Polly Horvath – författare

The unusual Pepin family confronts numerous problems, such as having a cow who creates lemonade rather than milk and having to cope with a competitive neighbor, and the reader is invited to help guide the plight of a problem-prone family.

When an accident leaves teenage cousins Meline and Jocelyn parentless, they come to live with their unknown and eccentric Uncle Marten on his private island. They soon discover that the island has a history as tragic as their own: it was once an air force training camp, led by a mad commander whose crazed plan to train pilots to fly airplanes without instruments sent eleven pilots to their deaths. Jocelyn, Meline, and Uncle Marten are soon joined on this island of wrecked planes and wrecked men by an elderly Austrian housekeeper, a very mysterious butler, a cat, and a dog. But to Jocelyn and Meline, being in a strange new place around strange new people only underscores the fact that the world they once knew has ended.Told in the alternating voices of four characters dealing with grief in different ways, Polly Horvath''s new novel is a rich and complicated story about loss and the possibility— and impossibility—of beginning again. The Corps of the Bare-Boned Plane is a 2008 Bank Street - Best Children''s Book of the Year.

From the author of the Newbery Honor Book Everything on a WaffleWhen his mother decides on a whim to be a missionary in Africa and drags his unwilling father with her, Henry is left in the care of his Aunts Magnolia and Pigg. Henry''s sure they dislike him and he''s trying to keep his distance, but that becomes more difficult when Mag decides they should take a destination-less road trip. Mag, convalescing from an illness that makes her look like death, is downright crabby. Pigg, tense from driving, is becoming more assertive and less willing to submit to Mag''s whims. And while they poke each other – literally – Henry is finding it hard to keep his resolution.They go to Virginia Beach (it''s too hot); try camping in the Everglades (Henry accidentally spends four days floating in a swamp); visit their daddy, Henry''s granddaddy (Henry''s never met him!); and lose Pigg to love in Oklahoma (what would the radio psychologist Daly Kramer say?) before they finally receive word that Henry''s parents are coming back and will meet them in Tulsa to finish the trip with Mag and Henry. But his parents are bickering and Henry is in despair – until he surrenders to the road and decides to let whatever happens happen, but to be there in it all.Complete with her signature cast of eccentric characters, absurd situations, and heartfelt moments, Polly Horvath writes an on-the-road epic like no other!