The Penderwicks on Gardam Street

Starred review from April 28, 2008
Happy families are not all alike, as previously met characters continue to prove.
The Penderwicks on Gardam Street
Jeanne Birdsall
. Knopf
, $15.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-375-84090-6

This sequel to Birdsall's National Book Award winner, The Penderwicks
, has even more charm than the original. The prologue hits the only maudlin note, flashing back to Mrs. Penderwick on her deathbed as she instructs her husband's sister, Claire, to make sure he finds love again after sufficient mourning. The Penderwick sisters—Rosalind, Jane, Skye and Batty—learn of this valediction four years later when Aunt Claire begins arranging blind dates. An emergency MOPS (Meeting of Penderwick Sisters) hatches the Save Daddy plan, in which the girls orchestrate dates so dreadful their father will see widowed life is best. Neighbors on Gardam Street include football-playing brothers Nick and Tommy (the latter plays Tracy to Rosalind's Hepburn), and two newcomers: a widowed professor and her toddler baby. Middle sisters Jane and Skye, who share a room but nothing else, steal the show by swapping homework assignments with hilariously catastrophic results. It's sheer pleasure to spend time with these exquisitely drawn characters, girls so real that readers will feel the wind through their hair as they power down the soccer field. Ages 8–12.

Starred review from March 1, 2008
Gr 4-8-The Penderwick sisters are back. Their Aunt Claire has come for a visit, bringing with her a letter from their late mother that encourages their father to date, and an immediate crisis ensues, as the girls assume that this is the first step on the treacherous road to having a stepmother. After frantic consultation, they implement the "Save Daddy" plan, designed to set him up with perfectly dreadful women so that he will not want to date again. Numerous subplots add to the domestic drama. Skye struggles with her temper on the soccer field. Rosalind and neighbor Tommy experience a frustrated romance. Skye and Jane switch homework assignments, leading to a school performance of Jane's Aztec drama, with everyone thinking that it was penned by Skye. While the solution to the dating dilemma can be seen from the beginning, the sisters are so caught up in their drama that they can't see who's right next door. Laugh-out-loud moments abound and the humor comes naturally from the characters and situations. Especially funny is the scene in which the youngest Penderwick hides in the car hoping to spy on one of her father's dates. Like much of the book itself, this scene resolves itself in a tender moment between father and daughter. This is a book to cherish and to hold close like a warm, cuddly blanket that you draw around yourself to keep out the cold."Tim Wadham, Maricopa County Library District, Phoenix, AZ"

Copyright 2008 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2008
The Penderwick sisters, who made a splash in their first eponymous novel (which wona 2005 National Book Award) returnin another warm family story.An opening chapter, which might bring a tear to the eye, tellshow the girls mother died right afterBattys birth. Now, some four years later, Aunt Clairepresents the girls father with a letterfrom his late wife, telling him itstime to start dating. Rosalind, Skye, Jane, and Batty beg to differand come up with a harebrained scheme to thwart Mr. Penderwick. But the girls arent just focused on their father. Rosalind has her own romantic entangelments; and Skye and Jane write compositions for each other, which leads to myriad problems. Meanwhile, little Batty has become enamored of the widow and her baby son who live next door. Theres never much suspense about where all this is going, but things happen in suchtouchingways that the story is hard to resist. As in the previous book, Birdsall seems to get inspiration frombooks like Sydney Taylors All-of-a-Kind Family andthe movie Meet Me in St. Louisjust the sort of cozy fare thats missing in todays mean-girl world.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)