Rating: 4 stars
Cover Rating: 5 stars (I love these illustrations and the cover just makes me giggle.)
Genre: Middle Grade
Publication Date: February 16, 2010
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Page Count: 267 p.
Penelope Lumley acquires a job at Ashton Place. The accommodations and pay are quite good, but they seem nervous to introduce her to the children. When she hears the sounds of dogs in the barn she goes to investigate and finds the children. The children act like animals they don't know how to speak or put on clothing. Penelope sees this as a great challenge and is excited to take it on. However, with a Christmas party approaching she doesn't know if the children will be ready in time. With some odd things happening and someone in the house trying to thwart Penelope's efforts to civilize the children, Penelope's is in for a bigger challenge than she originally thought.
This was an amusing book with and interesting concept. Children raised by wolves is an outrageous idea. Though I feel as though these children were very quick to warm up to humans. I was surprise that Penelope seemed to take everything in stride and it didn't seem too strange for her to meet the children. This was an enjoyable book and fans of The Willoughbys will enjoy this. The illustrations by Jon Klassen are thoroughly excellent too. One thing that did bug me were all the sentences that were along the lines of "how you say nowadays" and would then relate something that was happening to something more modern. It happened entirely too much. Especially in chapter 11. All in all this was a great read and I look forward to the next installments of the Incorrigibles.
First Line:
"It was not Miss Penelope Lumley's first journey on a train, but it was the first one she had taken alone."
Favorite Line:
"Next time you see me, I will have wasted away to skin and bones---oh, look who is lurking here among the foliage."
That's a really cool cover - cute yet sort of creepy :-)
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