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.