Willoughbys by Lois Lowry

A parody of old-fashioned children's book but also reminiscent of the "Series of Unfortunate Events" series by Lemony Snicket.  Timothy, the oldest of the Willoughby children, makes all the decisions and the youngest, Jane, just wants to be noticed and have a name with more than 1 syllable. Twins Barnaby A and Barnaby B, the middle children, are so alike that their parents can't tell them apart even if they bothered to try and have to share a sweater.  Life is not ideal for these children.

When the youngsters find a beastly baby on their doorstep, they leave it at a rich neighbor's house to get rid of it. The melancholy candy maker tycoon who lives there adopts the baby and his life becomes happy after years of grieving over the death of his wife and son in an avalanche in Switzerland.

Meanwhile, the Willoughby children concoct a plot to get rid of their insufferable parents and turn themselves into orphans by sending them on a dangerous trip. At first the plan seems to have worked as their parents go off on the dangerous trip and do all kinds of dangerous activities but keep sending home postcards describing all the terrible things that happen to everyone but themselves.  To top it all off their parents have put the house on the market to be sold while they are gone.  Their instructions to their children are to pack up all their undies and leave everything else to be sold.  Happily the nanny who comes to take care of them turns out to be just what they need to bring out the best in their personalities.

At the end of the book the 2 storylines intertwine in a satisfying way that leaves everyone happy, except for the Willoughby parents who deserve what they get!

A wonderfully humorous glossary at the end defines old-fashioned words in the story with examples and hints for proper use.   An utter delight.  

Monsieur Pamplemouse by Michael Bond

Aristide Pamplemousse, formerly of the Suret, is now an undercover restaurant-reviewer for Le Guide, and his current assignment is the renowned Hotel-Restaurant La Lagoustine in St. Castille. Soon, however, Pamplemousse is distracted from the super cuisine by escalating mayhem. He's served a nasty plastic head instead of Poularde de Bresse en Vessie Royale. Someone peppers his leg with a shotgun-blast, tries to run him down with a car, etc. The Mafia? But why? Or are the attacks really aimed, perhaps, at another hotel guest? (There's a wealthy, unfortunate young man with two hooks instead of hands--who fears that he's the real victim.)

The mystery isn't really important as I read for the crazy escapades he gets himself into and love the perspective that Pommes Frites provides.  Pample-mousse foolishly pretends to be a man with two wooden legs; he is virtually raped by the hotelier's wife, who's into sandpaper; he escapes her clutches with help from an inflatable, wooden-legged male sex-doll, and he temporarily loses doggie-sidekick Pommes Frites.  We briefly meet Pamplemousse's wife as she is carted away by a crane that removes the gazebo she was lounging on, Pommes Frites on the pursuit.

I love Monsieur Pamplemouse and have read this book several times but every time I find something fresh and it always makes me laugh out loud.  I was so excited to see a new book in the series that came out in 2010! 

My Life as a Book by Janet Tashjian

12 year-old Derek has been identified as a reluctant reader by his teacher and his parents. He likes to read, but doesn't enjoy required materials. He says he prefers having his own adventures (tossing as hand grenades the avocados his mother is saving for dinner, climbing onto the roof with a croquet set to hit wooden balls into the satellite dish) to learning about someone else's life. When his teacher gives the class summer reading and writing assignments, Derek finds a way to distract himself from the task. He discovers an old newspaper clipping about a 17-year-old who drowned, and when he questions his mother about it she won't talk about it.  Of course this makes him obsessed with knowing why they saved this article until his mother finally explains that the teen was babysitting him at the time and died saving him. Derek is determined to learn more about her death and his involvement in it.

 
After one more stunt, his parents decide that he needs to be kept busy so send him to Study Camp where kids go to learn!  There he meets up with one of his least favorite classmates, teacher's pet Carly. But one day after camp they give Carly a ride home he discovers that Carly is really interesting and not just a teachers pet.  She has set up a maze of string to get through to get the prize. 
 
Finally Derek convinces his parents they should go visit his grandmother, who lives close to Martha's Vinyard, so he can find out for himself what really happened when he wsa 2 years old.  But he really discovers is that everyone has a story and while some may not be the real story it is the one that helps them get by.
 
The book takes place from end of school year to the beginning of the new year.  Through out the book there are drawings in the the margins that feature vocabulary words illustrated with cartoons.  While I found the character Derek extremely ADHD and annoying there was something kind of endeering about him and his quest for the truth. 

Minding Frankie by Maeve Binchy

A Dublin neighborhood full of many of the characters bands together to help a young single father raise his daughter.  Aware she will not survive her baby's birth, fatally ill Stella tells alcoholic loner Noel that he is the father. He doesn't remember having actual sex with Stella and is far from certain he wants or can handle the responsibility. But with the help and encouragement of his cousin Emily, in Dublin on an extended visit from New York, Noel stops drinking and takes custody of baby Frankie after Stella's death at St. Brigid's Hospital.

His transformation from loser to responsible, loving father and his struggle to convince his uptight social worker that he is fit to raise Frankie forms the central plot. But there are many subplots as there often are in Binchy novels.  But she is the queen of connecting everyone together, though in this story it wasn't as far fetched as other books I've read.  Social worker Moira seems like the stereotypical uptight bureaucrat at first, but her loneliness and painful self-awareness of her failure to connect to others become increasingly heart-wrenching. Moira has to overcome an unhappy family situation, as does Lisa, a graphic artist who moves in as Noel's platonic housemate to escape her parents' sham marriage, although she's in her own sham love affair with a flashy restaurateur. Circling everywhere, is cousin Emily, who on a whim comes to visit family she has never met but finds herself a family far more than she ever imagined.

Mave Binchy has this wonderful way of weaving a story together.  But she deals with everyday life including the good and bad - death, birth, addiction that feels believeable yet not too sweet.  Having to read when one of the older characters died from cancer was heart breaking as it is very close to home.  My favorite book by Maeve Binchy will always "Evening Class" but this one was right up there.

Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer L. Holm

Set in summer of 1935, eleven-year-old Turtle is sent to Key West Florida to live with her mother's family whom she has never met.  Her favorite saying is "Life isn't like the movies, and eleven-year-old Turtle is no Shirley Temple." She's smart and tough and has seen enough of the world not to expect a Hollywood ending. After all, it's 1935, and jobs and money and sometimes even dreams are scarce. So when Turtle's mama gets a job housekeeping for a lady who doesn't like kids, Turtle says goodbye without a tear and heads off to Key West, Florida, to stay with relatives she's never met.Unfortunately, Turtle's Mama has neglected to tell Aunt Minnie she's coming, and Turtle gets the stink eye from cousins with monikers like Buddy and Beans. As Turtle soon learns, everything is different in Key West, from the fruit hanging on trees to the scorpions in nightgowns to the ways kids earn money. She can't be part of her cousins' Diaper Gang (no girls allowed), which takes care of fussy babies, but when she finds a treasure map, she hopes she'll be on Easy Street like Little Orphan Annie.

Florida's like nothing Turtle has ever seen. It's hot and strange, full of wild green peeping out between houses, ragtag boy cousins, and secret treasure. Before she knows what's happened, Turtle finds herself coming out of the shell she has spent her life building, and as she does, her world opens up in the most unexpected ways.Full of flavor of Southern Florida and set during the depression this realistic but funny story of a place and time that feels as fresh as when it actually happened.  It makes me want to go to that part of the country and see it for myself.  I found the author's notes particularly interesting as she explains much of the story comes from the stories her grandmother told.

Highly Effective Detective by Richard Yancey
A Teddy Ruzak series

After his mother dies, Teddy Ruzak who has always been an overweight man and just done what was expected of him decides to start his own business. Failing to become a policeman, he's been a security guard for years; now is the time to break out and get into detective work, the reason he was first drawn to law enforcement. Ruzak is an ironic antihero who not only doesn't know much about detecting, but also can't avoid getting suckered by his newly hired assistant (who goes on shopping sprees with his money) or the local deputy (who is too interested in the case of the gosling hit-and-run to be above anyone's suspicion except Ruzak's). The small-town Tennessee setting is both corny and cozy, but not all of the characters here are sweet: in addition to the gosling killer, there's a man with two dead wives and an arsonist.  But how he puts all the pieces together is truly genius.

This was actually a good and believable read as it felt like someone who really didn't know what they were doing opening their own detective agency and somehow making it work.