The Penderwicks in Spring might be my favorite book so far in this series, and not just because it centers on Batty, who’s been my favorite of the Penderwick siblings from the first book, when she was a sweet and shy four-year-old wearing butterfly wings. When this book opens she’s ten, almost eleven, and still sweet and shy. Not only is she no longer the youngest sibling (that spot was taken by Ben, her stepbrother, at the end of the second book), she’s not even the youngest sister anymore: there’s a new Penderwick, two-year-old Lydia, who’s obsessed with princesses and is often hilarious. And oh, this book needs some hilarity to balance out all the hard stuff Batty’s going through. I didn’t keep track of how many times I cried while reading this book, but it was definitely more than once, and started in the very first chapter. Very early in the book we learn that the beloved family dog, Hound, died six months previously, and Batty is heartbroken. Hound was her constant companion since babyhood, and she blames herself for his death. And then, later in the book, Batty starts blaming herself for her mother’s death, too (she died of cancer just after Batty was born). Meanwhile, the tensions between Batty’s sister Skye and their dear friend Jeffrey mean that Batty doesn’t get to see as much of Jeffrey, her musical mentor, as she would like, and she’s missing her older sister Rosalind, too, and feeling pushed out of her own living room by her teenage sisters’ active social lives.
Not that this book is all sadness: Batty starts an odd-jobs business that turns out to actually be more of a dog-walking business, and her class gets a substitute music teacher who hears Batty sing and encourages her to take voice lessons, and Nick Geiger, who lives across the street, comes home on leave from the army. There’s also comic relief in the form of a horrible pretentious boy Rosalind brings home when she visits from college in Rhode Island, and humor in the younger Penderwicks’ attempts to make sense of romance. And oh, I love the dogs Batty walks—a very overweight dachshund named Duchess and a very wrinkly dog (English bulldog? Shar Pei?) named Cilantro who’s scared of everything and makes noises like a tuba when he’s worried.
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