Family Reunion

By Caroline B. Cooney

Book Overview

Newly updated for middle-grade readers, this funny and poignant novel features a girl who learns to appreciate all the members of her unusual family and discovers things are often not as perfect as... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385731361
• ISBN13: 9780385731362
• Release Date: February 2004
• Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 0.7" x 5.6"
• Age Range: 10 to 14 years
• Grade Range: Grades 5 to 9

Customer Reviews

Surprise Surprise

Definately surprising and nothing is what it seems Boys, love, broken families, divorce, annyoing families, Paris, siblings, cousing, rivalries. A big family story with a good ending that might make you cry.

I laughed, I cried, it was great, Bob!

(sorry if you don't get the Veggie Tales reference there.) This is one book that truly made me laugh but honestly, I cried at so many different points. Being a child of divorce helped me see just how true-to-life the main character's feelings are, how awful it is to be "in" a family's that's been torn apart, how difficult stepmothering can be, and how expectations are sometimes just too high to meet. These themes are all brought out in the book with a huge dose of humor and a satisfying, if not traditionally happy, ending. Other reviewers suggest the characters and/or plots are unbelievable. I say if your parents are divorced and you remember all the pain that went along with that divorce, this book will be extremely believable, but will still leave you smiling.

Family Reunion

ISBN 0553285734 - An ALA Recommended Book for the Reluctant YA Reader, Family Reunion is surprisingly good. Shelley's family is spending the summer at their summer home in Vermont - bought by her father to provide stability to the family. Stability, as defined by Shelley's Aunt Maggie, her father's sister, is vital, as are backyards. Especially to Shelley's family, because her mother abandoned them to marry Jean-Paul and go live in France. Her family is broken, according to Aunt Maggie, whose family is Perfect, of course. Shelley's father, Charlie, has been married to Annette, his third wife, for a year and a half. The kids haven't exactly welcomed her with open arms, and Charlie's commuting between their home in New York and the summer home, leaving Annette with Shelley and Angus most of the time, while their older sister Joanna visits their mother in Paris. Things get even more interesting when the Perfect side of the family invites them all to a family reunion. Finding out that no one's actually perfect helps Shelley to connect to all of her family, from her overbearing aunt to her faraway mother, from her stepmother to the father she adores. There were a few details that bothered my - Cooney refers to "developing" videotape, not something anyone ever did or needed to do, since videotape can be played immediately in a VCR (even in 1990). On page 141, various people are entering the living room, and in the very next paragraph she says nobody ever used the living room. Little things, but they bother me. This book's target audience is the young adult age group, (although inside it says RL 5, ages 5 and up) so language and sexual content shouldn't be an issue. Still, if you're the parent who's a little over-protective, you should know there's an "a**hole" and references to the sort of sex-ed stuff (no details, no sex scenes, just referenced) any teenager should have been introduced to in 7th grade. Overall, a nice book!

Family Reunion

Fourteen year old Shelly's aunt, Maggie Preffyn, says her family is unstable. Her dad just married his third wife, Annette, her twelve year old brother, Angus, is selling shares for a bomb shelter behind their Vermont summer cottage and carrying around an old mannequin's leg instead of a backpack, and her sixteen year old sister, Joanna, is in Paris for the summer visiting their estranged mother and their new stepfather. In a few weeks, Shelly has to go with Annette and Angus to the Perfect Preffyn's family reunion, deal with her dad's side of the family and all the people in Barrington (her dad's hometown) making jokes about how may wives he's had, introduce Annette, while her dad is on a business trip. On top of all this, Shelly has to deal with family secrets, family fights, and confessions. This story was very exciting and comical. O didn't want to put it down. This book had many real life situations, such as interpersonal relationships and family problems. Shelly has a crush on two boys, DeWitt and Toby. DeWitt is staying in the same little village in Vermont where Shelly's summer cottage is. Toby is visiting his grandparents in Barrington over the summer. Shelly first thought that Toby was her brother because he is the son of her dad's first wife, Celeste, but then finds out that his dad died when he was two. The author's characters are very vivid. She describes them well and also lets you hear their voices. When Shelly talks about her different situations such as with her brother Angus, Miranda, a mean girl in Barrington, the Perfect Preffyns, Annette, and her cousin, Brett, who has run away from home and is living with a friend, become her. The way the author depicts her settings makes them very lifelike. You can picture your self walking down the streets of both Vermont and Barrington. You can see all of the buildings and parks that are described. You can hear the lap of the water against the docks and the voices of the people and the kids playing in the street. The cars zooming by. This book is good for sitting outside on a sunny day. It made me laugh a lot because of its hilarious situations. It's a wonderful story with great characters. It kept me interested the entire time and made me want to share it with my friends. There were some sad parts but they didn't last for long with Angus around. He always made everyone, including me, smile. Family Reunion was very enjoyable.

It's a good read

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.