I've been meaning to read this book for quite a while. I really like Jennifer Holm and she won her second Newberry Honor for this book. She also visited our library last year and the girls and I were very impressed by her fun, bouncy personality. She won her first Newberry Honor for Our Only May Amelia, which I read a while back and really liked. She also writes the Babymouse series with her brother, who does the illustrations which Emma and Mary both really enjoyed. So when they decided on this book for this month's Mother-Daughter Bookclub, I was very excited. I loved it. The book centers around 12 year old Penny who lives with her widowed mother and maternal grandparents in 1950's New Jersey. That side of her life is pretty sedate. Her deceased father, however, came from a big Italian family that adds spice and excitement to her life. She has lots of uncles, aunts, and cousins, along with a spunky grandma, who provide her with all the excitement she could ever want. There are lots of fun characters and stories about this Italian family. But along the way, Penny begins to unravel the mystery of her father's death and uncover the hardships suffered by this Italian clan in WWII. I had never really heard a lot about the Italian-American experience in WWII so it was enlightening to me. As a kid in school, we always talked about the Japanese-American experience because Topaz (a Japanese internment camp in Delta) was so close. (I grew up in Orem.) I enjoyed learning about it. I thought I was WWIIed out, after Kate's Holocaust play, but still enjoyed reading this different perspective on the war. I also liked that it was loosely based on the author's family history (her mother being the inspiration for Penny). I would highly recommend it to anyone.
