The beloved family is back—and taking their final bow.
In this fifth and final title in the endearing series, the spotlight is on the youngest sibling, now-11-year-old Lydia, would-be dancer. Everyone’s gearing up for the wedding of eldest sister Rosalind, scrambling to ensure the happy couple can get hitched without a hitch at Arundel, the imposing estate where the Penderwick saga began (The Penderwicks, 2005). Thrown into the mix is an older brother who’s aspiring to be a film director; riotous animals, including a stair-climbing chicken and an independent-minded sheep; and snooty interference from the estate’s former owner. Lydia meets a new gal pal; gets embroiled in the arrangements of what eventually evolves into a double wedding; and emerges as her own winning personality. As in the other series titles, Birdsall writes with a knowing, breezy hand and infuses cozy, old-fashioned, humorous warmth into the proceedings while adhering to a white default. Occasionally, Lydia comes across as younger than her years. Still, readers will appreciate the younger girl’s antics and the numerous musical references (which threaten to date the novel) and will likely swoon over the wedding details, some unrealistic. Certainly, die-hard fans will rejoice that the author virtually promises that two very popular characters will wed several years hence. Is an encore to come?
Please don’t go, Penderwicks; it’s too soon to say goodbye. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: May 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-385-75566-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: March 18, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
Categories: CHILDREN'S FAMILY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
Did you like this book?
The author of the Anastasia books as well as more serious fiction (Rabble Starkey, 1987) offers her first historical fiction—a story about the escape of the Jews from Denmark in 1943.
Five years younger than Lisa in Carol Matas' Lisa's War (1989), Annemarie Johansen has, at 10, known three years of Nazi occupation. Though ever cautious and fearful of the ubiquitous soldiers, she is largely unaware of the extent of the danger around her; the Resistance kept even its participants safer by telling them as little as possible, and Annemarie has never been told that her older sister Lise died in its service. When the Germans plan to round up the Jews, the Johansens take in Annemarie's friend, Ellen Rosen, and pretend she is their daughter; later, they travel to Uncle Hendrik's house on the coast, where the Rosens and other Jews are transported by fishing boat to Sweden. Apart from Lise's offstage death, there is little violence here; like Annemarie, the reader is protected from the full implications of events—but will be caught up in the suspense and menace of several encounters with soldiers and in Annemarie's courageous run as courier on the night of the escape. The book concludes with the Jews' return, after the war, to homes well kept for them by their neighbors.
A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit of riding alone in Copenhagen, but for their Jews. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 1989
ISBN: 0547577095
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1989
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S HISTORICAL FICTION
Did you like this book?
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
Categories: CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
Did you like this book?
© Copyright 2020 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
