then the mean bad ogre of a competitive coach is gone and Karen and her friends can enjoy swimming again.
Also maybe i just sucked at swimming (OK, I sucked really bad at swimming) but they have the kids doing all the strokes at this part of the book and it just surprised me that 7-year olds would be doing the breaststroke and shit because I would expect them to know freestyle and maybe the backstroke but idk. Like I said, I sucked at swimming, so maybe it is expected that second graders should ought to know how to do a breaststroke.
