"The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street" by Karina Yan Glaser

Wow.  Wow, wow, wow.  I'm not even sure how to review this book!  My friend Jennifer gave it to me because she has recently fallen in love with this series, and she thought I would too.  And she was right.

I mean, I basically cried from joy through the last 30 pages, it was so good.

The Vanderbeeker family lives in Harlem in the first two floors of an old brownstone.  The family is devastated when their grouchy, never-seen landlord Mr. Beiderman calls them a few days before Christmas to say their lease is up at the end of the year and he's not going to renew it, he's going to find new tenants.  The five Vanderbeeker kids (Isa, Jessie, Oliver, Hyacinth, and Laney) are determined to change Mr. Beiderman's mind.  They try everything they can think of to show him what a wonderful family they are -- they bring him tasty treats, make him gifts, even get up a petition with lots of signatures from people who don't want them to move.  Nothing works.  Christmas comes closer and closer, and the kids start to lose hope, but they never give up.

The Vanderbeekers are one of those lively families I always wanted to belong to when I was a kid.  I would read about the Quimbys and the Melendys and the All-of-a-Kind family and wish I was either a friend to those kids or else their long-lost sister  And this hit me very much the same way, except that now that I'm an adult, I spent half my time wishing I was a kid who was friends with the Vanderbeeker kids and half the time wishing I was an adult who was friends with their parents.  Because their parents are EXCELLENT.  Warm, loving, sensible, kind, firm.  I could totally be friends with them.

Particularly Good Bits:

It was a particular gift of Oliver's that he could say things that adults couldn't hear but his sisters could (p. 70).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  Good, clean, wholesome, heartwarming fun!

This is my 52nd book read from my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2021.