Family Grandstand - Hardcover

Brink, Carol Ryrie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670306339 ISBN 13: 9780670306336

Publisher: Viking Juvenile, 1952

Synopsis

From Newbery Medal winner Carol Ryrie Brink comes a story about one unforgettable family.

Susan, George, and Dumpling have a special life in Midwest City, where they live with their college-professor dad and mystery-writer mom. Not only can they watch the university’s football games from the tower of their house on College Avenue, but now Tommy Tokarynski, who mows their lawn, is famous. He’s Midwest University’s star quarterback. There’s only one problem: Tommy’s grades are dreadful, and he might get kicked off the team before the homecoming game. With a little ingenuity, Susan, George, and Dumpling team up for a season of fun as they set out to save their beloved quarterback, outsmart their naughty neighbors, rescue animals, and start a new business that just might help out the whole family. It’s never a dull moment when the Ridgeway kids are involved!

The adventures of the Ridgeway family in Family Grandstand and its sequel, Family Sabbatical, were inspired by Carol Ryrie Brink’s own family and their life together in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

About this title

About the Author:

Carol Ryrie Brink (1895–1981) was an American author of more than thirty books for children and adults. She is widely known for her novel Caddie Woodlawn, which won the 1936 Newbery Medal, the award given to the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children in a given year. Carol grew up in Idaho and later attended the University of Idaho. She transferred to the University of California, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1918. She married that same year and settled with her husband in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where they lived for more than forty years and had two children. Brink’s first novel, Anything Can Happen on the River, was published in 1934. Three of Brink’s children’s books are included in the Book Crush Rediscoveries series: Family Grandstand (1952), Family Sabbatical (1956), and The Highly Trained Dogs of Professor Petit (1953).

Nancy Pearl is a librarian and lifelong reader. She regularly comments on books on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition. Her books include 2003’s Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason; 2005’s More Book Lust: 1,000 New Reading Recommendations for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason; 2007’s Book Crush: For Kids and Teens; Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Interest; and 2010’s Book Lust To Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamers. Among her many awards and honors are the 2011 Librarian of the Year Award from Library Journal, the 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, the 2010 Margaret E. Monroe Award from the Reference and User Services Association of the American Library Association, and the 2004 Women’s National Book Association Award.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Delightful family adventures of a Midwestern university professor's noisy brood and their college town neighbors. The five mirth-rousing Ridgeways live in a house that has a tower overlooking the football stadium and lead lives that swing around games and victories, babysitting for faculty children, birthday parties, maintaining "academic dignity,” a star quarterback about to flunk chemistry, and having a child prodigy in the family. Cleverly interwoven threads of the story create side-splitting scenes as varsity hero Tommy is coached through exams by the Ridgeways' student house-keeper Dorothy, as twelve-year-old Susan artfully maneuvers two young neighbors to bed in a burst of very wise babysitting, as ten-year-old George finally gains his father's permission to park cars in their backyard on game days at twenty-five cents, as the six-year-old prodigy Dumping bewails her status until it's found that the university child study clinic had made a mistake. There are tender moments too, vigorous, uncontrived episodes and language that call a spade a spade—a surefire chronicle of a healthiest of healthy families.

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking Juvenile
• Publication date: 1952
• ISBN 10: 0670306339
• ISBN 13: 9780670306336
• Binding: Hardcover