Children’s Book Review: The Good-Pie Party
The Good-Pie Party, written by Liz Garton Scanlon and illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton
Posy Peyton doesn’t want to move. Look-on-the-bright-side clichés just don’t cut it and she doesn’t want to pack. Posy most certainly doesn’t want to say good-bye to her friends, but the reality is she has to find a way. In The Good-Pie Party, author, Liz Garton Scanlon, and illustrator, Kady MacDonald Denton, deftly recount the true-to-life bundle of emotion that comes with transition; from the sadness and anger of loss, to the celebration of lasting friendship. Better yet, they recount it with real girls in real communities, depicting real people on every page.
Denton’s ink and watercolour illustrations and Scanlon’s pointed descriptions saturate readers in the world of a “real” girl; Posy is far from clichéd. She has a bird feeder, a telescope, a soccer ball, and a chess set. She pins her artwork to her walls and collects things in jars. She goes from glum and unimpressed to content and glowing, and back again – all in the span of a day. Posy’s friends and neighbours are “real,” too – different in many ways – and, at the party Posy plans, Denton and Scanlon unite them. Bearing pies as diverse as they are, they contentedly raise a glass of lemonade in celebration of “good friends.”
When the party is over, Posy’s mixed emotions remain, and kids undergoing or expecting a move will appreciate this. The Good-Pie Party is a book that gives voice to the messy emotions of complex, real people in the face of inevitable change.
Jen Bailey teaches in the Professional Writing Program at Algonquin College, Ottawa. She holds an MFA in Writing from VCFA, and writes for children and young adults.
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