Penny Dreadful (review)

Penelope Grey is bored with her sheltered but privileged existence, so she makes a wish that things will change, and change they do: her father quits his job, the family quickly run out of money, and they move to a house in Thrush Junction, Tennessee that her mom has inherited from an eccentric great-great-aunt. There they find that the house and property are already inhabited by a number of poor, quirky families that the aunt has more or less adopted over the years, providing them free rent in exchange for company. Penny loves the freedom, friends, and mild adventures that she finds in Thrush Junction, but money problems follow them as the property comes with a large amount of debt, and Penny must try to set right the consequences of her wish. This is a very bookish sort of book, full of allusions to classic and some contemporary children's literature and self-consciously structured like the books Penny loves to read, complete with illustrations of the cast that are open-faced, slightly comical portraits of the kinds of folk one would find in a friendly novel. Odd characters, trusty chums, and a few minor mysteries to solve keep the episodic plot structure moving forward, with Penny a likely enough heroine for a girl whose expectations have been set by her favorite literature. The adult concerns about money are decidedly underdeveloped (the family goes from very wealthy to destitute very quickly, and her father is blithely unconcerned about his role is their change of fortunes), but this is forgivable shorthand for the age group it's pitched toward, as is the romanticized picture of community that has developed by book's end. Readers who like old-fashioned stories with references to other old-fashioned stories will appreciate Penny's journey from bored privilege to contented subsistence.