Book Review: Penny Dreadful

Penny DreadfulPenny Dreadful by Laurel Snyder

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Penelope Grey has a perfectly fine life. She lives in a big mansion in the City, where all the household chores are taken care off by pleasant staff. She doesn’t even have to go to school, as a tutor comes to her. Her parents – on the rare occasions that she sees them – are nice. She has a couple of nice playmates. Everything is nice. Nice… and really, really boring. She escapes into book after book (the shout-outs to familiar titles are a nice touch), finally deciding to do something that the characters do in each story. That’s how she comes to drop a wish into a well: “I wish something interesting would happen when I least expect it, just like in a book.”

And then, to her surprise, something interesting happens. Her father quits his job, the family runs out of money, and the unexpected inheritance of an old house in a tiny East Tennessee town seems like a lucky solution. But Penelope is about to learn that good things and bad things tend to come wrapped up together, and sometimes luck is a matter of perspective.

The first section of the book is pretty quiet, underscoring Penelope’s serious ennui. When the family leaves the City for Thrush Junction and its colorful inhabitants, the pace picks up. Penelope drops her boring first name for the more cheerful nickname of Penny, and she gets to know the local kids. She starts experiencing adventures instead of just reading about them.

This book got a little bump of publicity when a reader objected to the fact that Penny’s new neighbors include a pair of lesbian moms and their son, a family presented just as matter-of-factly as any of the other characters. For Penny, the fact that Willa has a wife is no more surprising than the fact that she has “hair to her knees.” Like any kid, she’s not all that interested in the relationships between the adults around her.

This is an illustrated chapter book, and Abigail Halpin’s slightly cartoony style offers the perfect complement to Snyder’s text. Throughout the book, the voice of the narrator is excellent. In the first chapter, when Penelope is living vicariously through reading, the narration sounds very much like listening to someone telling the story. As she makes friends and has real-life experiences, the voice of the narrator fades into the background. (With the right voice talent, this could be an OUTSTANDING audiobook.) Filled with gentle humor, quirky characters, and small adventures, this is a good choice for older elementary school readers, especially those who have read and enjoyed some of Penny’s favorite books.

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Book Review: Hanukkah Around the World

I picked this one up at the library to put in a holiday display, and I ended up bringing it home to share with Little Miss. At not-quite-four, she’s a bit too young to be very interested in the stories, but she enjoyed the illustrations and the short recounting of the story behind the celebration.

Hanukkah Around the WorldHanukkah Around the World by Tami Lehman-Wilzig

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After a few introductory pages about the holiday story and symbols, and a two-page spread on how to play Dreidel, brief vignettes describe family celebrations of Hanukkah in Israel, the United States, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Italy, Australia, Poland, and Tunisia. Each story is accompanied by a note about the Jewish community in that country and a recipe (all of which look delicious), plus full-color painted illustrations. The stories are a little contrived, and explanations of things like why Hanukkah is celebrated in the summer in Australia would have been nice. Personally, I was mystified by the “Hanukkah Wheel”. Is this an East Coast thing? Still, the book is a visually appealing glimpse into Jewish customs around the world. Great for browsing, and likely to spark interest in further reading (and cooking).

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Check out more fantastic children’s nonfiction in the round-up at  The Reading Tub.

Book Review: As Simple as It Seems by Sarah Weeks

As Simple as It SeemsAs Simple as It Seems by Sarah Weeks

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Verbena Colter has not been looking forward to the summer after fifth-grade graduation. Over the last year, she has drifted apart from her best friend, become self-conscious about having “the heaviest mother and the oldest father” among her classmates, and learned about a huge family secret. Is it any wonder that she’s been feeling “mixed up and mean”? Now, all she wants is to be anyone other than herself. When she takes an opportunity to do just that, it turns out to be a bit more than she bargained for.

I love the characters Weeks creates in this quiet novel. They feel like real people, with good points and bad, just trying to get along in the world. Verbena is at that age when the world suddenly looks a lot more complicated than it ever has, and her doubts and confusion ring true. She’s figuring out who she is and how to be herself. While she works through her own turmoil, the reader remains pretty sure that things will ultimately work out. Recommend to older elementary students who enjoyed THE HIGHER POWER OF LUCKY.

Book source: checked out from my library

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Picture Book Picks: From Sheep to Sweater

I’ve been working on a big project in the Picture Book section at my library lately. It’s made me think about the fact that you can find a picture book for just about any topic you can imagine. Including, of course, knitting. And spinning. And weaving. (I haven’t found crochet yet, but I’m sure I will.)

Being me, I was drawn to the yarny yarns. Want to hear about a few of them? Of course you do! You know, books make fantastic holiday presents for the kids (and adults, for that matter) in your life. I checked all of these out from my library for review. The Amazon links don’t net anything for me, in case anyone is wondering, since they’re not affiliate links.

The Surprise by Sylvia Van Ommen.

Originally published in the Netherlands as Verrassing, this is a wordless picture book. That’s right, no words, just pictures. Give this one to a pre-reader and have her tell you what’s happening as a scooter-riding sheep turns her own wool into a special sweater for a friend. From shearing to spinning to knitting, it’s all there in the brightly-colored gouache illustrations.

Feeding the Sheep, by Leda Schubert, with pictures by Andrea U’Ren

Step by step, through the seasons of a year, a mother transforms her sheep’s wool into a sweater for her daughter. In each watercolor spread, the little girl asks, “What are you doing?” and gets a brief explanation. By the end of the book, the little girl is ready to take on the tasks herself. This one is especially good for a spinner-to-be.

Farmer Brown Shears his Sheep: a Yarn about Wool, by Teri Sloat, with illustrations by Nadine Bernard Westcott.

This adorable book is the third in a series about Farmer Brown, and it seems to be sadly out of print. After being shorn and left with only fuzz in the chilly Spring air, the sheep follow Farmer Brown around as he takes the wool to be dyed and spun into yarn. The perplexed sheep end up tangled in the yarn before Farmer Brown realizes what’s going on, but all ends happily once he knits each of them a colorful, comfy cardigan to wear. The bouncy rhythm and easy rhyme, plus the giggle-inducing pictures, make this a winning picture book, so I’m sad to see that it’s only available through third-party sellers on Amazon, and not at all at Powell’s. Get it second-hand, or check it out from your local library to share.