FROM OUR EDITORS

This National Book Award winner tells the story of Ratchet Clark, a 13-year-old Pensacola, Florida, teen, whose uncaring mother foists her on two elderly relatives in Maine. What begins as a gruesome summer entrapment turns ever so gradually into a memorable, if offbeat experience. The vividly drawn twin sister hosts, Tilly and Penpen, are clearly the main attraction: They lace their family anecdotes with ghoulish images and salty language.

ANNOTATION

Thirteen-year-old Ratchet spends a summer in Maine with her eccentric great-aunts Tilly and Penpen, hearing strange stories from the past and encountering a variety of unusual and colorful characters.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

One night out of the blue, Ratchet Clark's ill-natured mother tells her that Ratchet will be leaving their Pensacola apartment momentarily to take the train up north. There she will spend the summer with her aged relatives Penpen and Tilly, inseparable twins who couldn't look more different from each other. Staying at their secluded house, Ratchet is treated to a passel of strange family history and local lore, along with heaps of generosity and care that she has never experienced before. Also, Penpen has recently espoused a new philosophy-whatever shows up on your doorstep you have to let in. Through thick wilderness, down forgotten, bear-ridden roads, come a variety of characters, drawn to Penpen and Tilly's open door. It is with vast reservations that the cautious Tilly allows these unwelcome guests in. But it turns out that unwelcome guests may bring the greatest gifts.

By turns dark and humorous, Polly Horvath offers adolescent readers enough quirky characters and outrageous situations to leave them reeling!

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

In our Best Books citation, PW wrote, "Unpredictable and compelling, this outrageous but openhearted novel involves a 13-year-old girl sent to a remote bear-infested region in Maine to live with distant nonagenarian twin cousins." Ages 12-up. (Oct.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Children's Literature - Susie Wilde

Polly Horvath has developed a reputation for unusual characters. There's another wild, wacky cast in her 2003 National Book award-winning, The Canning Season. The main character is thirteen-year-old Ratchet Clark, whose mother, Henrietta, is an irresponsible woman who cares only about getting into the Hunt Club and hiding "That Thing" that grows on Ratchet's shoulder blade. At the story's start, Henrietta tells Ratchet she's being sent to her ninety-one-year-old twin aunts who live on a remote ancestral Maine blueberry farm. Henrietta describes them as "casket-ready by now. Penpen was kind of fat and happy-happy all the time, and Tilly looked like a sphincter." These elderly twins live up to Horvath's talents for inventing intriguing characters and the author lets them speak for themselves in a way that may make readers uncomfortable. Early on, they describe how a governess once described them as "little fucks." The aunts are used to offending and shocking those around them, but Rachet is drawn into their stories as they describe how their mother chopped off her own head to escape the boredom of the remote Maine woods, and Peppen's brief marriage to a man who was "a series of hairy moles like some kind of giant connect-the-dot game in the flesh." The two ancients plan to die together and are filled with a morbidity that is fascinating. But Ratchet brings them new life as does Harper, a saucy young teen deserted on their doorstep. The girls' lives become rich with ripening blueberries, family stories, and the eccentricity of their elders. The plot is not extraordinary; the writing is a witty blend of dark and light, but quirky characters make this book memorable. 2003, FarrarStrauss Giroux, Ages 11 to 14.

VOYA - Teens' Top Ten nominator, age 15

The caring aunts are an important part of this wonderful book, great for a quiet afternoon read. VOYA CODES: 3Q 3P J (Readable without serious defects; Will appeal with pushing; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9). 2003, Farrar Straus Giroux, 208p,

School Library Journal

Gr 6-9-Horvath outdoes herself in this tale of lonely, friendless Ratchet Clark, who lives with her uncaring mother in Pensacola, FL. One night, out of the blue, Henriette packs her daughter onto the train to spend the summer with two elderly relatives, twins Tilly and Penpen, who live in an area of Maine so remote that servant-eating bears are a constant menace. Here, with her outlandishly eccentric great-aunts, Ratchet hears gruesome yet darkly humorous stories of family lore while experiencing, for the first time, some love and care. Harper, another parentless girl, soon joins Ratchet. The approaching canning season becomes not only a metaphor for that moment in each life when everything is ripe, but also provides Ratchet with the self-confidence found in working with others and with a means to support herself. Offbeat, slapstick humor is mitigated by poignancy in Horvath's distinctive rollicking style. There is occasional use of strong language, and the family stories are woven with death, often gruesomely described. Parents take a big hit in this novel, leaving Ratchet and readers with the message that one finds happiness and peace in oneself. The Canning Season, like Horvath's Everything on a Waffle (Farrar, 2001), reads like a tall tale with fantastic and realistic elements interwoven. And, as in a tall tale, Ratchet, Tilly, and Penpen become larger than life and unforgettable. Readers are in for a wise and wacky ride when they open this novel.-Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Horvath tops even Everything on a Waffle (2001) with this hilarious, heartrending tale of two unwanted children left with a pair of eccentric old ladies. As softhearted as her hard-drinking twin sister, Tilly, is surly, Penpen Menuto proclaims a willingness to welcome all who come to the door of their isolated old house--a resolve that is sorely tested by the twin entrances of mousy Ratchet Ratchet Clark, a distant relative, and Harper, a sharp-tongued adolescent raised, then abandoned, by a ne¿¿¿er-do-well aunt. Subjecting their new charges to wonderfully lurid family stories and conversational volleys that tend to veer violently off-course, the 91-year-old twins both provide care, and need it--a combination that ultimately leads to Ratchet¿¿¿s blossoming, and to Harper showing the worthy spirit beneath a truly rough-cut exterior. Though Tilly¿¿¿s old heart finally gives out at the end, the author alleviates the tragedy with an epilogue describing how everyone else turns out (well). Once again Horvath displays a genius for creating multigenerational, interestingly extended families, and for blending high and low comedy into a tale rife with important themes and life-changing events. (Fiction. 11-13)