Reading with Pearl & Rose: The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street – Karina Yan Glaser

In these posts I hope to share a little about what I am reading with my two children. Not exactly a review but a look at a book we’ve read together and how it worked for us. For context, my daughters are currently 7- and 10-years old. They are both excellent independent readers but we choose to continue our family habit of reading a chapter together before bedtime.

I’d heard good things about this middle grade series and so when I spotted a copy in a local Little Free Library, I decided to bring it home and offer it as an option for our next bedtime chapter book. It lost out to Babe in the first round pick but did eventually get chosen. This was one I hadn’t read before but experienced for the first time with my girls.

The Vanderbeeker family consists of Mama, Papa, twins Jessie and Isa, Oliver, Hyacinth, and Laney. They also have a dog, a cat, and a rabbit. (Pearl, reading this over my shoulder, says that she liked Franz the dog and all the characters.) They live in a multi-storey brownstone in Harlem in New York City, owned by Mr. Beiderman who lives on the top floor. A few days before Christmas, the Vanderbeekers learn that Mr. Beiderman (or the Beiderman as the kids call him) has chosen not to renew their lease and they will have to move out by the end of the month. (Honestly, I was a bit confused by the legality of this. I don’t think you could give such short notice here in BC.)

The Vanderbeeker kids love their home and are deeply connected in their neighbourhood and they don’t want to move. So they take it upon themselves to convince the Beiderman to let them stay. The only problem is that they’ve never actually seen the man since he never leaves his apartment.

The adult part of me could understand why Mr. Beiderman might be tired of so many people and animals renting his home and might want quieter tenants. The part of me that was a kid who lived in rental houses and so did sometimes have to move at the (seeming) whim of a stranger, could sympathize with these kids whose lives were suddenly being turned upside down. I’m not sure my kids, who live in a house that we own, could quite understand.

Overall, I found the book a little overly sweet. Everyone in the Vanderbeeker clan has some unique gifting that they are unusually good at. Even their rabbit seems unusually smart. There is one source of tension between a couple of the siblings but in general they all get along, are polite to their parents, do their chores without asking, and eat their vegetables. It seems unlikely that in the lead up to Christmas, as they are facing a monumental life change, at least one of these kids would have a total meltdown. Would Mama Vanderbeeker really be making dozens of cookies for Christmas in a kitchen she’s also trying to pack up for a move?

But I am not the target audience of this book. My children, who are, were engaged with the story and outraged by the Beiderman’s injustices. They enjoyed the book for what it was – an idealized vision of family. I think they liked the variety of neighbourhood characters and they did really care about what was going to happen to this family. That said, this is the first in a series and neither of my girls have asked about reading any more of the books.

I do think this was more of a case of a mismatch between book and reader than any flaw in the book itself. My kids have enjoyed various fantasy or magical series. The stories set in the real world that we’ve read and enjoyed together all tend to have a more historical setting (Anne of Green Gables or Little Women, for example) and for whatever reason that seems to be more interesting to my particular children. I do wonder if this book had had a setting that felt more familiar to them, if that would have made a difference. They had not context for brownstones or Harlem or even, really, city living, and so not much that these kids experienced felt familiar or relevant to them. For other kids, I think there could be a lot more to glean from this book.