A review by librariandest
The Penderwicks at Point Mouette by Jeanne Birdsall

3.0

I don't much like the audiobook narrator of the Penderwick series, and that might have something to do with my not much liking the stories, either. I think I'll actually book-read the 2nd in the series and see if that makes a difference, but once you have a narrator's voice in your head, it's hard to get rid of it. Susan Denaker, you may have ruined these books for me forever. You make Batty sound like a baby, even though she's five. You make Jeffrey sound like a cardboard cutout boyscout. You make Jane sound daft. The only character you do well is Skye, and so Skye is the only character I really root for. As I said in my review of Penderwicks #1, you somehow make a precious, twee sort of story even more precious and twee with your old-fashioned lady voice. What this series needs is a narrator who will even out the sweetness, not one who dumps her own pound of saccharine into the mix.

Jeanne Birdsall, you are a good writer, but I don't think I can forgive the giant, unbelievable coincidence on which a great deal of this story hinges.
SpoilerI expected Jeffrey to meet his father somehow eventually, but I didn't expect the Lost Dad to randomly turn up as the Penderwick's neighbor at Point Mouette. Highly unlikely. Completely improbable. Ridiculously unbelievable.
I did, though, like the part about Batty blowing up.