I said in my review of the first book in British author Hilary McKay’s new series about a girl named Binny and her family that these books were for people who were not averse to quirky and and slightly dysfunctional families. Then, in this next book, Binny in Secret, while Binny and her little brother remain quite endearingly odd, Binny’s mother steps in and becomes involved and responsible. It’s a good thing she does, I suppose, for the fictional Binny’s sake, but it spoils my thesis about Hilary McKay and dysfunctional, uninvolved, or absent parents. Oh, well.

Binny in Secret takes Binny and her little family—Mother, sensible older sister Clem, Binny (age 12), and sweet baby James (age 6)—to the country to live while their house is being repaired. (The roof fell in during a storm.) Benny hates life in the country, hates her new school, and really hates the new neighbors who are also the landlords. Unfortunately, Binny expresses her feelings about all of the above quite freely and gets herself into trouble with not only the neighbors but also just about everyone else.

The book has an anti-gun vibe, which is interesting because I didn’t know guns were an issue “across the pond”, but it’s nothing too propagandistic. And there’s a tiny bit of magical realism or fantasy mixed in with the realistic story about a girl who learns to temper her judgments and accept differences while she saves a wild animal friend from being hunted and killed.

Then, there’s the timeslip or time connection between Binny’s life and the children who lived in the country house back in the early twentieth century. Benny doesn’t ever travel in time. Nor do the other children—Clarry, Peter, and Rupert–travel to the future. But there is a connection as Binny finds relics from the past in the attic of her new home, and she works both literally and imaginatively to put together a story that will reveal the lives of long-ago children and what happened to them as they grew up.

In short, if you like Hilary McKay’s Casson family, you will probably like Binny Cornwallis and her family, too. I can see the Cornwallises and the Cassons becoming friends, marrying each other eventually, and raising little free-spirited Cornwallis-Cassons. Or Casson-Cornwallises.

I’m thankful today for the idiosyncrasies and eccentricities of all of our families, especially mine. Lord, help us to give grace, laugh a lot, and enjoy each other’s peculiar strengths, habits, and even weaknesses.