Bookverdict.com

Gr 6-9 Horvath outdoes herself in this tale of lonely, friendless Ratchet Clark, who lives with her uncaring mother in Pensacola, FL. One night, out of the blue, Henriette packs her daughter onto the train to spend the summer with two elderly relatives, twins Tilly and Penpen, who live in an area of Maine so remote that servant-eating bears are a constant menace. Here, with her outlandishly eccentric great-aunts, Ratchet hears gruesome yet darkly humorous stories of family lore while experiencing, for the first time, ...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

Elderly twin sisters Tilly and PenPen Menuto loathe their local nickname of "the blueberry ladies"—it is much too sweet. They far prefer being called "those queer Menuto women," and they are perfectly happy for the world to stay far away from their remote house in the bear-infested woods of Maine. Their isolation ends, though, when their distant cousin Henriette dumps thirteen-year-old Ratchet on them. Ratchet (named to spite her long-since-gone father) has a "thing" on her shoulder blade that mortifies the status-seeking Henriette. Tilly and PenPen have an ec...Log In or Sign Up to Read More