The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street by Karina Yan Glaser

Contemporary Middle Grade

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The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street (#1) by Karina Yan Glaser

4 STARS, Contemporary Middle Grade, My format: read-aloud to 9-, 7-, 5-, and 3-year-old girls

Goodreads Synopsis | Buy on BookShop | Buy ebook on Kobo

The Vanderbeeker children must find a way to change their landlord’s mind when he decides not to renew their lease, right before Christmas!

Personal Review:

This was a sweet read-aloud for our family! My daughters really enjoyed the relationships of the Vanderbeeker siblings, though my older girls (9 and 7) enjoyed it more than the younger ones (5 and 3).

I appreciated the many different story lines and personalities of the Vanderbeeker children and how they all came together with a united goal of convincing their landlord to let them stay in their beloved home. I think my favorite part was that the children decided to use kindness as their weapon of choice; such a good-hearted response to a difficult situation.

The parents were also mature and emotionally healthy, which is good to see in middle grade fiction. All in all, it was a good age-appropriate read for our family.

Content Warnings:

past of family members’ death through a car accident