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The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy Review

So you're forty-one. You've never written a book before, but you think you'd like to try your hand at it. You suspect, perhaps rightly, that you'd be pretty good at it. Before giving it a go though you live your life and fool around with photography (and by "fool around" I mean "get your photographs into the Smithsonian's permanent collection"). Then you write a children's chapter book that draws on every source from Elizabeth Ende to Edward Eager (alliterative writers are a source of wonderful books) and your little novel is written. It then garners itself a National Book Award that same year. Such is the tale of Jeanne Birdsall and her remarkable book. Having read pointed criticisms as to whether or not "The Penderwicks" should really have won the aforementioned National Book Award I went into reading the title thinking something along these lines:
"Harumph. Obviously `Autobiography of My Dead Brother' (which I haven't read either) should have won the award. It's so meaningful. This book is probably just a rehash of old classics with some utesy-cutesyness to turn off serious readers. I'll just read a little..."
Five minutes later.
"Huh. This is pretty good. Well-written. Let's just dip in a little more..."
Eighteen chapters later.Which brings us to this review. Up against serious book after deeply meaningful book, I commend the committee of the National Book Awards for acknowledging what the Newberys, the Oscars, and pretty much all other awards offered to artistic works fail to recognize. Comedy is only easy to read. It is near impossible to create. It takes far more skill to write a meaningful piece of work that makes you laugh than a meaningful piece of work that makes you cry. Kill a puppy and the tears fall like rain. Make that same puppy do something that makes you laugh and it's a miracle of authorial genius. On top of all that, "The Penderwicks" has something that not many books this year will be able to claim: It's great for all ages.
It never would have happened at all if the four Penderwick daughters and their father hadn't gotten a new cottage rental for their summer vacation. Arriving at heavenly Arundel, the headstrong Penderwick Skye proceeds to immediately discover and knock unconscious their new landlady's son, Jeffrey. After some apologies all is forgiven and Jeffrey meets each girl. There's twelve-year-old Rosalind who is a kind of mother figure to her sisters. Eleven-year-old Skye is deeply intelligent and has a temper that in any other book would make her a redhead. Ten year old Jane is the dreamy romantic Penderwick, prone to writing overindulgent adventure tales. Finally, there's four-year-old Batty, clad permanently in detachable butterfly wings and accompanied by the family dog, Hound. With Jeffrey by their side the girls must deal with Rosalind's crush, Sky's capacity for messing up, Jane's publication fantasies, and Batty's shyness. Top it all off with Jeffrey's mother, Mrs. Tipton, believing that her son should be sent to a military academy ASAP and you've got a fine frolicksome summer adventure to be read for years and years to come.
I love pinpointing the moment a book wins me over. It's never when you would expect such a moment to take place. For me it was a rather quiet scene at twilight. It's a balmy summer night, such as you might experience in the Berkshire Mountains, and the girls are catching fireflies. Suddenly, it was perfectly clear that Birdsall had somehow or other managed to capture the lazy magic of a summer night in her writing. People have killed to do so much. With "The Penderwicks", you hold in your hand a crystallized encapsulation of all that is lovely about warm July evenings at home. Remarkable.
Don't let my flattery fool you. The book, for all its charms, was not incapable of the occasional misstep. Not too long ago my mother-in-law was pointing out the sheer proliferation of books and films in which a girl lives with a widowed father who dotes upon her. Now how many widowed fathers do you know personally? I'm sure there are plenty out there, but to read books like "The Penderwicks" is to believe that women, particularly mothers, are rarities (at least in their living state). In the olden days a mother could be done away with in childbirth. "The Penderwicks" does the same thing but this time the mother dies of cancer a more-than-slightly-unbelievable two weeks after giving birth to Batty. Seems to me that Birdsall is pushing the envelope a little here with the scant lag time between labor and the choir invisible.
Still, there's no denying the charms of the tale. "The Penderwicks" avoids overly emotional dribble. This is the kind of story where the father will say good-naturedly to an overly enthusiastic canine, "Be still, demon dog". The story puts down fashion modeling and obligatory military service all within the course of a single paragraph. And most importantly to my mind, it does well by Batty. How many insufferable four-year-olds populate children's literature? Too many. Often they'll be overly cutesy-pie and big eyed. Think of Destiny in "Surviving the Applewhites". These tots usually mispronounce words and, when corrected, mispronounce them in entirely different ways. They do horrible unconscionable things but are forgiven because they up the "awww" factor of the book. Admittedly, Batty isn't immune to this sort of stuff, but she's a lot less bad than most of the over-indulged young `uns out there. By the way, extra points to the Penderwicks for not being a delightfully "eccentric" family. Eccentric tales ala "Ordinary Jack" are easy to write but often quite hard to make good. "The Penderwicks" relies solely on the charms of the writing, and is perfectly peachy as a result.
So let's sum up here. Good writing? Check. Three-dimensional characters (with the possible exception of the mother's boyfriend)? Check. A plot that actually doesn't rip off any authors I've read and certainly no one within the last thirty-five years? Check. Seems to me we've got a pretty nice winner on our hands here, ladies and gentlemen. So let us tip our hat to "The Penderwicks" and wish it all the luck in the world. A stunning debut and a book that, without relying on fantasy or magic, will be loved and adored the world over.

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