When I was a kid, I really wanted a pen pal. Oh, I had a cousin out of
town who I’d write to now and then, but I wanted a friendship forged
entirely from pen and paper with someone on the other side of the
country or the world. It wasn’t until the past decade, with my immersion
in the Internet, that this longing was fulfilled, and I have delighted
in making dozens of friends online, a few of whom I feel as though I’ve
known my whole life. And of that select group, I’ve actually gone on to
meet four. What a thrill that was! I hope there are more meetings to
come.
In Dear Pen Pal, the third book in the
Mother-Daughter Book Club intermediate series by Heather Vogel
Frederick, Emma Hawthorne, the character with whom I most identify,
embraces the pen pal experience as whole-heartedly as I would have if
I’d gotten my act together and found a pen pal at that age. The others
in the club? Not so much. Writing a letter feels too much like homework.
And what makes their mothers think they have anything in common with
these girls way out in Wyoming, anyway? But as the year wears on, they
come to find comfort in the idea of confiding in an unseen friend
hundreds of miles away, especially when they have a lot on their minds.
Of the four books in the series thus far, Dear Pen Pal is the only one that is focused on a book with which I had no prior familiarity. I need to read Daddy Longlegs
one of these days; Frederick certainly makes it sound appealing. While I
did miss the fun of picking up on all of the references to the book
that the mothers and daughters are reading together, I was wholly in
love with the series at this point and didn’t need the tie-in to a
beloved novel to keep me engaged.
A lot is happening in this
installment. It’s eighth grade, a big year for the girls, who include
bookish Emma, shy farm girl Jess Delaney, tomboyish hockey player
Cassidy Sloane, artistic only child Megan Wong and flirtatious Becca
Chadwick. Becca is really more of a side player, since she’s the only
one of the book club daughters not to narrate her own chapter, but she’s
still worth mentioning, since after two books’ worth of hostility,
she’s finally been successfully integrated into this group. She still
occasionally exhibits catty behavior, but on the whole, these girls have
resolved their issues with each other.
But one thing that
every book in the series has is at least one snotty girl who makes life
miserable for one or more of the book club members. This time, it’s
Savannah, Jess’s roommate at the prestigious girls’ boarding school she
reluctantly agreed to attend. Jess is very shy, though less withdrawn
than at the beginning of the series, so it’s a real struggle for her to
embrace this new challenge at first, even though she’s a brilliant
student. Stuck-up Senator’s daughter Savannah doesn’t help. But might
there be more to her than meets the eye?
Each of the girls has
challenges to face this year as big changes come into their lives. For
Emma, it’s been a pretty good year, since she has a boyfriend - or
“sort-of boyfriend,” anyway - in quiet, bumbling kindred spirit Stewart,
Becca’s brother. Plus, she’s grown closer to grandmotherly Eva Bergson,
a former Olympic ice skater who is giving her lessons. Eva has a great
gift for encouraging others, and she urges Emma to use her writing
skills to protest the unpopular new uniforms at her school. I confess
myself surprised that the uniform bothered Emma; like her, I have never
been fashion-conscious, and it was a relief to me to get to high school
and find that I no longer had to worry about getting made fun of for my
wardrobe. I would’ve thought the same would apply to her. Maybe she just
empathizes with her more stylish pals, particularly Megan.
Megan’s grandmother Gigi becomes fast friends with Eva, particularly
after both of them begin joining in on the book club meetings. Gigi is
from Hong Kong, and she loves fashion just as much as Megan does.
Indeed, they seem to have just about everything in common, while Megan
and her mom are exact opposites. This year, Megan reminded me very much
of Claudia, the Japanese girl in the Babysitters’ Club series who is
artistic, whose parents don’t approve of her aspirations and who is
especially close to her grandmother. Gigi becomes a permanent part of
the household, but the squabbles between her and her daughter intensify,
and just as Megan was caught in the cross-fire between Becca and her
book club buddies in the second book, she’s stuck in the middle here as
well.
Never having had a sibling, she’s jealous of Cassidy,
whose recently married mother announces that a baby is on the way. But
while Cassidy is grudgingly coming to accept the presence of her
mild-mannered stepfather Stanley, she is disgusted by the prospect of a
baby and glowers whenever anyone mentions it. Though she hates to admit
it, she also is having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that
her sister Courtney will be going off to college in the fall. While
they’ve had a rocky relationship at times, her impending departure makes
her realize how important Courtney is to her.
Through it all,
they write to their pen pals, who write back with dramas and dreams of
their own, and this book follows the pattern set by the others by
concluding with a big trip, this time to Wyoming so they can all meet
each other and connect on another level. It’s an engrossing book
deepened by the expansion of focus into three generations instead of
just two. There is a certain rhythm to these books that makes some of
the events fairly predictable, but I don’t mind that, since the novel
takes us in such wonderful directions, and occasionally it pulls off a
surprise or two as well.
The entire series is a testament to
the power of the written word to bring people together, but there’s a
deeper layer of that here, with so much of the writing and reading in
this book being a true dialogue. It just goes to show that there are
many ways to make friends - but keeping them will always involve the
same type of kindness and consideration that these imperfect but
endearing girls display in their best moments.
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