The Exiles

Author: Hilary McKay

Age: Children

I'm the sort of person who usually has a hard time answering questions about my "favorite" book or my "favorite" author; I love too much and there are too many and I'm just not very decisive. But Hilary McKay is absolutely and undoubtedly my very favorite children's book author. (And by children's books I mean juvenile chapter books, not picture books. This book is probably for 8-12 year olds.) I have read her books over and over and over again, from the time I was the age they're written for until now, and no matter how many times I've read them before or how old I get, they never cease to delight me. So, if you're the sort of person that still enjoys reading a good kids' book now and then, you MUST read this. Otherwise you must ensure that your own children read it at some point.

The exiles are the four Conroy sisters--Ruth, 13; Naomi, 11; Rachel, 8; and Phoebe, 6--who have been sent away to spend the summer with horrible Big Grandma in Cumbria while their parents waste an unexpected inheritance (which could have been spent on books and ponies) remodeling the house. The girls LIVE for reading. Books are very nearly all they think about. They don't like Big Grandma. She's loud and mannish and a bit scary, and she doesn't seem to like them at all either. Big Grandma thinks the girls are spoiled and that reading is bad for them. So, this summer, they won't find any books in her house. Instead, they will be forced to find other ways to amuse themselves--hiking, gardening, picnics on the beach, fresh air and exercise. Ruth decides to become a natural historian, and starts a bone collection, but has trouble getting the flesh off the carcasses she collects. Early in the summer, without really meaning to, Naomi devours the last of the strawberries in the garden, and is guilted into hours and hours of yardwork to atone. Rachel keeps a diary of everything she eats. Phoebe invents fishing in a bucket of water--all the peace of the sport with none of the stress of actually trying to catch anything. But the girls are stubborn. Even as they begin to develop new hobbies, they never give up their relentless quest for something--anything--to read.

I know this is a bit of a cliche, but this book will honest-to-goodness make you laugh out loud, and it will also make you cry. The Conroy sisters are a bit like the brothers from Malcolm in the Middle, except they're obsessed with reading, not destruction (in the girls' case, any wreckage is inadvertent). The book is full of scheming and adventures and sibling rivalry (no perpetually and preternaturally well-behaved Boxcar children here). McKay excels at capturing the world as it appears to children, and she's a master of subtle humor.


Recommended for readers who like: Zilpha Keatley Snyder (The Headless Cupid); Nancy K. Robinson (Oh Honestly, Angela!); Colleen O'Shaughnessy McKenna (Too Many Murphys); Barbara Park (Skinnybones; My Mother Got Married...and Other Disasters); Barbara Robinson (The Best Christmas Pageant Ever)