Susie Wilde (Children's Literature)
Eleven-year-old Penny lives in her mother’s WASP house, where her grandmother’s cooking is horrible, and her mother is overprotective of her deceased father’s large Italian family. There, cooking and fun abound and she gets to hang out with her cousin Frankie. This Italian family’s eccentric grandmother dresses only in black, and her uncle Dominic lives in a car. She is haunted by her father’s mysterious death so what was it? Cancer? And why is it connected to Uncle Dominic? And why is the milkman hanging around her house so much? It takes an unexpected accident to bring all the pieces into order. Holm’s research is well woven into the story, her world is engaging, and the writing is vibrant. 2006, Random House, $15.95. Ages 9 to 12.

Judy Crowder (Children's Literature)
Penny has heard two different theories about her name. One is that her father’s favorite song was Bing Crosby’s “Pennies from Heaven.” The other is that Penny, whose real name is Barbara, was called Penny after her dying father said, “That baby is like a lost penny I’ll never hold. A lost penny.” Sometimes the appropriate name has a way of attaching itself onto an individual no matter what name may be on a birth certificate. Newbery Honor writer Holm has penned a compelling book about a twelve-year-old growing up and finding her place in the larger scheme of things in 1953 New Jersey. She has also introduced the young adult reader to a little-known injustice during World War II: the registration and labeling of Italians living in the USA as “enemy aliens,” the prohibition against their living in costal zones, and even the imprisonment of these people if they were caught speaking or writing Italian or even owning a radio capable of short wave communication. Penny is an enchanting character. She is a fiercely loyal Brooklyn Dodgers fan, calling them, “Dem Bums,” she’ll avoid her maternal grandmother’s cooking as much as she will salivate over her paternal grandmother’s Ricotta-ball soup and pasteria. Her mother, a nurse, refuses to let her go to the public swimming pool or the movies because of the polio scare. Penny endures these restrictions but she demands to know the truth about her father, whom no one will talk about. Penny’s life is full of family. Her cousin, Frankie, is her best friend, she lives with her mother and maternal grandparents in one house and spends much of her time with her father’s family just blocks away. These two worlds are very different and very separate, but they are forced to come together when Penny is seriously injured by a washing machine wringer. Holm’s writing is warm and fine; reading this book is as good as time travel into the life of the 1950s. A real treat awaits the reader at the book’s end when the author writes about loosely basing Penny on her mother, complete with family pictures, a photo of the old Ebbets Field, plus a picture example of the records kept on Italian Americans during the World War. 2006, Random House Children’s Books, $15.95 and $21.00. Ages 9 to 16.

CCBC (Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choices, 2007)
Eleven-year-old Penny is spending the summer of 1953 following the Brooklyn Dodgers, hanging out with her mischievous best friend, Frankie, and going back and forth between the two disparate sides of her family. She lives with her quiet mother and maternal grandparents, and regularly visits her boisterous paternal grandparents, aunts, and uncles. Since her father died when she was very young, Penny has relied on his huge and loving Italian American family to keep his memory alive for her. After her mother starts dating the milkman of all people, Penny’s feelings of confusion and uncertainty begin to boil over. Why won’t her mother talk about her father? In the aftermath of an accident, Penny finds herself the center of attention from both sides of the family. During her recovery, a painful truth is finally revealed: like several thousand other non-naturalized Italians in the United States, her father was arrested during World War II, labeled an “enemy alien” because of his heritage. He died while imprisoned. The revelation of this family secret makes way for new understanding and deeper bonds in Jennifer Holm’s sparkling novel. Holm’s narrative comes alive with seamlessly woven details that firmly establish the time, setting, and lively characters of a story that is based in part on her own mother’s history. CCBC Category: Fiction for Children. 2006, Random House, 274 pages, $15.95 and $17.99. Ages 10-14.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, June 1, 2006 (Vol. 74, No. 11))
Penny, almost 12, is caught between two extremes: her mother's small, uptight, WASP family, and her dead father's large, exuberant, Italian one. Summers, she moves freely between them, mediating as best she can between the two. Her best pal is her cousin Frankie, with whom she delivers groceries from her uncle's store, worships at the shrine of the Brooklyn Dodgers and gets into trouble. No one talks about her father's absence, and that's beginning to bother her more and more. And even worse, her mother has begun dating the milkman. Holm has crafted a leisurely, sprawling period piece, set in the 1950s and populated by a large cast of offbeat characters. Penny's present-tense narration is both earthy and observant, and her commentary on her families' eccentricities sparkles. Various scrapes and little tragedies lead to a nearly catastrophic encounter with a clothes wringer and finally the truth about her father's death. It takes so long to get there that the revelation seems rather anticlimactic, but getting to know Penny and her families makes the whole eminently worthwhile. 2006, Random, 288p, $15.95. Category: Fiction. Ages 9 to 13. © 2006 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Karen Coats (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, October 2006 (Vol. 60, No. 2))
Eleven-year-old Penny is the cherished darling of two very different families. On her mom’s side, there’s Me-me, whose cooking is somewhere between vile and dangerous, and Pop-pop, who has embarrassing old-man habits, but they adore Penny and she them. On her dad’s side, there are Italian aunts, uncles, and cousins galore, who all gather at Nonny’s house for wonderful day-long meals every Sunday and shower Penny with gifts, trying to make up for the fact that her father is dead. During the summer of 1953, Penny divides her time between her two families, hanging out with her cousin Frankie and trying to figure out life’s little mysteries and a few big ones. It’s an eventful summer—her dog dies, her mom starts dating the milkman, and Penny ends up in the hospital facing the potential loss of her arm when she gets it caught in Nonny’s wringer washing machine. The shock of the summer comes when she finds out how her father really died—in an American internment camp during World War II, where he was being detained for owning a fancy radio forbidden to Italian Americans at the time. Holm uses bits and pieces of her own history to craft this portrait of everyday life in the 1950s: drawing from a store of eccentric relatives and family legends, she zeroes in on the concerns and preoccupations of the times, from the fate of “Dem Bums” (the Brooklyn Dodgers) to fears of polio to the troubling history of Italian Americans as their parent country went from allies in the first world war to enemies in the second. It’s undeniably a nostalgic and highly personal piece, but it is readable and appealing nostalgia; Penny’s family is quirky, big-hearted, and lively, and her adventures will have broad appeal for preadolescents, as well as bringing to light a largely neglected piece of American history. A family picture album and author’s note follow the text. Review Code: R -- Recommended. (c) Copyright 2006, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 2006, Random House, 274p., $17.99 and $15.95. Grades 4-7.

Horn Book (The Horn Book Guide, Spring 2007)
In 1953, eleven-year-old Penny gets her arm caught in a washing machine wringer. While she's hospitalized she learns the truth about her father's death: he died in a WWII American internment camp because he was an Italian immigrant. The story begins slowly with many historical explanations before building in intensity, but Penny's large Italian American family is filled with engaging characters. Category: Intermediate Fiction. 2006, Random, 276pp, 15.95, 17.99. Ages 9 to 12. Rating: 4: Recommended, with minor flaws.

Jewell Fine (The Lorgnette-Heart of Texas Reviews (Vol. 19, No. 3))
This is the story of eleven-year-old Penny. Penny dreams of a summer of ice cream, swimming, and baseball, but she doesn’t have a typical summer. Penny lives with her mother and her mother’s parents. Her father died when she was very young. Her dad’s family lives across town, and they like to talk about her father. Penny is curious about her father, and her mother doesn’t like to talk about it. Penny spends a lot of time with her father’s family and learns that they are Italian, and she wants to know more about her heritage. Readers will want to follow Penny’s quest to learn more about her father and the Italian legacy that he left her. Along the way, Penny learns the true meaning of family. Fiction. Grades n/a. 2006, Random House, 274p., $15.95.