The Penderwicks on Gardam Street

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

Jeanne Birdsall ist in den 50er Jahren in einem Vorort von Philadelphia aufgewachsen, wollte bereits als 10-jährige Kinderbücher schreiben. Doch erst im Alter von 42 begann sie ihre schriftstellerische Laufbahn. Ihr Debütroman "Die Penderwicks" erhielt bereits kurz nach seinem Erscheinen zahlreiche Auszeichnungen. Die Autorin lebt heute in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Starred Review, School Library Journal, March 2008:

"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."

Starred Review, Booklist, May 1, 2008:

"Just the sort of cozy fare that's missing in today's mean-girl world."

Starred Review, Publishers Weekly, April 28, 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, San Francisco Chronicle, April 27, 2008:
"Birdsall writes with amazing grace."
Review, Parade, June 22, 2008:
"[A]n old-fashioned (in a good way) read with well-drawn characters, warmth, and humor."
Review, The New York Times Book Review, July 13, 2008:
"Birdsall's second novel . . . offers comforting comedy."