Baked Beans for Breakfast

Another short children's book that has been sitting in our family book hoard for decades untouched.

A brother and sister, Joe and Kathleen Dennis, have run away from their Brooklyn home because they don't like the nanny their parents hired as they trekked off for a European second honeymoon. The kids end up at the lake where their family spent previous summers and set up camp in the forest.

It's a sort of watered down version of the Boxcar Children, complete with a kindly older person with a big house. But the ending is kind of random and abrupt -- involving an act of god -- not really paying off what comes before.

Meh.

Chew takes us on a wonderful adventure, complete with runaway kids, intriguing little old ladies with mysterious attics, bad teenagers intent on wreaking havoc and baked beans, as promised, for breakfast. Chew shows a clear understanding of kids here, and a sympathy for their adventures. There's a nearly perfect ending, and plenty to keep one engaged throughout. Recommended.

I have loved this book forever. Not sure why it is one of my favorites but it is.