Synopses & Reviews
September 27, 1937
Dear Edward,
My name is Hannah Diamond, and I live on Route 9W in Grand View, New York. Route 9W is between a mountain and a river. Sometimes I play up on the mountain and other times down by the river. I guess you have a river too, but do you have a mountain?
We have the Grand View Restaurant, with five tables and a counter. Outside is a garage with two gas pumps. Sometimes I help wait on tables, and sometimes I help pump gas.
We live in back of the restaurant. Behind us is a railroad track, and when the train goes by, everything jiggles. In my room I have the biggest rolltop desk you ever saw. It was here when we bought the restaurant. I like to sit here and write letters and stories and draw pictures. That's my hobby.
My father makes inventions. He sawed a big hole in the wall and put a giant fish tank into it, with goldfish and snails. You can see it from both sides. The customers see it from the restaurant and we see it from the living room.
Making inventions is my father's hobby.
He invented a hamburger maker that makes twelve hamburgers at a time and a trapdoor in the bathroom that leads to the cellar stairs. He also made the stairs because whenwe moved in there weren't any. You had to go outside to get to the cellar.
My mother's hobby is flowerpots.
Grand View doesn't have a school so I go to the Liberty Street School in Nyack. I have to take the school bus, which I hate because the boys on the bus behave like wild animals.
When I picked that piece of paper out of the pen palbox on my teacher's desk, I really wanted a girl, but my teacher, Miss Hopkins, says you have to take what you get. I got you. I would like a pen pal from Kansas, even though you're a boy, because in my second favorite book, "The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy lives in Kansas. My first favorite book is "Heidi.
What are your favorite books?
Your friend,
Hannah Diamond
October 3, 1937
Dear Hannah,
Edward Winchley
P.S. I don't like to read books. I don't like to write letters either. My teacher made me put my name on that piece of paper.
October 6, 1937
Dear Aggie,
On account of you not answering my five letters, listen to what happened to me. I picked a boy out of the pen pal box. Miss Hopkins saw me so I couldn't throw him back in. She said if I didn't write to him, I wouldn't be a good sport. So I wrote him a long letter. He wrote me such a dopey letter back, I'm not even going to answer it. Now I could get in trouble with Miss Hopkins if she finds out. She might call me a poor sport in front of the whole class.
Love,
Hannah
P.S. This is mysixth letter, Aggie.
October 7, 1937
Dear President Roosevelt,
My best friend, Aggie Branagan, moved away. Her father is a wallpaper hanger and he didn't make enough money to pay the rent. He said it was because of hard times.
My mother said it was because he leaves lumps of paste under the paper.
Anyhow, they moved. Mr. Branagan, Aggie's father, drove her up in his wallpaper truck just before they left so she could say good-bye. She cried so hard I felt terrible. I tried to cheer her up. I got an idea: I promised to be her pen pal. She said, "You won't, Hannah -- you'll forget about me." I told her, "I'll never forget you, Aggie -- you're my best friend." But she still kept crying. So I said, "You know we both always wanted a pen pal, Aggie. Look I'm running straight to my room to write to you this minute so you'll get my letter right away." And I did.
Synopsis
I need a pen pal -- a real one -- not like that smart aleck Edward Winchley from Wichita, Kansas.
Hannah has a problem. When her best friend moves away from Grand View, New York in 1937, they promise to write each other. But Aggie doesn't write back at all.
Determined to find a new pen pal, Hannah picks a name out of a box on her teacher's desk. It's a boy and his first letter is so dopey, Hannah doesn't even bother to answer it. Instead she writes to the president of the United States. After all, her father says that President Roosevelt understands the people's problems -- so maybe he can even help Hannah.
Before long, Hannah has more pen pals than she bargained for. And at last she finds the perfect pen pal -- and the perfect friend -- in the most unlikely place.
Synopsis
Hannah's best friend, Aggie, moves away and doesn't answer a single one of her letters. Determined to find a new pen pal, Hannah picks an address from a box on her teacher's desk. It's a boy, but his first letter is so dopey, Hannah isn't even going to answer it. Instead, she writes to President Roosevelt. Before long, Hannah has a whole lot of pen pals--and finally discovers the perfect friend, in the most unlikely place.
In this absorbing epistolary novel, Mindy Warshaw Skolsky takes readers back to the late 1930s, and into the life of an irrepressible and unforgettable heroine.
A Parenting Magazine Book of the Year
A finalist for the Texas Bluebonnet Award
A Smithsonian Magazine Notable Book for Children
01-02 Young Hoosier Book Award Masterlist (Gr 4-6)
00-01 William Allen White Children's Book Award Masterlist
About the Author
Mindy Warshaw Skolsky, a former teacher, grew up in the Hudson Valley during the Great Depression. She has written five books about Hannah and is currently working on another, a picture book. She lives in Smithtown, NY.