The Penderwick sisters are back, and this time they're dealing with complications at home. Rosalie, a seventh-grader, is coping with romantic problems involving her neighbor Tommy, while sixth-grader Skye and fifth-grader Jane switch homework assignments with disastrous results. Only 4-year-old Batty seems to be on a relatively even keel.
Their main focus, however, is the "Save Daddy" plan, which is launched after their Aunt Claire tries to persuade the widowed Mr. Penderwick to begin dating again. In "The Penderwicks on Gardam Street" (Knopf, $15.99), author Jeanne Birdsall tells what happens when the Penderwick sisters try to set their father up with some awful dates in the hope of convincing him that being widowed isn't so bad. Readers will laugh out loud at some of the hilarious situations that ensue, even as they realize that the solution to the sisters' problem is obvious.
Birdsall's first book about the family, "The Penderwicks," introduced the sisters as they used their summer vacation to befriend a lonely boy. The book won the National Book Award for Young Adults and elicited raves from critics and readers alike for its classic storyline and likable characters.
In fact, many have compared the Penderwicks to Eleanor Estes' Moffat family or the children in Edward Eager's "Half Magic." Like those characters, the Penderwick sisters, with all their quirks and flaws, are people we'd all want to get to know, and their world is one in which we can readily lose ourselves.
Birdsall continues to successfully mine that seam of children's literature in "The Penderwicks on Gardam Street," producing a book that, like its predecessor, is set in the current day yet has the emotional feel of a classic kids' novel. The sisters deal with some real-world problems such as cheating, anger management and even death. Yes, the Penderwicks, like the rest of us, face challenges, but the tone of Birdsall's books makes readers understand that things will work out all right in the end. (Age 8-12.)
First Published: June 17, 2008, 8:00 a.m.
