The Penderwicks of Gingerbread Street

When I asked Chloe what her favorite holiday activity was, she said, "Making gingerbread houses."  What the what?  I don't know what was so spectacular about putting gumdrops on graham crackers, but it just goes to show that it doesn't take much to make kids happy. 

We recently finished reading The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall.  [Sidenote: We never finished The Witches by Roald Dahl.  Chloe was scared out of her mind, I didn't care for it, but Harrison finished it on his own and told us how it ended.  He watched half of the movie, but never finished it.  That's two strikes for Mr. Dahl.]  The full title of the book is The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy.  I'm a sucker for long titles like that.  I thought there was no way Harrison would listen to it, but he loved it more than anyone and even read the next book in the series (The Penderwicks of Gorham Street) on his own.

In the book, Mr. Penderwick and his four young daughters spend the summer in a cottage next to a mansion where they meet many friends and get into loads of trouble.  So, when my kids were deciding what they wanted their gingerbread houses to look like, they patterned them after the cottage and the mansion in the story.

Harrison has begun that adorable posing phase that kids go through.  (Unrelated: if you're playing Blue's Clues at home, get out your Handy Dandy Notebooks!)

This was a beautiful book and one very much suited to my children's ages.  I kind of wished we had saved it for summer, but it was nice to think about warmer months as we snuggled up under a blanket to read.