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Summary
Summary
By the author of The Trolls , a National Book Award Finalist.My name is Primrose Squarp. I am eleven years old. I have hair the color of carrots in apricot glaze (recipe to follow), skin fair and clear where it isn't freckled, and eyes like summer storms.Readers will know right from the start that the narrator of Everything on a Waffle is going to tell her story straight and pull no punches. Primrose's parents have been lost at sea, but she believes without an iota of doubt that they are still alive, somewhere. She moves in with her Uncle Jack, but feels generally friendless. Her only real refuge is a local restaurant called The Girl on the Red Swing, where the owner, Miss Bowzer, serves everything on waffles - except advice and good sense, which come free of charge and are always reliable.Food in general plays an important role in Primrose's journey toward peace and understanding (a recipe dictated in her unmistakable voice is appended to each chapter), and readers will eagerly cheer her on through this funny, bittersweet novel. Everything on a Waffle is a 2001 Boston Globe - Horn Book Award Honor Book for Fiction and Poetry and a 2002 Newbery Honor Book.
Author Notes
Polly Horvath is the author of many books for young people, including The Pepins and Their Problems , The Canning Season and The Trolls . Her numerous awards include the Newbery Honor, the National Book Award for Young People's Literature, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor, the Vicky Metcalf Award for Children's Literature, the Mr. Christie Award, the international White Raven, and the Young Adult Canadian Book of the Year. Horvath grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She attended the Canadian College of Dance in Toronto and the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance in New York City. She has taught ballet, waitressed, done temporary typing, and tended babies, but while doing these things she has always also written. Now that her children are in school, she spends the whole day writing, unless she sneaks out to buy groceries, lured away from her desk by the thought of fresh Cheez Whiz. She lives on Vancouver Island with her husband and two daughters.
Reviews (5)
Horn Book Review
(Intermediate) After a young girl loses both parents, she is shifted from one neglectful caregiver to another, suffers two serious accidents, and is eventually placed in foster care. Such a plot suggests some bleak therapy novel, but this is Polly Horvath. In her capable hands the dilemma of Primrose Squarp is revealed with hilarity and buoyant good nature. Primrose lives in the small town of Coal Harbour, British Columbia (either in 1947 when the military base closed, or now when there are cappuccino machines-Horvath takes a rather Joan Aikenish approach to history). Following the disappearance of both her parents in a typhoon, Primrose copes with a cast of buffoonish adults: the woolly-minded Miss Perfidy, the dotty school counselor Miss Honeycut, the mean Mr. and Mrs. Cantina of the general store. Aided by her big-talking dreamer uncle and the friendship of restaurateur Miss Bowzer, Primrose retains an unshakable belief that her parents are castaways and will return. And, by gum, in a hallelujah chorus of an ending, they do. This is not a book for faint-hearted adults. It contains two amputations, a fire, a recipe for the dubious-sounding ""Cherry Pie Pork Chops,"" and Miss Bowzer's suggestion on how to deal with bullies (""kick the crap out of those little stinkers""). This is a book for kids who want more of Pippi Longstocking or the Bagthorpes. There is a dark edge to the story as we realize that beneath her rueful bravado Primrose is really hanging on by a thread, but this shadow is as subtle as was the similar dissonant note in Horvath's The Trolls. Subtlety and slapstick is a challenging combination; Horvath pulls it off beautifully. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-7-Primrose, 11, waits patiently for her lost-at-sea parents to return to their charming town of Coal Harbor, British Columbia. In the meantime, a cast of delightfully eccentric characters weaves in and out of her world. Her charismatic Uncle Jack agrees to take care of his niece while trying to get rich on the town's tourist-industry possibilities. A misguided school counselor ineffectively tries to convince Primrose that her parents are gone forever, while at the same time setting her sights on Uncle Jack. An aging neighbor, a restaurant owner, and a charming pair of foster parents are among the other adults who try to help Primrose. Though temporarily parentless and decidedly accident prone (she loses two digits and sets fire to a guinea pig, among other mishaps), Primrose has a subtle, but profound effect on the grown-ups who come to her aid. In a variety of ways, she asks each of them whether they've ever placed hope and faith above mere logic, and the answers are always revealing. At the same time, the girl grows by observing and listening to those she encounters. Her first-person narration is just right, conveying her matter-of-fact optimism in the face of some pretty bizarre (and funny) events. Each chapter ends with a recipe that Primrose collects from various people, including the restaurant owner who serves each dish on her menu atop a waffle. The story is full of subtle humor and wisdom, presented through the eyes of a uniquely appealing young protagonist.-Steven Engelfried, Deschutes County Library, Bend, OR (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Even after her parents disappear at sea, an 11-year-old girl is convinced that they are still alive. As she is shuffled from household to household, the heroine delivers a "lively recital of her misadventures," PW wrote in a starred review. "A laugh-out-loud pleasure from beginning to triumphant end." Ages 10-up. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Gr. 5^-7. Eleven-year-old Primrose Squarp is an orphan. At least that's what the town of Coal Harbor thinks. Her mother sailed out during a storm to find her fisherman father and neither has been seen since. Primrose, however, knows, just knows, that her parents are alive. First, Primrose lives her with her persnickety baby-sitter. Then her dashing uncle, a developer, comes to Coal Harbor to take care of her and gentrify the town. When his plans go up in smoke, literally, Primrose is sent to an elderly couple as a foster child. Narrated by Primrose, the story is dotted with her pithy observances about the vagaries of life, especially her's. Although Horvath employs the same arch tone that worked so well in her highly acclaimed novel The Trolls (1999), this book doesn't have quite the same wit and verve that carried its predecessor so well. Still, there are some funny moments and clever touches, including the (mostly) mouthwatering recipes given for each of the noteworthy culinary references that pop up throughout the story. Ilene Cooper
Kirkus Review
Life dishes up the sweet with the sour following the disappearance of a child's parents in this perceptive, barbed tale from the author of The Trolls (1999). Horvath displays a real knack for naming. Everyone else in her small British Columbian fishing town is sure that her mother and father are lost at sea, but 11-year-old Primrose Squarp clings to hope as months pass. She too is passed: from the minimal care of gruff old Miss Perfidy, to a previously unknown uncle who turns out to be an enterprising real-estate developer, and then, thanks to a small-minded school counselor, to out-of-town foster parents. Along the way, she loses a pair of minor body parts in accidents, but gains loyal friends both in Uncle Jack and in Kate Bowzer, proprietor of a café called The Girl on the Red Swing, in which everything, including salad, is served on a waffle. Food not only plays a recurrent theme here, but each chapter ends with a recipe (of varying palatability). The author engages in some clever role reversal with Uncle Jack, a happy-go-lucky sort with a streak of fierce loyalty who is unperturbed when his housing development goes up in flames, but fights tooth and nail to regain custody of Primrose. He never once expresses doubt that her parents are aliveas indeed they turn out to be. Primrose is a serious, sturdy soul, able to hold her own against this quirky, nearly all-adult supporting cast, and by the time her shipwrecked mother and father are rescued, she has gained considerable insight into human natureas well as the ability to create dishes as diverse as Cherry Pie Pork Chops and Butterscotch Chow Mein Noodle Cookies. And waffles, of course. That she was right all along about her parents will make her story extra sweet to readers. (Fiction. 11-15)
Table of Contents
My Parents Are Lost at Sea | p. 9 |
I Move to Uncle Jack's | p. 21 |
The Dead Whalers | p. 28 |
I Am Almost Incarcerated | p. 40 |
Lena's Boiled Potatoes | p. 47 |
What Miss Bowzer Knew | p. 58 |
I Lose All My Sweaters | p. 69 |
I Lose a Toe | p. 77 |
Uncle Jack's Idea | p. 95 |
I Set Fire to a Guinea Pig | p. 103 |
Dinner at The Girl on the Red Swing | p. 113 |
I Lose Another Digit | p. 125 |
Fire! | p. 136 |
Miss Perfidy Leaves | p. 143 |
Everybody Goes Home | p. 159 |