The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy is a children's novel by Jeanne Birdsall, published by Knopf in 2005. This was Birdsall's first book published and it inaugurated the Penderwicks series, whose fifth and final volume was published in 2018. Both The Penderwicks and its sequel The Penderwicks on Gardam Street (Knopf, April 2008) were New York Times Best Sellers. The remaining books in the series are The Penderwicks at Point Mouette, The Penderwicks in Spring, and The Penderwicks at Last. The novel was inspired by the kind of stories the author read when growing up, The National Book Award citation compares the novel to Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and E. Nesbit's The Story of the Treasure Seekers. The fictional setting is more modern than Alcott's or Nesbit's, although not clearly contemporary with Birdsall's writing. The style is similar to Alcott's books, like Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boys, Under the Lilacs and Rose in Bloom. There are different leading characters throughout the series, like in the Sarah, Plain and Tall or Narnia series. Birdsall often refers to elements from classic literature, such as Emily of New Moon by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Source: Wikipedia (en)