Family Reunion [Mass Market Paperback]

Caroline B. Cooney (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 9, 2006 | Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up

When the invitation to the Preffyn family reunion arrives interrupting a perfectly decent summer vacation, 15-year-old Shelley Wollcott is anything but enthusiastic. It’s not that Shelley has anything against her relatives, she just can’t stand it when they give her that “what a pity” look. It’s not her fault that her real mother walked out on the family or that her father has remarried yet again. With Dad away on business and her older sister visiting their mother in Paris, Shelley must face the “perfect” Preffyns’ reunion with only her prankster younger brother and her insecure new stepmother at her side. It’s an opportunity to uncover the family’s secrets, but Shelley isn’t sure whether, when she discovers the truth, she’ll laugh or cry.

In this funny and poignant novel by Caroline B. Cooney, Shelley learns to appreciate all the members of her unusual family—including herself!—in ways she never anticipated. And she discovers things are often not as perfect as they seem.


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A realistic, sometimes hilarious picture of modern family life.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Cooney’s gifts for humor and characterization are well blended here.”—Kirkus Reviews


From the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Caroline B. Cooney is the author of Goddess of Yesterday (an ALA Notable Children’s Book); The Ransom of Mercy Carter; and The Face on the Milk Carton (an IRA–CBC Children’s Choice). She lives in Westbrook, CT.


From the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Laurel Leaf (May 9, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0440420288
• ISBN-13: 978-0440420286
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 0.6 x 6.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,299,944 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lila Perl was born in Brooklyn and read voraciously as a child, but never dreamed that she would become the author of more than 60 books published by mainstream publishers including Dutton, Houghton Mifflin, HarperCollins, and Scholastic. Her subjects for adults, young adults, and children range from mummies, ancient Egyptians, and the ancient Maya, to the Holocaust, genocide, cloning, and world terrorism; from the foods and everyday lives of colonial and pioneer Americans to personal ancestor-hunting.

Lila Perl was listed in 2001 among "The Pride of Brooklyn College" by her alma mater, and has received a "Best Books for the Teenage" award from the New York Public Library. Her book on junk food, fast food, and health food won a Boston Globe Award. Her Holocaust story, Four Perfect Pebbles, was a recipient of the Sidney Taylor Award.

In June, 2011, Lila Perl published her first Ebook, What I Did Last Summer, a story about the magic of a first love at a rustic summer camp far from parental restrictions and shadowed by a looming war. Fifteen-year-old Bryna tells her story as she teeters between innocence and young womanhood, a story that is funny,tender,and wistful.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It's a good read, November 22, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Family Reunion (Mass Market Paperback)

Fifth-grader Olivia Potts feels like nobody special. She can't compare to her smart, poetry-writing sister or her Yale University attending brother. Olivia makes friends with the new girl in town, Anita. When someone steals the license plates off Anita's parents' car, it's just the first of many strange events that Olivia is determined to get to the bottom of. As she solves the mystery, she learns maybe she is smart after all. It's a good story and has a lot of nice lessons about acceptance. Olivia is a very realistic heroine. I'm sorry this is out of print. I read it (more than once) when I was a kid and really enjoyed it.