The Pepins and Their Problems

Starred review from June 28, 2004
Following her National Book Award–winning dark comedy The Canning Season
, Horvath reprises the unalloyed giddiness of Everything on a Waffle
—and ups the ante with some outrageous, Pirandello-like flourishes. Seemingly dire problems forever loom over the Pepin family: toads lurk in their shoes, or their hot chocolate has grown too cold to drink. Their addled responses (nobody would ever think of simply reheating the chocolate) group them with the beloved fools of Harry Allard and James Marshall's Stupids books and of Chelm tales. The difference is that Horvath impishly colludes with the audience. She inserts "the author" as a character, too, a great psychic who can receive suggestions from readers: "If you put one finger on each temple and concentrate, she will be able to hear your solution and share it with the Pepins and other readers." The narrative folds in ideas from "readers" (these are invariably as ridiculous as the Pepins' own). "Wait! Yes, my antennae quiver," writes Horvath during the hot-chocolate conundrum. "One dear reader from Brookline, Massachusetts, thinks that all the Pepins need to do is find a very successful writer and have him or her blow some hot air on the cold chocolate" (the Pepins dismiss the notion, because of "all those germs"). If the end seems a bit abrupt, no matter: the sly running jokes about place names and brazenly funny developments keep the conceit and the comedy energetic all the way to the finish line. Ages 8-12. (Aug)
.

February 1, 2005
Gr 4-6 -Listeners play an integral role in this audio adaptation of Polly Horvath's delightfully creative tale (Farrar, 2004). The Pepins are a bumbling family who, along with their equally clueless but good-hearted neighbor, Mr. Bradshaw, find themselves in a number of scrapes (or "problems") that listeners must help solve. The author is the conduit between the potentially helpful thoughts of listeners and the puzzled minds of the books' characters. Children and adults will find themselves shouting solutions as the author relays some of the suggestions she has thus far received (via perceptive psychic antennae) from listeners across North America. Narrator Julie Halston is careful and even in her reading, which balances the zaniness of the characters and their antics. Occasional changes from the original text, all of which relate to the reader being termed a listener, occur throughout. A fun romp. -"Jennifer Iserman, Dakota County Library, Burnhaven Branch, Burnsville, MN"

Copyright 2005 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2005
Horvath's latest novel is zany, lighthearted metafiction -- a winning mixture of the Marx Brothers and The Peterkin Papers with a dash of Ionesco thrown in for good measure. In print, the zaniness is nicely grounded by the ongoing device of the solicited solutions from readers and by the thoroughly developed characters; the audiobook adds an additional unifying factor -- that of the voice of the narrator, who strikes just the right tone: free-wheeling but straight-faced. Translating this particular title from print to audio has its tradeoffs -- the author's direct address to "the reader" changes to the bumpier "the listener," and the three blank pages in the middle of the printed book (wherein the author pauses to have a piece of cake) becomes a rather awkward period of silence -- but Halston handles all difficulties with aplomb.

(Copyright 2005 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)