A Review of The Penderwicks at Point Mouette by Jeanne Birdsall

I don't know that we realize how hard family books are to pull off until we see it done really well. Those who can perfectly capture sibling interactions, for example, are a rare breed. This explains all the acclaim for Jeanne Birdsall's Penderwick books, and why I was so very happy to get my hands on the third installment. It also explains why the Penderwicks made my list of Top 10 Literary Families. (Scroll down through my March awards post to see the full list.)

Birdsall takes her show on the road this go-round, and she shakes things up a bit while she's at it, sending the ever-so-capable Rosalind off on a summer vacation with her friends and appointing Skye as OAP or "oldest available Penderwick"—meaning the sibling in charge, particularly of lively five-year-old Batty. Only Skye's notes on the care and keeping of Batty get wet, so she can barely read them. Why on earth would she need to blow something up?

The degree of angst Skye brings to her new responsibilities is a hoot, building to a point where good friend Jeffrey must intervene and relieve her of her office, at least for one night.

Also funny is writer sister Jane's determination to study Love, leading her into the depths (and heights) of a crush on a laconic, bewildered, and unintentionally heartless skateboarder named Dominic. Jane tries to make him into one of her literary crushes, say, Peter Pevensie from the Narnia books, but it's hard going. Take a look at their towering romance, which mostly consists of Jane sitting on a bench at the park watching Dominic ride his skateboard:

...they weren't really walking together, because Dominic wasn't walking at all, really—he was on his skateboard, either ahead of her or behind, or making large circles around her. She didn't care, not really, trying to thrust away the suspicion that Peter Pevensie would never make circles around a maiden. You're being disloyal, she scolded herself, and anyway, there weren't any skateboards in Narnia. Besides, soon they reached French Park, and Jane was able to sit down on the bench, and although Dominic continued to ride in circles for a while, she could now close her eyes to better picture him as a noble presence worthy of her love, and by the time he sat down beside her, she was feeling steadier.

"I have many things to tell you, Dominic," she said.

"Yeah." Dominic shuffled his feet. "Me too. I mean, I have something to ask you."

"You do?" This was a surprise. Until now, asking personal questions had not been one of Dominic's skills. "You go first, then."

"No, that's okay."

"Please?"

"Okay, here's my question." Dominic shuffled his feet again, then cleared his throat. "Can I kiss you?"

"Excuse me?" Jane was so surprised, she jumped off the bench. Did he love her, too? She hadn't hoped for as much.

"It will be a short, little kiss." He looked sternly out to sea. "Hardly a kiss at all."

She sat down again. "Oh, Dominic, love has no measure."

"What?"

"I mean, yes, please kiss me."

A quick kiss, and Dominic takes off on his skateboard, leaving Jane dizzy and blissful, as well as filled with determination to write a truly marvelous love poem for her swain...

Yep, The Penderwicks at Point Mouette is that funny, so funny that I forgive Birdsall for reminding me I don't speak French and therefore don't know how to pronounce Mouette—or is it one of those Americanized pronunciations, the way people have bowdlerized half the Spanish names in Los Angeles? (I just checked: the French would be moo-ET, or almost mwET. It means "seagull." And I am not kidding when I say I started writing this paragraph thinking, "Why couldn't she just have named it Seagull Point or something?")

Another nice story strand is that Jeffrey and Batty start hanging out with Alec, a musician who has a house just up the beach. Jeffrey is a musical protégée and loves spending time with Alec's piano, but the real surprise is Batty, who turns out to be musically gifted. Except—her sisters simply refuse to acknowledge this. Their reasoning is that there's no such thing as a musically inclined Penderwick, so they brush off Batty's music talk.

More dramatic, at least early in the book, is when Aunt Claire hurts her ankle and gets a brace on it. Skye doesn't want Rosalind or her parents to worry, so she downplays the situation. But her own worry ratchets higher and higher as she tries to fill her role of OAP under difficult circumstances and pretty much loses it.

We also get moose watching, a golf ball collection, a concert played for seals, and a storm or two, not to mention a secret revealed, one that changes more than one life.

A couple of key plot points rely heavily on coincidence, but I found I didn't care a bit because they're such great coincidences. Which just goes to show that you can break the rules of literature with abandon as long as you can sell it!

I am crazy about Hilary McKay's Casson family, but I have to admit: the Penderwicks are just as lovable. They are also a bit less edgy, and therefore perhaps better suited to younger middle grade readers. No wonder they've been compared to the Melendys.

If you haven't read the three Penderwick books, you've been missing out on a deeply satisfying experience!

Note: Here's Jeanne Birdsall talking about her new book.

A Review of Thirteenth Child by Patricia C. Wrede

I’ve been looking forward to this book coming out for months! So when I saw it in the bookstore yesterday, I snatched it up, ran home, and read the whole thing straight through. Why, you may ask, such transportations of delight? Well, fantasy is my favorite genre, and Patricia C. Wrede has written some very fun books, most notably the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, starting with Dealing with Dragons. She also coauthored Sorcery and Cecilia or the Enchanted Chocolate Pot and its sequels with Caroline Stevermer—novels of manners set in an alternate England where magicians are the norm.

Another reason I’ve been dying to read Thirteenth Child is because it clearly falls in the new subgenre I’ve been talking about, rural fantasy. (See my blog entry for January 16: “Move Over, Steampunk!”) With this book, Wrede is starting a new series called Frontier Magic, in which Americans in the 1800s have magicians to help them settle the Wild West (only here they're called Columbians). Wrede’s world is new in other ways, I discovered: the frontier is populated by “natural” animals such as mammoths, bison, and woolly rhinoseroses, along with magical creatures such as steam dragons, spectral bears, and swarming weasels.

On the far side of the plains were mountains, sharp and high, that no one had seen but a few explorers. Papa said that at least ten expeditions had tried to find a way through them to the Pacific Ocean, but only three men had ever come back alive, and they were stark out of their heads. There was a monument in the capital to Lewis and Clark, who headed the first group that went missing, back in 1804. It was more than wild country; it was unknown.

Alternative history, indeed! But there’s more: formerly, magicians led by Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin erected the Great Barrier Spell, intended to keep the lethal beasts of the frontier from overrunning and devouring Columbians. Now Eff and her family are moving out to the edge of the frontier, where her father will teach magic at a small college.

Eff is the hero of our story, though she thinks she's its villain. Because she is the thirteenth child, her superstitious uncles and aunts and cousins tell her over and over that she will turn out to be evil and should have been drowned at birth. To make matters worse, her twin Lan is the golden boy, seventh son of a seventh son and mightily magical. Fortunately, he and Eff are very close. But one of the reasons Eff’s parents are moving out west is to get away from the relatives who treat their daughter as if she were cursed.

The story telling has an epic feel, beginning when Eff is five and ending when she is eighteen. Eff and Lan attend a small public school out in the settlement, though Lan is given supplemental lessons to cultivate his gifts. It doesn’t occur to anyone except the amazing Miss Ochiba that Eff might be plenty gifted in her own right. Miss Ochiba schools Eff and her friend William in Aphrikan magic during after-school tutoring sessions while Lan is busy learning the more commonly valued Avrupan (European) magic.

We also meet the Society of Progressive Rationalists, who abhor magic and are determined to build a settlement without using any at all. One such rationalist, Brant Wilson, studies with Eff’s father and turns out to be a bit of a hero; he also turns Eff’s older sister’s head. Another character of note is “Wash” Washington Morris, a circuit riding magician who troubleshoots problems in the scattered settlements.

In time, Eff’s gifts begin to show in unexpected ways as she and her family and friends take on a problem that is destroying the crops of the entire region. It’s not dragon fighting, but it’s a matter of life and death for these struggling farmers.

Thirteenth Child reads like historical fiction, and I was thoroughly caught up in the way the Columbian settlers handled their challenges. One of the strengths of the book is the way Wrede captures the "can do" feeling of frontier living and this era in our country's history. Her greatest success, though, is the character of Eff and her story, which is what really kept me going. I did get a little bogged down near the end of the book during explanations about different stages of beetles, but that’s the only place my reading faltered. I can assure you that Patricia C. Wrede’s latest series, like a settler taming new land, is off to a brave, strong start.