Вандербикеры с 141-й улицы

This book was very amazing. It was quite a light read as I finished it in a few hours. The story is about the Vanderbeekers who are a biracial family that consists of the parents, five kids Isa, Jessie, Oliver, Hyacinth, and Laney, and their three pets. They are told that they have to leave their home in Harlem 141st street in which they lived 6 years and love soo much. They plan to change their loan keepers Mr. Beiderman's mind so he can let them stay. The story was very well written and I highly recommend it...

Sooo cute! I wish I could have read this one to my kids when they were younger. The ending got me big time, there were tears!!

I just love this family! The kids are taking time to recognize all the great things in their neighborhood. They are trying to good mostly and learning to love people. This is a sweet book and I'm so glad there are more in the series.

So lovable and charming!

After seeing a lot of rave reviews for this one (and being disappointed by the last MG book I read with similar reviews), I was skeptical about The Vanderbeekers. But I was delightfully hooked just a few minutes into this audiobook, and by the end, I was crying (both because the book was so touching and because I found out what the last book in this series is about).

I'm sure I would have loved this series in elementary school, but I also feel like I appreciate it so much right now as an adult. The themes of family, community, and individualism hit just as hard as I would have liked, and I just... let's just say I have plans to read the rest of the series very soon. I'm delighted to know that MG books like this are out there.

(Also, yes, some of the ending was a little unrealistic, but I felt it was perfectly excusable for a middle grade book. Young readers will probably feel that what happened made sense, and the dramatic effect of that whole plotline worked in my eyes.)

A heartwarming story about family and belonging

The Vanderbeeker children have loved living in their brownstone on 141st Street, but now, inexplicably, their landlord has decided not to renew their lease. Where will they go? How will they leave the neighbors they love? Do they have a chance to change their landlord's mind?

It was fun to see the various schemes the inventive children concocted to persuade their landlord to allow them to stay, and it was fun to see the relationships of the children to each other, to their parents, and to their neighbors.

I received a galley of this book from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers via NetGalley. This has not influenced my opinions or thoughts about this book.

Imagine a ragtag group of children ranging from almost-5 to 12 living in Harlem with a landlord like Mr. Heckles from Friends. Isn't that a charming premise? I enjoyed the warm relationship between the Vanderbeeker children and the strong, trust-oriented one between the children and their parents. The older neighbors upstairs who live between Mr. Beiderman and the Vanderbeekers are also delightful and oh so patient.

This would make a great read-aloud book for families with kids of any age. It even verges into some burgeoning young adult topics like the 8th grade dance and navigating those issues, making this a compelling book for all ages. Glaser also incorporates some diversity into the book with a mention of the Vanderbeeker family being biracial; from the brief mention, it seems that the children are half-Asian, but it's not a big aspect of the book.

Throughout the book, simple drawings accompany the text, which add a nice interactive element to the book and a good way to break up the material for younger audiences who may want to investigate more visually.

The Christmas subplot of the book seemed a bit thin, and it seemed only to serve one purpose – to prompt the Vanderbeeker kids to move fast in trying to convince Mr. Beiderman to let them stay in the house.

Overall, I think this is a great book for young readers and would recommend.

I have some mixed feelings on this one. This is a charming and boisterous Christmas story about family and community. I don't mind that it was wrapped up nicely in a bow at the end, I just question the bow the author chose. It is refreshing to read contemporary middle grade set in the city. I think sometimes American texts unfairly contrast bustling urban settings with homey rural life. This can go from unimaginative to pernicious—take the antebellum idyll, for instance. Whitewashing racism creates nostalgia for revisionist history, I'll leave it at that.That's what makes a book like this important. It showcases community in Harlem. Being on a first-name basis with your mail carrier and sanitation workers. Helping your elderly neighbors organize their finances and prescriptions. Taking food to neighbors, or neighbors gathering to eat together. Plus, the walkability of the neighborhood provides the kids independence. Unlike my childhood in mostly midwestern suburbia, the Vanderbeekers don't have to rely on adults to drive them to the bakery, or the basketball court, or the library. They can take themselves. Mixed feelings come in here: when it comes to Beiderman, I question both the trope I elegantly call 1) Man Mean Now Because Female Family Gone and 2) the reductive portrayal of chronic agoraphobia as solvable with just a little bit of love.If you invoke issues like grief and severe mental illness to justify your plot, I think you have a responsibility to portray them with nuance. So it rubbed me the wrong way that Beiderman's past was essentially deployed to both:-Excuse his terrible treatment of everyone, including young kids and old folks-Help the kids see that all they need to do is push Beiderman into attending a rowdy Vanderbeeker Christmas, and once he feels the love, he'll have no choice but to come aroundI love a good story of healing, but I do not like how this was explained or resolved.I did have a good time, despite myself. If you like [b:Front Desk 36127488 Front Desk Kelly Yang https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1507986199l/36127488.SX50.jpg 51903030], [b:Amal Unbound 36086513 Amal Unbound Aisha Saeed https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1509102472l/36086513.SY75.jpg 45632570], or, I'm weirdly gonna add, Bob's Burgers, try this. It's the perfect time of year!