The Penderwicks at Last: 12/13/19

The Penderwicks at Last by Jeanne Birdsall is the conclusion to the Penderwicks series. It's a return to Arundel, this time for a wedding.

Lydia is now 11 and mostly this book is her adventures in discovering the home and grounds that her eldest sisters so enjoyed in the first book. She has a friend in the form of the groundkeeper's daughter.

At this point in the series, all of the original sisters are adults. The original youngest, Batty, is in college. The others have their own lives but this is a family reunion for the wedding.

Of course Jeffrey's mother is back to be a nuisance and as clueless and stuck up as ever. Lydia, with no past history with her ends up becoming an ersatz friend and negotiator on behalf of the Penderwicks.

In terms of the road narrative spectrum, this final book sits in the same place as Penderwicks at Point Mouette. The siblings (CC) is traveling again to a rural place (33) via the Blue Highway (33). It's not a family journey, as most of the adventures happen before the parents arrive for the wedding.

It's not uhoria, even though the location is Arundel, because now the place is a known place both to the siblings (minus the youngest ones) and to the reader. Also, this final volume is better at placing current items and pop culture to place the novel into a knowable timeline.

Five stars

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