May 28, 2026, Seward Folly

Dreamland Book Review by Jessica Bamford

School is out and it’s officially summer – road-trip season! And when my kids were younger, road trips meant audiobooks! I believe my kids were 8 and 6 the year we discovered “The Penderwicks” by Jeanne Birdsall. We were getting ready for an Anchorage drive and I checked this audiobook out on CDs from the library. The car I drove back then had a six-disc CD player so I could load in all the discs at the beginning of the drive. By the time we got to Anchorage, the three of us were laughing hysterically, and we still quote some of the lines from this book to each other now, 10 years later.

Photo courtesy of Amazon.com

The book follows the four Penderwick sisters on a summertime adventure at the vacation home they rent with their father. They become fast friends with Jeffrey, whose mother owns the house they are renting. Their adventures include runaway rabbits, soccer drills, first crushes, baking disasters, and a charging bull. 

There are five books in the series, and they follow the Penderwicks as they grow up. Their family grows, and they learn about loyalty, family honor, friendships, and their own unique talents. While the whole series is great, the first three books are my favorites. 

I highly recommend this series on audio (it’s available on Libby through the Alaska Digital Library), as the narrator, Susan Denaker, is outstanding. She differentiates the character’s voices perfectly and her delivery really adds to the humor.