Rating: 
Summary: Canned laughter
Review: It seems to me that you need to be a very specific kind of person to enjoy Polly Horvath books. Now I'll admit right from the get-go that "Everything On a Waffle" did nothing for me and that such negative opinions of that book are usually in the strict minority. Still, I thought my dislike of "Waffle" was a fluke. Just one of those things that happens when you read a wide variety of children's books. After all, I didn't like "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" either, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the author E.L. Konigsburg's enjoyable "The View From Saturday". So I went into "The Canning Season" prepared to like it. To my chagrin, what I found was a tale that combines the worst aspects of Horvath's writing with an underlying thread of nastiness. This is an interesting book. Just not a good one.
Meet Ratchet. If she had her way you'd probably not notice her too much. The only companion of her domineering mother, Ratchet is a shy unassuming young teen. Born with a hideous birth defect (never really described but often alluded to as merely "That Thing"), Ratchet one day finds herself summarily sent off to live with her mother's relatives Aunt Tilly and Aunt Penpen. These women live deep in the Maine woods and are roughly 90 years of age but feisty to the last. After settling in with the women and hearing their strange harrowing stories Ratchet just begins to relax when a pregnant woman and her young teenaged ward Harper arrive on the front porch. Then things start to get a little crazy.
The book has all the elements you would want in a tale of eccentrics. Crazy old ladies who like to talk about how their mother chopped off her own head. A silent girl with a horrid deformity. Another girl with too much bravado and too little tact. Plus there are crazy bears in the woods who'll eat anyone that gets near them! Whee! But Horvath seems to want to write a different kind of story. It's as if she said to herself, "I don't want a touching `Northern Exposure' tale of delightful eccentrics here. I want something a little odder and wilder. Something the kids reading this book won't be expecting". As a result the book is difficult to characterize. I was a little shocked to find it in the children's section of my local library. I mean, the cover looks cutesy and cartoony enough, sure. But then you start running into talk of how Ratchet's mother would pretend she was throwing bits of Ratchet's placenta at the workers fixing pipes in her hospital room (it was really red jello, which is funny in a sick twisted way), a description of Tilly that says she, "looked like a sphincter", and a section in which the old women reminisce about a tutor they had that referred to them as the little f***s. Now I'm 26 years of age and there's not a word or phrase you can throw at me that I haven't heard used one way or another. But I have to admit I was just the teensiest bit shocked by these, and other passages. I mean, some of them are funny. Flying placentas. Hee hee. But what on earth is all this stuff doing in a kid's book? Is Horvath trying to shake the kiddies out of their complacency? Is she relying on shock value to keep their attention? Surely good writing should be able to do that on its own, right? Well, after reading the rest of this book... probably not.
You see, aside from this teen novel being packaged in a childlike manner, the story is just plain mean. I appreciate that Horvath didn't want to write another "Ruby Holler" and that's fine. But even characters that care about one another in this tale are just doggone nasty (I keep using that word, but it really does describe the book the best for me). I mean, there's no lighthearted undercurrent to this tale. The jokes, while occasionally funny, are biting and contain a sneer. Altogether, I found there wasn't a person in this story I really cared about or wanted to know more of later on down the road. If Horvath had stopped writing this tale at the bottom of page 78 rather than at page 196 I couldn't have cared less. Oh, and there's some odd wrapping up that goes on at the end of this book that ties up all the storylines and motivations with a neat little bow, but that's just so odd in the context of the story itself that it feels extraordinarily fake.
So I didn't like it, no. Not really. Funny, since it won the 2004 National Book Award and has garnered praise hither and thither. Thither and yon. I can't join my voice to that chorus of congratulations, I'm afraid. The book is, as I said, definitely full of life and character. Horvath is certainly an able writer in terms of great sentences like, "It was like putting your hand on the heart of the earth. It was like putting your hand on your own heart". That's what makes her terrible book all the worse. You KNOW this could have been an excellent story. You know that if she'd just toned down the edginess and tried to be a little less cool it could have been worthwhile reading. Instead, it's a vile bile-filled book that drips with contempt and cruelty. I hate to say it, but if you want a book about kids living with elderly caretakers in the woods you're better off sticking with Sharon Creech's, "Ruby Holler". At least Creech knows how to use the talent she has.
Rating: 
Summary: A Walk on the Weird Side
Review: Polly Horvath's National Book Award-Winning story "The Canning Season" details a preteen girl's formative summer in Maine with her two eccentric aunts. Ideally, this coming-of-age tale should captivate readers, yet it left me feeling as if I had missed the boat.
Horvath tries hard to create quirky characters and memorable events that express the story vividly to the reader. Unfortunately, she tries much TOO hard, and the characterizations, wacky circumstances and bizarre dialogue weigh the story down...the plot loses steam about halfway through and never recovers.
Reading The Canning Season will make you feel like the author is keeping secrets from you. This is suspenseful at first, then anticlimactic, as you realize the book's secrets and outcomes aren't really that exciting.
Horvath's best move in this book is placing readers convincingly inside the psyche of a young girl. It's a shame that so many other elements of the story don't measure up. I managed to finish it because of my adult patience and diligence, but I doubt a younger reader would be enticed to read even halfway through. It's just too weird, with no payoff to readers for enduring all the quirkiness!
Rating: 
Summary: Ignore the Harmless Language
Review: Ratchet suddenly finds herself cooped up in a house with two spinster aunts for the summer, unable to reach the outside world, unless someone calls, she learns to drive, or, worse, she walks out in the forest. But as the summer dwindles away, Ratchet bonds with her "Aunts" and a girl who we may as well call an orphan, Harper. The surrounding colorful characters make the book an interesting read. There are, I believe, two major swear words. Oh, and Tilly and Penpen(Ratchet's Aunts) may die at anytime.
Polly Horvath does it again with this creative storyline. Dare I say that it is better than Everything on a Waffle.
Recommend: Olive's Ocean
Rating: 
Summary: Horvath Has A Wonderful Sense of Humour
Review: When Ratchet's neglectful mother ships her off to her great aunts' house for the summer, she isn't sure what to expect. Especially when the great aunts, PenPen and Tilly, are twins who haven't gone farther than the post office from their mansion in the boonies of Maine since they were teenagers.When Harper, an obnoxious but lovable teen, is accidentally dropped off because her guardian thought their house was an orphanage, yet another humorous and heart warming twist. Rich with dry humour and sparkling wit, full of eccentric characters, The Canning Season will make you laugh out loud, or chuckle quietly to yourself at the absurdity of the situations in the book. The characters take silly things completely seriously and the combination of events throughout the course of the novel are guaranteed to make you smile. Don't be turned off by the childish looking cover. This is a hilarious novel that everyone will enjoy, from old ladies just like PenPen and Tilly to their teenage grandchildren.
Rating:
Summary: Instant classic for children!
Review: Worthy of every award out there, this National Book Award winner is an instant classic! The book is a great look at a heartwarming and lots of times, silly relationship between a young girl and the two crazy aunts that she's sent to spend the summer with. The book is full of emotion; most of it will make you laugh hysterically. Horvath writes so well about the relationships among the characters and the different events that surround their summer together. Every reader will be impressed by the depth and insight that is found-reminiscent of Roald Dahl.
Rating:
Summary: Instant classic for children!
Review: Worthy of every award out there, this National Book Award winner is an instant classic! The book is a great look at a heartwarming and lots of times, silly relationship between a young girl and the two crazy aunts that she's sent to spend the summer with. The book is full of emotion; most of it will make you laugh hysterically. Horvath writes so well about the relationships among the characters and the different events that surround their summer together. Every reader will be impressed by the depth and insight that is found-reminiscent of Roald Dahl.
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