Binny in Secret by Hilary McKay (review)

Binny, from Binny for Short (BCCB 10/13) has returned, and now she and her family (mother, calm older sister Clem, and purposeful younger brother James) are living in town. Or they were until storm damage meant they had to rent a house out in the country, which, Binny is horrified to discover, belongs to the family of the girl who’s been bullying Binny at her new school. However, the new house offers some interesting compensations as well—there’s a mysterious locked attic room, which turns out to hold memorabilia belonging to children who lived there 100 years ago, and there’s a patch of wild countryside that may hold something even rarer and more special. As always, McKay taps into classic British family stories with her blend of humor, warm safety, and unsupervised adventure, and even Binny’s wretched start at school is solidly counterpointed by her loving home and firm friendship with long-distance friend Gareth. The interpolated story of the three Penrose children from 1912 to 1914 braids intriguingly with Binny’s and offers its own suspense. However, it’s Binny’s anti-hunting bond with the erstwhile bully, Clare, and their determined protection of a rare wild lynx that will really engage readers, and the book is both credible and suspenseful as it inches its way toward the girls’ understated rapprochement. Even those unfamiliar with Binny’s first outing can pick up the thread here, and the mix of history, mystery, and sympathetic everyday-life story will captivate a wide variety of young readers. Reviewed from an unillustrated galley.