The Penderwicks on Gardam Street

Published in 2008, Jeanne Birdsall’s The Penderwicks on Gardam Street is a middle-grade realistic fiction novel and the second installment in The Penderwicks series. The story continues the adventures of the four Penderwick sisters as they navigate family life, friendship, and lighthearted mischief in their suburban neighborhood and attempt to stop their widowed father from dating. Notable for its episodic storytelling, ensemble character dynamics, and exploration of family resilience after loss, the book blends classic children’s literature charm with contemporary concerns. The novel was named the Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Book of the Year (2008) and explores themes of honesty, love, and adolescence.

This study guide references the eBook edition released by Random House in 2021.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of illness and death.

Plot Summary

Four years after Martin Penderwick loses his wife to cancer, his sister, Aunt Claire, gives him a letter that Lizzy entrusted to her before her death. In the letter, Lizzy explains that she wants Martin to date after her passing because she doesn’t want him to be lonely. Martin has no interest in dating, but he promises Aunt Claire that he will honor his late wife’s wishes. Aunt Claire proposes that he date at least four women over the next several months. Martin has four daughters: 12-year-old Rosalind, 11-year-old Skye, 10-year-old Jane, and four-year-old Batty. While none of the girls want Martin to date, Rosalind is especially disillusioned by the idea and says that their mother was wrong to make such a request.

The next day, Skye and Jane’s soccer team plays against their rivals. Skye’s teammates have elected her captain even though she struggled with her temper the previous season, and she resolves to remain calm this year. She breaks this resolution almost immediately when the opposing captain deliberately knocks over Jane. An all-out brawl between the two teams ensues, and Martin urges his children to exercise more self-control. When they arrive home, he introduces Aunt Claire and his daughters to their new neighbor, Ms. Iantha Aaronson. Iantha teaches astrophysics at the university where Martin is a botany professor, and she has a toddler named Ben. Martin has his first date that night, and it goes poorly.

The following day, Rosalind calls a Meeting of the Penderwick Sisters to concoct a Save-Daddy Plan that will allow their father to keep his promise to their mother but ensure that he doesn’t remarry. Skye suggests that they find three more dates that their father will find torturous. She opposes her own plan because it seems unkind, but her sisters outvote her. Batty thinks that Martin should try dating Iantha, but Rosalind reminds her that they’re trying to find people he would strongly dislike. Rosalind sets Martin up with her best friend’s ice-skating teacher, a garrulous woman named Lara.

On the day of Martin’s date with Lara, Batty is playing in the street when she sees a suspicious-looking fellow whom she calls the Bug Man because he wears large black sunglasses. She resolves to remain vigilant in case he returns to Gardam Street. Two of the Penderwicks’ neighbors, Nick and Tommy Geiger, spend the evening with the sisters. Nick is in high school and tasked with babysitting while Tommy is in Rosalind’s seventh-grade class and is a lifelong friend of hers. Skye invites Iantha and Ben to join the lively gathering of Penderwick sisters and Geiger brothers for dinner. Martin returns early because his date with Lara went abysmally, and he walks Iantha and Ben home. The four sisters feel guilty, but they remain determined to see the Save-Daddy Plan through to its conclusion.

A week later, Aunt Claire finds another potential date for Martin. To his daughters’ shock, he claims that this isn’t necessary because he has asked out a woman named Marianne Dashwood. On the night of Martin’s date with Marianne, Tommy tells Rosalind that an eighth-grade girl has asked him to the school’s fall dance. Oblivious to his hints that he wants to go with her instead, Rosalind feels furious and frustrated over Tommy’s news, in addition to the ongoing situation with her father.

When Martin goes on his second date with Marianne, Rosalind grows anxious. Hoping to cheer up her eldest sister, Batty stows away in Martin’s car. He sees her immediately and tells her to report back to her sisters that Marianne is sensible but enthusiastic. Batty’s older sisters are puzzled by her report and wonder if love has made their father lose his senses.

When the imaginative Jane is assigned a science essay and the pragmatic Skye is asked to write a play about the Aztecs, the sisters switch homework assignments. The play Jane writes, Sisters and Sacrifice, impresses Skye’s teacher so much that he decides to make it the production for the sixth-graders’ Performance Night. Skye’s mortification grows even greater when her teacher casts her as the lead role. Although she has terrible stage fright, Skye resolves to go on with the show, believing it is the honorable thing to do, but she faints while getting ready for the performance. Jane, who knows the whole script by heart, takes her place.

Although Jane delivers a spectacular performance, she and Skye feel guilty and tell their family the truth. Their honesty prompts Martin to confess that Marianne Dashwood is a character in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, which was one of their mother’s favorite novels. He explains that he isn’t ready to start dating again, but if that time comes, he’ll decide for himself without anyone’s interference. He promises that he’ll never choose someone his daughters don’t approve of, and they forgive him for his deception.

The next day, Rosalind realizes that Martin likes Iantha and tells her sisters that she was wrong to try to keep their father single. The girls all agree that Iantha would be perfect for Martin, and they devise a New Save-Daddy Plan to bring the two adults together. The sisters remove Martin’s car battery so that Iantha will offer to drive him to an event at their university. Later that night, Rosalind sees the Bug Man sneaking out of Iantha’s house with the woman’s laptop. The man reveals himself to be Norman Birnbaum, a former colleague of Iantha’s who has deluded himself into believing that she stole his research. Rosalind apprehends the thief with Tommy’s help, and the 12-year-olds reconcile, promising to date when they’re older.

Although the sisters are reluctant to interrupt Martin and Iantha’s evening together, they inform them of the attempted burglary. Norman is taken into police custody. Later that night, Rosalind tells Martin that she and her sisters will support his decision if he wants to date Iantha. Seven months later, Martin and Iantha are married, and the four sisters joyfully welcome her and Ben into the Penderwick family.