Jennifer L. Holm is a great author - having written such titles as Turtle in Paradise, and the Boston Jane books. Penny from Heaven is a Newberry Honor Book.
I just finished reading this story - set in the 50's - a little after World War Two. The books starts off a little slow for me. It was hard to get into Penny's story. Things just seemed to jump from one thing to the next. Nothing seemed to flow together. One thing that was a little irritating is that we have to meet the entire family tree in the first couple of pages, and because of that I couldn't keep them apart, nor did I really care about the different individuals throughout the book.
It wasn't until I skipped to the end and read the author's notes that I began to understand what the author was trying to do. It is basically a story about her own Italian family and what they had to deal with after the war.
I had no idea that Italian Americans were taken away from family and friends and put into internment camps. Where I live we have an old Japanese internment camp - which I have toured. We all hear stories and have seen movies about what happened to the Japanese after Pearl Harbor. But to know that it happened to other races also, blew me away.
After knowing this information - the book became more interesting and all the weird story lines seemed to finally fit together. The war, family, Italians, laundry, buried treasures, stores, new coats, and baseball. While I finally was able to finish up the book because of the historical aspect of the author's real family, and the historical significance of a chapter in history I never know, the book truly did not have it together as well as I would have liked it to. Although I did enjoy the true life story from the author, as well as her pictures, at the end of the book.
I found it a little bit boring, and a little bit jumpy. The characters were either not very well developed, or just not likable. Or maybe even a little bit of both. Sorry Jennifer Holm, just not the book for me this time.
All in all I would give this book *** 3 out of 5 stars.
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