The Penderwidks at Point Mouette by Jeanne Birdsall

I was trying to remember if I have ever blogged about the Penderwicks before. I checked and I haven't so here is a chance to introduce my fans to a delightful series. The first book is called The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy and it won a National Book Award in 2005. When I first read it, I was enchanted. It reads like an old fashion children's book like Anne of Green Gables, or Five Little Peppers and How they Grew. It is about a family of sisters who live with their widowed father. In the first book the family goes to stay in a summer house for vacation, and while there they meet a boy, Jeffery, and are able to save him from being sent to military school by his domineering mother. The relationships between the sisters are so sweet and the girls have fun and different personalities. It is great to read a book where siblings look out for each other and are kind to each other. In the second book, The Penderwicks on Gardam Street, the girls and their father are back home, and their aunt is trying to get the father to start dating. The girls have to deflect undesirable girl friends, while looking for the perfect match for their father. This one has some very funny scenes and some sisterly conflicts that have to be overcome. I liked the second and I like this third book as well. In this one it is summer again, and the three younger sisters go to a beach house for a vacation, but the oldest sister is invited to vacation with a friend. It is an interesting study of how family roles change when one person is absent. This series is a good low/ high series. If there were a little girl, maybe second or third grade, who was a really good reader, this would be a great series for them. It is also fun for nostalgic adults who grew up on the older children's classics. (295 p)