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The Penderwicks on Gardam Street
Cover of The Penderwicks on Gardam Street
The Penderwicks on Gardam Street
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With over one million copies sold, this series of modern classics about the charming Penderwick family from National Book Award winner and New York Times bestseller Jeanne Birdsall is perfect for fans of Noel Streatfeild and Edward Eager.
The Penderwick sisters are home on Gardam Street and ready for an adventure! But the adventure they get isn’t quite what they had in mind. Mr. Penderwick’s sister has decided it’s time for him to start dating—and the girls know that can only mean one thing: disaster. Enter the Save-Daddy Plan—a plot so brilliant, so bold, so funny, that only the Penderwick girls could have come up with it. It’s high jinks, big laughs, and loads of family warmth as the Penderwicks triumphantly return.
With over one million copies sold, this series of modern classics about the charming Penderwick family from National Book Award winner and New York Times bestseller Jeanne Birdsall is perfect for fans of Noel Streatfeild and Edward Eager.
The Penderwick sisters are home on Gardam Street and ready for an adventure! But the adventure they get isn’t quite what they had in mind. Mr. Penderwick’s sister has decided it’s time for him to start dating—and the girls know that can only mean one thing: disaster. Enter the Save-Daddy Plan—a plot so brilliant, so bold, so funny, that only the Penderwick girls could have come up with it. It’s high jinks, big laughs, and loads of family warmth as the Penderwicks triumphantly return.
Available formats-
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB eBook
Languages:-
Copies-
  • Available:
    1
  • Library copies:
    1
Levels-
  • ATOS:
    5.3
  • Lexile:
    850
  • Interest Level:
    MG
  • Text Difficulty:
    4 - 5


Excerpts-
  • From the book CHAPTER ONE: Rosalind Bakes a Cake

    Four years and four months later

    Rosalind was happy. Not the kind of passionate, thrilling happy that can quickly turn into disappointment, but the calm happy that comes when life is steadily going along just the way it should. Three weeks earlier she’d started seventh grade at the middle school, which was turning out not to be as overwhelming as rumored, mostly because she and her best friend, Anna, shared all the same classes. And it was late September, and the leaves were on the verge of bursting into wild colors—Rosalind adored autumn. And it was a Friday afternoon, and although school was all right, who doesn’t like weekends better?

    On top of all that, Aunt Claire was coming to visit for the weekend. Beloved Aunt Claire, whose only flaw was that she lived two hours away from the Penderwicks’ home in Cameron, Massachusetts. But she tried to make up for it by visiting often, and now she was arriving this evening. Rosalind had so many things to tell her, mostly about the family’s summer vacation, three wonderful weeks at a place called Arundel in the Berkshires. There had been many adventures with a boy named Jeffrey, and for a while Rosalind had thought that she might be in love with another boy—an older one—named Cagney, but that had come to nothing. Now Rosalind was determined to stay away from love and its confusions for many years, but still she wanted to talk it all over with her aunt.

    There was lots to get done before Aunt Claire arrived—clean sheets on the bed, clean towels in the bathroom, and Rosalind wanted to bake a cake—but first she had to pick up her little sister Batty at Goldie’s Day Care. She did so every day on the walk home from school, and even that was part of her happiness. For this was the first year her father had given her the responsibility for her sisters after school and until he came home. Before now, there had always been a babysitter, one or another of the beautiful Bosna sisters, who lived down the street from the Penderwicks. And though the Bosnas had been good babysitters as well as beautiful, Rosalind considered herself much too old now—twelve years and eight months—for a babysitter.

    The walk from Cameron Middle School to Goldie’s took ten minutes, and Rosalind was on her last minute now. She could see on the corner ahead of her the gray clapboard house, with its wide porch full of toys. And now she could see—she picked up her pace—a small girl alone on the steps. She had dark curls and was wearing a red sweater, and Rosalind ran the last several yards, scolding as she went.

    “Batty, you’re supposed to stay inside until I get here,” she said. “You know that’s the rule.”

    Batty threw her arms around Rosalind. “It’s okay, because Goldie’s watching me through the window.”

    Rosalind looked up, and it was true. Goldie was at the window, waving and smiling. “Even so, I want you to stay inside from now on.”

    “All right. But—” Batty held up a finger swathed in Band-Aids. “I just was dying to show you this. I cut myself during crafts.”

    Rosalind caught up the finger and kissed it. “Did it hurt terribly?”

    “Yes,” said Batty proudly. “I bled all over the clay and the other kids screamed.”

    “That sounds exciting.” Rosalind helped Batty into her little blue backpack. “Now let’s go home and get ready for Aunt Claire.”

    Most days the two sisters would linger on their walk home from...
About the Author-
  • Jeanne Birdsall lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, with her husband and a large assortment of animals. The Penderwicks on Gardam Street is her second novel.
Reviews-
  • Publisher's Weekly

    Starred review from April 28, 2008
    Happy families are not all alike, as previously met characters continue to prove.
    The Penderwicks on Gardam Street
    Jeanne Birdsall
    . Knopf
    , $15.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-375-84090-6

    This sequel to Birdsall's National Book Award winner, The Penderwicks
    , has even more charm than the original. The prologue hits the only maudlin note, flashing back to Mrs. Penderwick on her deathbed as she instructs her husband's sister, Claire, to make sure he finds love again after sufficient mourning. The Penderwick sisters—Rosalind, Jane, Skye and Batty—learn of this valediction four years later when Aunt Claire begins arranging blind dates. An emergency MOPS (Meeting of Penderwick Sisters) hatches the Save Daddy plan, in which the girls orchestrate dates so dreadful their father will see widowed life is best. Neighbors on Gardam Street include football-playing brothers Nick and Tommy (the latter plays Tracy to Rosalind's Hepburn), and two newcomers: a widowed professor and her toddler baby. Middle sisters Jane and Skye, who share a room but nothing else, steal the show by swapping homework assignments with hilariously catastrophic results. It's sheer pleasure to spend time with these exquisitely drawn characters, girls so real that readers will feel the wind through their hair as they power down the soccer field. Ages 8–12.

  • School Library Journal

    Starred review from March 1, 2008
    Gr 4-8-The Penderwick sisters are back. Their Aunt Claire has come for a visit, bringing with her a letter from their late mother that encourages their father to date, and an immediate crisis ensues, as the girls assume that this is the first step on the treacherous road to having a stepmother. After frantic consultation, they implement the "Save Daddy" plan, designed to set him up with perfectly dreadful women so that he will not want to date again. Numerous subplots add to the domestic drama. Skye struggles with her temper on the soccer field. Rosalind and neighbor Tommy experience a frustrated romance. Skye and Jane switch homework assignments, leading to a school performance of Jane's Aztec drama, with everyone thinking that it was penned by Skye. While the solution to the dating dilemma can be seen from the beginning, the sisters are so caught up in their drama that they can't see who's right next door. Laugh-out-loud moments abound and the humor comes naturally from the characters and situations. Especially funny is the scene in which the youngest Penderwick hides in the car hoping to spy on one of her father's dates. Like much of the book itself, this scene resolves itself in a tender moment between father and daughter. This is a book to cherish and to hold close like a warm, cuddly blanket that you draw around yourself to keep out the cold."Tim Wadham, Maricopa County Library District, Phoenix, AZ"

    Copyright 2008 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

  • Booklist

    Starred review from May 1, 2008
    The Penderwick sisters, who made a splash in their first eponymous novel (which wona 2005 National Book Award) returnin another warm family story.An opening chapter, which might bring a tear to the eye, tellshow the girls mother died right afterBattys birth. Now, some four years later, Aunt Clairepresents the girls father with a letterfrom his late wife, telling him itstime to start dating. Rosalind, Skye, Jane, and Batty beg to differand come up with a harebrained scheme to thwart Mr. Penderwick. But the girls arent just focused on their father. Rosalind has her own romantic entangelments; and Skye and Jane write compositions for each other, which leads to myriad problems. Meanwhile, little Batty has become enamored of the widow and her baby son who live next door. Theres never much suspense about where all this is going, but things happen in suchtouchingways that the story is hard to resist. As in the previous book, Birdsall seems to get inspiration frombooks like Sydney Taylors All-of-a-Kind Family andthe movie Meet Me in St. Louisjust the sort of cozy fare thats missing in todays mean-girl world.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)

  • Review, San Francisco Chronicle, April 27, 2008: "It's sheer pleasure to spend time with these exquisitely drawn characters, girls so real that readers will feel the wind through their hair as they power down the soccer field."
  • Review, Parade, June 22, 2008: "Birdsall writes with amazing grace."
  • Review, The New York Times Book Review, July 13, 2008: "[A]n old-fashioned (in a good way) read with well-drawn characters, warmth, and humor."
Title Information+
  • Publisher
    Random House Children's Books
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Jeanne Birdsall
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