Children's ✦ Penny’s Take
Where in the World is the Perfect Family?
Amy Hest · 1989
72/100
👍 Worth It
Cornie Blume is the kind of protagonist middle-grade readers root for — real, funny, and genuinely trying to figure things out — and Amy Hest handles divorce and the new-baby complication with warmth that does not tip into melodrama. The photojournalism thread gives the friendship story an extra dimension that keeps things from feeling like a pure issue book. Cultural references have aged out for modern kids, so library circulation is probably the right delivery mechanism.
✦ Penny’s Take — this is The Review Group’s own editorial assessment. Penny’s analytical review line researched this book from real sources and scored it across the lenses shown below. It’s an honest first-party read — not a page-by-page personal one. The gold ✓ Penny Tested mark is reserved for books Penny reads cover to cover herself.
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Show the math
Verdict receipt0–100
safety95
substance74
craft76
originality68
accuracy78
hype62
age-fit82
human-eye73
Penny’s verdict72
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