Penny Dreadful
My rating:
didn't like it it was ok liked it really liked it it was amazing
add to my books

Penny Dreadful

by
3.97 of 5 stars 3.97  ·  rating details  ·  247 ratings  ·  91 reviews
The perfect book for girls and boys who look to find adventure and magic in surprising places!

What if you were really bored with your life? What would you wish for?

Penelope Grey wishes for something—anything!—interesting to happen, and here’s what she gets:

• Her father quits his job.
• Her family runs out of money.
• Her home becomes a pit of despair.

So Penelope makes anoth...more
Hardcover, 320 pages
Published September 28th 2010 by Random House Books for Young Readers (first published September 22nd 2010)
more details... edit details
There is a good chance some of your friends read this book. Sign in to see!
sign in »

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
An Object of Beauty by Steve MartinA Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty  SmithThirteen Reasons Why by Jay AsherLittle Bee by Chris CleaveThe Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan
Laidback Ladies 2011 Book List
12th out of 31 books — 14 voters
Mockingjay by Suzanne CollinsOne Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-GarciaOut of My Mind by Sharon M. DraperCountdown by Deborah WilesMockingbird by Kathryn Erskine
Newbery 2011
49th out of 148 books — 308 voters


More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 749)
filter  |  sort: default (?)  |  rating details
Susann
Susann rated it 4 of 5 stars
Recommended to Susann by: Wendy
Wendy was right. I am loving this and am very glad that I went completely out of my way to pick it up from the library.
Update: sweet and real and substantial. It's hard to imagine the bookish young girl (or the bookish formerly young girl) who wouldn't enjoy this. The literary references jibe and - although I am suspicious of any chapter book illustrator working after 1984 - these illustrations enhance the text and grow more and more appealing. Thrush Junction might be too good to be true, ...more
Jennifer
Excitement in Penny's life comes after a wish. Since Penny leads a sheltered, privileged life, books are her only form of experience. After making a wish (as she read about in Magic or Not?) Penny's riches turn to rags. This book has a wonderful old fashioned feel while being modern in some details. I enjoyed the citing of over 15 children's classic books that Penny compares her life to. Some young readers may enjoy these references but their inclusion doesn't detract from the plot. Penny's fam...more
Dawn
Dawn rated it 4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for: readers of The Penderwicks
I had the chance to read this book as a winner of a Good Reads First Reads giveaway. One day, a nice hardcover arrived in my mailbox, along with a bookmark. And the book was autographed! Pretty neat.

Well, it took me longer than I had planned to get around to reading this story, but I'm glad I finally did. It is a delightful little tale of a young girl named Penelope Grey, who wishes that something interesting would happen in her life, something like what would happen in a book.
...more
Megan D. Neal
Penelope goes from a rich, pampered, sheltered, boring life in the city, where books are her best friends and her parents are too busy for her, to living a poor but free and adventure-filled life in the country as Penny, with a whole town full of real friends and parents who finally pay attention.

This fun and cozy book is peopled with some great eclectic characters, and great illustrations. And it's the perfect summertime (or anytime) read. I love all the bookish references peppered...more
Linda Cohen
Linda Cohen rated it 5 of 5 stars
Shelves: children
What to read next Oh what to read next! sigh I have the ARC and all the comments say this is just the right thing! lol

I loved this book-it's exactly the kind of book that would have been one of my favorites when I was a little girl! I loved all the mentions of other books that were Penny's favorites(alot of them were my favorites too)I will definetely be recommending this title to customers at my bookstore.


Penny Dreadful
by
Laurel Snyder


...more
Lupine
This book has a diverse and quirky cast of characters, there's a tiny bit of magic-magic and a lot of "real-life" magic. It's a great book for reading aloud (esp if you reading to kids of different ages) and for those kids who are reading way above their age level. Along the lines of The Penderwicks, Ramona books, Moffats etc. In other words, it's a book that's timeless and reaches across ages.

An interesting thing to note -- one of the characters has two moms. This is no...more
Skyler
Skyler rated it 5 of 5 stars
I love it! This is a great book! I could NOT put it down. I usually talk on the bus but I read the whole way home! This is my favorite book.
Hannah
Hannah marked it as to-read
Like so for. I like the way the book format is and the way the words are.
Betsy
I am clearly in the minority as far as my opinion of this book goes. It's cute, well written, and charming in most of the right ways. I love that Penny refers to all my favorite books (among them Unfortunate Events, Anne of Green Gables, Penderwicks...). What bugged me more and more as the book progressed, however, were two primary things:

1. the lack of any strong male character. Even Penny's dad, after he's brave enough to quit his major corporate job, still lets Penny's mom call the ...more
Cindy Hudson
Penny and her parents live a rather privileged though somewhat isolated life in New York City. One day Penny is feeling rather bored and writes a wish to throw into the fountain in her back yard: “I wish something interesting would happen when I least expect it, just like in a book.”

The next thing she knows, her dad has quit his job and the family is rapidly falling into dire financial straits. It’s not exactly what Penny had in mind when she wished from something interesting. When Pen...more
Beth G.
Penelope Grey has a perfectly fine life. She lives in a big mansion in the City, where all the household chores are taken care off by pleasant staff. She doesn't even have to go to school, as a tutor comes to her. Her parents - on the rare occasions that she sees them - are nice. She has a couple of nice playmates. Everything is nice. Nice... and really, really boring. She escapes into book after book (the shout-outs to familiar titles are a nice touch), finally deciding to do something that the...more
Lawral
Lawral rated it 5 of 5 stars
Shelves: arc, middle-grade
This is a hard book to summarize because the beginning is so incredibly different from the rest of the book. It all goes together. The difference doesn't cause any jarring shifts for the reader, and circumstances in the opening make the rest of the book make sense, but this is not a book about a little rich girl who moves to the county, as the first couple chapters would have you believe. Yes, Penelope has grown up rich, but finances quickly deteriorate in the Grey household after her father lea...more
Ashley
Really enjoyed this one!
Green Bean
Thrilling things happen to Violet Beauelaire and to Ramona Quimby, even to Anne of Green Gables! But Penelope Geraldine Grey is just plain bored--bored of polite company, bored of her tiresome tutor, and bored of her big empty house. She tosses her wish for a book-like life into the fancy fountain in her backyard and voila! Penelope's John Berryman-quoting papa quits his investment banking job to write the great American novel! Of course, wish fulfillment has side-effects--it becomes harder and ...more
Madigan McGillicuddy
Penelope Grey leads a pretty regulated life at her family's mansion in the city, with a private tutor, maid and chef to take care of her every need. Bored, she decides to make a wish in an old well, for an everything change - a total life transformation. Shortly thereafter, her father quits his steady job in order to become a writer, something that leads to the financial ruin of the family, and an eventual move to an old great-aunt's house in the country which they've inherited in the small town...more
Janet Young
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Colby Sharp
Every day during the school year I I call my 25+ fourth graders over to the carpet and do my best to help them become better writers. I model for them: leads, character development, revision, elaboration, and a slew of other lessons to push them along as writers. At times I feel that I am a pretty good writer. My lessons go well, and I see what I model in the writing of my fourth graders.

My head never gets too big as a writer, but by the time summer comes and I flip through my st...more
Kate
Kate rated it 5 of 5 stars
PENNY DREADFUL is one of those stories that feels like cold lemonade in summer or steaming hot chocolate in winter -- timeless and comfortable and homey. It's about a rich girl from the city, Penelope, who turns into a not-so-rich girl in the country, Penny. Where Penelope lived in a mansion and had a tutor, Penny lives in an old country house. She has awesome, eclectic neighbors (Oh, how I wish I could have had zany, messy Luella as a friend!), inner resources, and Adventures with a capital A...more
Elizabeth
What a fun book—I picked it up off the new book shelf for Maddie, started reading it while waiting for Bridget to finish story time, and was hooked immediately. The characters are smart and thoughtful, the plot follows a somewhat predictable line (rich family loses riches and must figure out what to do) but it still holds lots of sweet (and sometimes funny) surprises and misunderstandings, and an ending that is satisfying without being a pat happy ending. I loved all the references to books; the...more
The Styling Librarian
What a pleasure to read two Laurel Snyder books recently. Penny Dreadful: I loved the celebration of kids having fun together just hanging out reading, chatting, and playing. Friendships and issues with a girl who never had true friends before were beautifully and also realistically addressed. Made me sit back and think about how I may have made a wish that could then be thought of as possibly fulfilled afterwards... Enjoyed reading about Penny Dreadfuls, threw me back to my childhood when ...more
Ryan
Ryan rated it 4 of 5 stars
The ending is wonderful, the story is great...so much fun. It is a story about discovery - Penelope discovers Penny, her dad discovers cooking, her mother discovers garbage, and they all discover their magical inner resources. I am a wisher - sometimes its prayer, sometimes its just wishing - and know the power of wishing (so you have to be super careful), so I appreciated Penny's wishes, appreciated her faith and also her realization that it isn't enough to wish - you have to DO something too....more
BAYA Librarian
10-year old Penelope, tired of her boring, privileged life in the City, casts a wish down a well: “I wish something interesting would happen when I least expect it.” When her father comes home to inform the family he has quit his job and they move from their posh residence to a quirky home in Thrush Junction, Tenn, her wish seems to come true.  But of course, interesting doesn’t always mean good, and Penny and her family must weather some trials and adjustments to their new lives in a rural comm...more
Sarah Sullivan
Laurel Snyder and I MUST have read and loved the same books as children, because between this and her earlier "Any Which Wall" she has captured the essence of two of my favorite genres of middle grade, paying homage to writers like Edward Eager, E. Nesbitt, Elizabeth Enright and many many others. Like the Penderwicks, this book feels simultaneously old-fashioned in style and contemporary in voice and setting. This book will appeal to book lovers (like me, I would have LOVED this book w...more
Susan
Susan rated it 3 of 5 stars
Shelves: children-s-books
I won this book on the Good Reads giveaway.

I am not sure how to review this book. For the most part, I really liked it. It's about a family who goes from being rich to very poor and who finds that being rich doesn't mean being happy--but being poor, with big money problems, doesn't make for happiness either.

They find they all like living in a small town in Tennessee where the main character, nine-year-old Penny, makes friends for the first time in her life, but the financia...more
Sarah
Could this *be* any more adorable? It's like a quirkier, more blue collar Penderwicks set in Southern Appalachia. There's quirky old spunky ladies, quirky artists, quirky kids, a quirky lesbian couple, set in a dream version of a small Southern town, with all the good stuff (hospitality, a sense of community, appreciation of eccentricity, harmony with the natural world) and none of the bad (insularity, a certain prideful ignorance). I want to live in Thrush Junction. I don't BELIEVE IN Thrus...more
Ann
Ann rated it 4 of 5 stars
So far, delightful.
Treasure
This book embodies the word "delightful". It is sweet, simple, and captivating. Penelope's lonely, boring life as a rich, somewhat neglected only child, changes dramatically when her father quits his high powered job and her mother inherits an eccentric, rambling old house in East Tennessee. As an adult reader, it is fascinating to see how she and her parents reconnect and change as they adapt to a simpler life that ends up being more adventurous, sweet, and comforting than any of them...more
Lizz
Lizz rated it 5 of 5 stars
How do you even start a review for one of the best books you can remember reading? I guess at the beginning, a very good place to start.

If you are not reading Laurel Snyder, you are not reading one of the best kidlit writers working today. Blessed with the gift of writing magical stories that fit firmly into modern reality, Snyder has a dry wit and big heart. Penny Dreadful reflects her strengths and what's missing in so much kidlit these days.

Penelope Grey's worldview co...more
Tricia
Penny has everything materially (mansion, $$$) but feels lonely and empty. When her father quits his job and her mother subsequently inherits an interesting property, her world turns upside down...in a good way. I enjoyed this book. The characters were quirky and Penny was really likeable due to her compassion and emotional depth. The vacant and clueless father was the only irritation...but in a book without a real villian, he offers a conflicting aspect and loose cannon (harmless) to the st...more
The Library Lady
This book has a tiny edge of too-good-to-be-true, but redeems itself with these wonderful lines:

"Because you don't live in a book. Nobody does, silly. Things never happen the way they would in a book. There isn't foreshadowing.....
"Problems don't always get fixed. Lots of the time things are boring and dumb for no good reason. Or even terrible. And you can't do anything about it. That's life."

I loved this, and hope my 11 year old will read it and enjoy it...more
« previous 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 24 25
There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »
Penny Dreadful (Paperback)
Penny Dreadful (ebook)
Penny Dreadful (Kindle Edition)
Penny Dreadful (Library Binding)

Readers Also Enjoyed

328151
Laurel Snyder is the author of four children's novels, "Bigger than a Bread Box," "Penny Dreadful," "Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains OR The Search for a Suitable Princess" and "Any Which Wall" (Random House) as well as three picture books, "Nosh, Schlep, Schluff," "Baxter, the Pig Who Wanted to Be Kosher," and "Inside the Slidy Di...more
More about Laurel Snyder...
Bigger than a Bread Box Any Which Wall Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains Baxter, the Pig Who Wanted to Be Kosher Inside the Slidy Diner

Share This Book

Your website
Pin It

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »


Children's Books by Georgia Authors and Illustrators
Children's Books by Georg...
1 member
last activity Dec 22, 2011 08:32am
shelf: read