How did Penny end up in the middle of nowhere? One minute, she was a city girl, living in Manhattan with a mother who was a gallery owner, and a father who is a doctor. The next, her mother is hauling her off to "Hog's Hollow," and opening a cupcake shop. As if that wasn't bad enough, the summer is almost over ... and she's going to have to face a new school.
As if she wasn't already feeling pressured and out of place, her mother drags her along to a birthday party set-up for another girl her age. Charity is the picture of prim, pink and perfect ... which is why the disaster that follows is even more damaging. Even if it was an accident, there is no way that Charity is going to let Penny live it down.
Luckily, not everyone in Hog's Hollow is like Charity. There is a boy she sees walking along the beach with his dog. There is something about him that draws her to him, some sense of a shared pain. Even starting school, she makes a friend. Tally is about as far away from Charity as you can get with her technicolored hair, funky wardrobe, and strange but cool fascination with "Rock, Paper, Scissors." In fact, Penny is invited to join the RPS society.
Penny misses the city. She misses her father, she misses how they used to be a family. She misses a mother she could talk to, or at least one that noticed she was there. She wants to know when they are moving back to New York. She wants to have more in common with her mother than frosting and chocolate.
Her mother isn't talking, and her father seems too busy most of the time. So Penny begins to find her own way into small-town living, and she finds there are even parts of it that she likes. Like Marcus (the boy on the beach) and Sam (Marcus' dog), and how he brings her grape Jolly Ranchers. How he smiles like she's the only one in the room. How he takes her to his secret places, and shares his pain with her. How he makes her feel like she's not alone. And she begins to think that maybe Hog's Hollow isn't so bad. But when her father calls asking her to move back, she is faced with a tough decision. Return to everything she knows, even if it will never be the same, or stay in this unfamiliar place.
This is a Truman Missouri Library Award nominee (my library kids know what that means), and I did enjoy this sweet story about adapting to change with the help of a little buttercream.
As if she wasn't already feeling pressured and out of place, her mother drags her along to a birthday party set-up for another girl her age. Charity is the picture of prim, pink and perfect ... which is why the disaster that follows is even more damaging. Even if it was an accident, there is no way that Charity is going to let Penny live it down.
Luckily, not everyone in Hog's Hollow is like Charity. There is a boy she sees walking along the beach with his dog. There is something about him that draws her to him, some sense of a shared pain. Even starting school, she makes a friend. Tally is about as far away from Charity as you can get with her technicolored hair, funky wardrobe, and strange but cool fascination with "Rock, Paper, Scissors." In fact, Penny is invited to join the RPS society.
Penny misses the city. She misses her father, she misses how they used to be a family. She misses a mother she could talk to, or at least one that noticed she was there. She wants to know when they are moving back to New York. She wants to have more in common with her mother than frosting and chocolate.
Her mother isn't talking, and her father seems too busy most of the time. So Penny begins to find her own way into small-town living, and she finds there are even parts of it that she likes. Like Marcus (the boy on the beach) and Sam (Marcus' dog), and how he brings her grape Jolly Ranchers. How he smiles like she's the only one in the room. How he takes her to his secret places, and shares his pain with her. How he makes her feel like she's not alone. And she begins to think that maybe Hog's Hollow isn't so bad. But when her father calls asking her to move back, she is faced with a tough decision. Return to everything she knows, even if it will never be the same, or stay in this unfamiliar place.
This is a Truman Missouri Library Award nominee (my library kids know what that means), and I did enjoy this sweet story about adapting to change with the help of a little buttercream.
"Tally is standing in the doorway, a faraway look on her face, like she's trapped in her own memory. And I know my face must look the same way, half haunted by something. I wonder what she's thinking about. Underneath it all, does she feel sad, like I do? That sadness you feel when you realize that the last time you did something was really the last time. And how you wish someone could have told you it was the last time, so you could pay extra attention. So you could really memorize it, because the memories were going to have to last forever," (Hepler pg. 195, 2009).
If you liked this, check out:
Hepler, Heather. (2009). The Cupcake Queen. New York, NY: Dutton Children's Books.
My students love this book! We noticed in your profile that "who's" should be spelled "whose."
ReplyDeleteThank you! I hate typos! I'm so glad your students enjoy it :)
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