The Penderwicks on Gardam Street - Jeanne Birdsall

Sequel to award-winner has more depth.

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About Our Ratings
Common Sense rates it
4
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Book details
  • Author:Jeanne Birdsall
  • # of pages: 308
  • Publisher:Alfred A. Knopf
  • Original Publication Date: 04/01/2008
  • Genre: Fiction - Family Life
  • Hardcover: $15.99
  • Publisher's Recommended Reading Level: 8-12
  • Read Aloud: 9
  • Read Alone: 10

Parents need to know

Parents need to know that there is nothing of concern here, beyond some dishonesty, which leads to guilt, confession, and repentance.

Families can talk about the world of the Penderwicks. In what ways is it like your own life? How is it different? On balance, is it realistic? Do you know people like the Penderwicks?

Message

Social Behavior:

Several of the characters, adult and child, lie and deceive, but all feel badly about it and fess up. The sisters manipulate their father.

Consumerism:

Drugs/Alcohol/Tobacco:

A reference to a man killed by a drunk driver.

Violence

The children tackle, restrain, and tie up a man who tries to steal a friend's computer.

Sex

None, but lots of talk about dating and romance, both adult and young teen.

Language

Common Sense says

What's the story?

Reviewed by Matt Berman

The four Penderwick sisters are back home, and facing an assortment of minor crises. Their widowed father is reluctantly starting to date, pushed by his sister and a letter his wife wrote before she died, leading the girls to hatch the "Save Daddy Plan." Middle sisters Skye and Jane switch homework assignments, and now Skye is being forced to star in a play everyone believes she wrote. And oldest sister Rosalind is fumbling her way to her first romantic relationship.

Is it any good?

4
As hinted by the old-fashioned silhouettes gracing their covers, the Penderwick books deliberately hearken back to an earlier era in children's literature, when the world was safe, problems were small, humor was clean, and kids roamed free. A cross between a '30s screwball comedy (think You Can't Take It with You) in which all the characters have an excess of eccentric personality, and a '50s sitcom (think Father Knows Best), this series is a nostalgia trip for boomers who grew up on The Moffats by Eleanor Estes and Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome.

This second book is better than the first. While the characters still tend to be rather one-dimensional, the caricatures of the first book are gone, though the problems -- stepparents and budding romance -- are similar. The characters are likable (no cardboard villains this time), and the story whizzes by effortlessly and pleasurably (though occasionally absurdly, as when the children capture a thief). For parents looking for books like the ones they read in their own childhoods, and for kids looking to escape from violent fantasy and action/adventure into a simpler, sweeter world, this is a good choice.

Other choices

Other Books by Jeanne Birdsall:
The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy

Books Mentioned in the Story:
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgeson Burnett
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan
The Enchanted Castle by E. Nesbit
Five Children and It by E. Nesbit
Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
The Exiles in Love by Hilary McKay
The Various by Steve Augarde
Emily of New Moon by L. M. Montgomery
Island of the Aunts by Eva Ibbotson
Magic by the Lake by E. Nesbit

Related Web sites:
Author's Site

Parents and kids say

All Reviews

There are 2 reviews.

Age 8+
4

Posted on 07/11/08 by Anonymous Adult contributor

Not quite as good as the first

I really enjoy reading these books with my daughter (age 9.) Of course, we enjoy all those "old" stories by Eager and Nesbit too. This book was not quite as good as the first -- I felt she put too much emphasis on Rosalind's interest in boys. Yes, girls are interested in boys at her age, but in this book she seems to think of nothing else. We get enough of that in regular media, it's unnecessary in books like this. I don't have as much of a problem with the other behaviors, if you read those older books the kids did things the parents didn't know about all the time. And if you read Harriet the Spy or Tom Sawyer, they behaved in ways that would be considered absolutely disreputable now. These Penderwick books are just good clean fun and we could use a lot more like them.
Age 8+
5


Posted on 07/10/08 by mkgbrd Adult contributor

Adult Reviews

There are 2 reviews.

Age 8+
4

Posted on 07/11/08 by Anonymous Adult contributor

Not quite as good as the first

I really enjoy reading these books with my daughter (age 9.) Of course, we enjoy all those "old" stories by Eager and Nesbit too. This book was not quite as good as the first -- I felt she put too much emphasis on Rosalind's interest in boys. Yes, girls are interested in boys at her age, but in this book she seems to think of nothing else. We get enough of that in regular media, it's unnecessary in books like this. I don't have as much of a problem with the other behaviors, if you read those older books the kids did things the parents didn't know about all the time. And if you read Harriet the Spy or Tom Sawyer, they behaved in ways that would be considered absolutely disreputable now. These Penderwick books are just good clean fun and we could use a lot more like them.
Age 8+
5


Posted on 07/10/08 by mkgbrd Adult contributor

Kids Reviews

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