Summer of the Swans is a children's novel by Betsy Byars about fourteen-year-old Sara Godfrey's search for her missing, mentally challenged brother Charlie.

Sara is portrayed as a very superficial girl, obsessed with the way things (especially her body) look, and constantly frets about her feet, which she believes are too large.

Sara is very jealous of her, as she believes Wanda is beautiful, though it is Aunt Willie's opinion that they look exactly alike.

Sara has hated him ever since an incident where Charlie's watch went missing, and she believed Joe had taken it.

Sam Godfrey: Sara's father, who works in Ohio and visits on occasional weekends, prefers to distance himself from his family.

At the time of the book's publication, Kirkus Reviews said: "With increasing frequency juvenile fiction is contracting to the dimensions of a short story and the endoskeleton (dialogue, stage directions, asides to the audience) of drama--of which the climax to Sara's season of discontent is a good example...

"[1] In a retrospective essay about the Newbery Medal-winning books from 1966 to 1975, children's author John Rowe Townsend wrote, "The people in The Summer of the Swans are credible, tones of voice are accurately caught, and there is a frequent wry humor in the dialogue; but the book seems to me to be a slight one.

[3] (Brady Bunch costar Eve Plumb also appears in the TV special as Gretchen Wyant, a popular, pretty girl whom Sara also hates.