Reviews: (by author)

Enright, Elizabeth. The Saturdays. New York: Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2002. $16.95. ISBN 0-8050-7060-5. 177 pp.

It was another boring rainy afternoon that inspired the Melandy children to create the "Independent Saturday Afternoon Club."   Ten-year-old Randy was tired of wasting her Saturdays doing nothing at all.   She wanted to go to an art museum and see the new exhibit but it cost more then her allowance.   So she came up with the idea to pool everyone's allowances together and let one of them use it for an special Saturday afternoon.    

Living in New York in the early forties with their father and Cuffy, their housekeeper, the four Melandy children each had their own ideas of how to use their Saturday.   Mona, thirteen and an aspiring actress, uses her day to help her craft.   Twelve-year-old Rush wants to be an engineer as well as an accomplished pianist, finds himself in a snowstorm he'll never forget.   Randy, who loves to dance and paint, finds a true friend at the art museum.   Finally Oliver, six and too young to be running around New York by himself, has his own adventure.  

The Saturdays is a story about a time and place long gone yet it still contains the same imagination and sense of adventure as books written today.    Children pretend and dream of seeing new and different things-Elizabeth Enright captures this in her book.  

Reviewed by Dawn Brophy, May 2004

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