EVERYTHING ON A WAFFLE

Start with that wacky name--Primrose Squarp--and the fact that her best friend's restaurant serves everything on a waffle (even if you order a waffle!)--and it's a good guess that listeners are in for a tall tale. Eleven-year-old Primrose, a Coal Harbor, British Columbia, orphan, believes that both of her parents, thought to have been lost at sea, will one day return to her, from the belly of the whale, as it were. Life with her mothball-ridden, squeaky-voiced, acrimonious guardian, Miss Perfidy, is dreary, with only the gruff, tough Miss Bowzer and her recipes to cheer her. When the vibrant but self-important Uncle Jack arrives to take over her care, he further complicates the plot with his real estate dealings and neglect. Kathleen McInerney's reading of the confident, earnest, and pragmatic first-person narration includes the delivery of a series of recipes between chapters. A wild romp through unlikely and humorous waters. T.B. 2003 ALA Notable Recording (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/ NOV 02]