Book Review: The Penderwicks

[osprey_archer]

Read a very nice book today: The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and One Very Interesting Boy, by Jeanne Birdsall, a children's book about four sisters and their summer holiday in a guest cottage in the enormous garden behind a mansion. It was published in 2005, but feels old-fashioned in the best sense: strong sibling relationships, lots of adventure, a formula that I think was much more popular decades ago.

And no cell phones or internet, although one of the characters does type her book up on her father's computer. (She's a budding writer, and occasionally narrates her life in the voice of her alter ego/heroine, Sabrina Starr. She is awesome.) The Stargirl books are devoid of cell phones and internet, too - although I think maybe they're set in the eighties? Though maybe I just thought that when I read the first one, because of the lack of modern electronics.

I wonder if this bothers young readers today? Obviously in my time it didn't stop me from adoring Stargirl, but then I wasn't a very wired teenager; I didn't have a cell phone till I went to college. Perhaps they just think, as I thought with Stargirl, that books like this are something in the way of a period piece.

But this is a tangent. The eponymous Penderwicks are well-sketched if not deep; the aforementioned writer, Jane, was naturally my favorite, but I liked them all. The littlest sister, who goes by the delightful nickname Batty, reminded me of Mei from My Neighbor Totoro. They're both so very four. And the villains I thought were well-done: properly villainous, but not inhumanly so.

And! There are two sequels! I'm quite pleased.

Comments

[coraa.livejournal.com]

I am not a teenager, but ten years ago when I was (pre-ubiquitous cell phones, but post-ubiquitous Internet), it only bothered me if a) the book was pretty clearly supposed to be set 'now,' and b) there was a problem that could have been easily solved if someone had, e.g., gone to the library to use the Internet, and not only did nobody do so, nobody even thought of it. If lack-of-Internet was part of the setting, or simply never came up at all, no problem; if lack-of-internet was an artificial obstacle, problem.

I don't know about kids, but I've heard the same thing now about cell phones: if it never comes up at all, then it's not a big deal, but if there is a major plot point centered around not knowing how to get in touch with someone, and it's modern-day or thereabouts, and nobody even thinks to try calling them, it becomes noticeable.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

That makes sense. As long as you don't draw attention to it, most people aren't going to notice.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I wonder if it's a problem of being written by adults thinking back to their own childhoods instead of looking at childhood (or young adulthood) as it's lived now.

I had the same sensation reading The Thirteenth Tale. It's ostensibly set in the present (well, the present parts are, anyway), but the main character never uses a computer, let alone the Internet.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I think that's probably part of it - not only are they looking back to their own childhoods, but perhaps they don't use, say, text messaging now, and therefore it just doesn't occur to them to include it.

But also, I think it's hard to write about using the internet or whatever and make it exciting. Searching through microfilm or old dusty tomes in the back of the library is thrilling and romantic; Google searching from the comfort of a spinny desk chair, not so much.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Oh see, I think you (one) could totally make text messaging and Google searching spine tingling and exciting--I find it to be a very fey technology--though admittedly, it wouldn't duplicate the kind of thrill you get from blowing dust off an old book and opening it. But things have a way of appearing and disappearing, and of being caught out of time, on the Internet that I think could really lend themselves to a gripping tale. (And if I had a plot, I'd write it...)

And text messages! Did you ever watch Digimon? Messages appearing on your phone from Some Other Place? (I forget what season that was; I'll have to ask the forest creatures...)