The Vanderbeekers

Hello again! It’s been awhile since I’ve posted on here–and it’s high time for another book review.

This post will be about a series of books that I LOVED when I was younger: The Vanderbeekers by Karina Yan Glaser.

Family

Here’s how I’d summarize The Vanderbeeker series in a sentence:

Five siblings living in New York City navigate the ups and downs of a big-family life, surrounded by community and an abundance of hilarious adventures.

It was written for ages 8-12, so Glaser’s writing style is easy to follow and enjoyable. This is the kind of series that I like to read when I’m a little tired of the intense thrillers and complex fantasies.

Just a simple family story about life.

Amazing Characters

The best part of the series is the characters. The plot line might be elementary-level, the vocabulary is limited, and there’s not really any surprises, but the characters are excellent.

First off: the Vanderbeeker Family:

• Mama and Papa: the supportive parents
• Isa: the violinist
• Jessie: the science genius
• Oliver: the bookworm
• Hyacinth: the artist
• Laney: the social butterfly

Each sibling is unique. And they are true to their positions in the family–Isa’s very responsible, Laney’s crazy and has the whole family wrapped around her finger, Hyacinth is quieter and easy going, etc.

Their friends and neighbors are great characters too, but there’s too many of them to list.

Nostalgic

One of the reasons I love this series so much is that I pretty much lived as a Vanderbeeker for part of my childhood.

We changed, added, left out and overall adapted the series to become ours. And we played it so often that we have hundreds of inside jokes and memories from it.

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Weird–it was almost 8 years ago that I found the Vanderbeekers. Who knew I’d still love them?

Maybe they’re not the most advanced, lesson-learning stories, but they are still so special to me.

I hope this post was helpful and/or enjoyable. Until next time!