THE PENDERWICKS ON GARDAM STREET
By Jeanne Birdsall
Knopf, 2008
Category: Middle Grade Fiction
It’s been more than a week since the ice storm of my last post, and I am still recovering. The schools in our town didn’t open until Thursday … and a giant snowstorm blew in and closed them again on Friday. It is very difficult to write—and to prepare for the holidays—when there is ice and snow everywhere and when your children are watching your every move!
On the upside, the kids and I have been reading up a storm of our own. THE PENDERWICKS ON GARDAM STREET was last week’s treat. I have to admit to a niggling worry about reading this book now, a full two years after the kids and I read THE PENDERWICKS together. The boys are ten, after all; would the capers of the Penderwick sisters still interest them?
Um, yes. Absolutely.
Even though their beloved Jeffrey didn’t have much of a role in the book. Even though they guessed the major plotline early on. Even though there was a lot of pre-teen crushing throughout. The boys (and their seven-year-old sister) were completely drawn in to the story. So was I.
I had the pleasure of meeting Jeanne in 2007, and I signed a copy of TRACKING TRASH for her. You will understand, then, why my breath caught a bit when I read this line, on page __ of THE PENDERWICKS ON GARDAM STREET:
[Hmmm. I returned the book to the library and cannot find the slip of paper on which I jotted the line in question. Ack! I will find the line and add it later. Suffice to say, it includes the words flotsam and jetsam, which, of course, litter my little book.]
Coincidence, of course. But it was kind of fun, just for a moment, to wonder …