The Warden's Daughter

The Warden's Daughter
Jerry Spinelli
Knopf, 2017 352 pages
Grades 4-7
Historical Fiction

Cammie is experiencing an unconventional childhood. She is goring up in a suburb of Philadelphia in 1959, living with her father in an apartment above the prison where he is the warden. Cammie's mom died when she was very young and she has been raised by a series of "trustees" (trusted prisoners that serve as housekeepers). During the summer of Cammie's thirteenth birthday she is determined to turn the current trustee, Eloda, into a mother figure, only Eloda isn't buying it. Cammie sets off on a summer of adventure and recklessness as she storms into her teenage years. Crazy incidents involving wild bike-riding, the accidental kidnapping of a neighbor boy, and general regrettable outbursts and incidents of impulse control make this the most volatile period of Cammie's life. Her early-blooming best friend lands on American Bandstand and introduces Cammie to a gaggle of girls called the "jailbirds", who seem to like her for her prison connections and are anxious to meet a notorious killer housed within the prison. Cammie has the unique opportunity to communicate with the female prisoners and has befriended a lovable shoplifter named BooBoo. The summer ends in tragedy for Booboo and Eloda's circumstances change in a surprising way, forcing Cammie to grow up and mature, crashing out of her "difficult period" as abruptly as she crashed into it.

Fans of Al Capone does My Shorts will enjoy reading The Warden's Daughter for another glimpse of children living within prison walls with real criminals. Spinelli revisits the setting of Maniac Magee, that of his own childhood, and reflects on what life was like in suburban Pennsylvania in 1959. The story tends to cross over into the territory of nostalgia, making it a more appropriate choice for older folks who remember this place and time than children. Many of the historic details feel like a private joke, understood only by those who were there, and less a piece of historical fiction where all of the readers are new to the time period. Today's children will enjoy the hook of the girl living within the prison and the relationship she is able to share with some of the inmates. I'm not sure how realistic it  is for her to have such informality with immates, but kids won't care. Living in a prison and having free range of the facilities seems really cool. The ending of the story takes place once Cammie is a grown-up and she and her dad remember that crazy summer and he fills in some of the holes that she did not know about. This felt a little cheap to me and, again, won't necessarily appeal to young readers to hear from a grown-up Cammie that it all worked out okay. Quibbles aside, the writing is as beautiful as we have come to expect from this author and this is a worthwhile piece of fiction, just maybe for a grandparent, not a child.