• Age: 0 to 18
• Grade: p to 12
• Reading age: 0

Love under trying circumstances

One night out of the blue, Ratchet Clark’s ill-natured mother tells her that Ratchet will be leaving their Pensacola apartment momentarily to take the train up north. There she will spend the summer with her aged relatives Penpen and Tilly, inseparable twins who couldn’t look more different from each other. Staying at their secluded house, Ratchet is treated to a passel of strange family history and local lore, along with heaps of generosity and care that she has never experienced before. Also, Penpen has recently espoused a new philosophy – whatever shows up on your doorstep you have to let in. Through thick wilderness, down forgotten, bear-ridden roads, come a variety of characters, drawn to Penpen and Tilly’s open door. It is with vast reservations that the cautious Tilly allows these unwelcome guests in. But it turns out that unwelcome guests may bring the greatest gifts.

By turns dark and humorous, Polly Horvath offers adolescent readers enough quirky characters and outrageous situations to leave them reeling! The Canning Season is the winner of the 2003 National Book Award for Young People's Literature.

Polly Horvath is one of the most highly acclaimed authors writing today. Her books include The Canning Season (winner of the National Book Award and the CLA Young Adult Book Award), Everything on a Waffle (a Newbery Honor Book, an ALA Notable Book and winner of the Mr. Christie's Book Award and the Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize), The Trolls (a National Book Award finalist), My One Hundred Adventures (a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, a Booklist Editors' Choice, a Kirkus Reviews Best Children's Book of the Year and winner of a NAPPA Gold Award and the Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize), and Northward to the Moon (an Oprah's Book Club Kids' Reading List selection and winner of a Parents' Choice Gold Award). Her most recent book is Mr. and Mrs. Bunny — Detectives Extraordinaire!

Polly Horvath's profile page

• American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults
• Horn Book Magazine Fanfare List
• Chicago Tribune Best Books of the Year
• National Book Awards - Winner
• Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year
• School Library Journal Best Books of the Year
• Kirkus Reviews Editor's Choice
• NYPL Books for the Teen Age

"Horvath tops even Everything on a Wafflewith this hilarious, heartrending tale of two unwanted children left with a pair of eccentric old ladies. . . Once again Horvath displays a genius for creating multigenerational, interestingly extended families, and for blending high and low comedy into a tale rife with important themes and life-changing events." --Starred,Kirkus Reviews
"Readers are in for a wise and wacky ride." --Starred,School Library Journal
"Alternately dark and humorous, Polly Horvath's imagination is always a treat." --The Chicago Tribune
"Unruly, unpredictable and utterly compelling...Readers may find themselves wondering just how far Horvath will go with her uncensored, Mad Hatter humor - and they won't be disappointed with her steering." --Starred,Publishers Weekly