Binny in Secret

by Hilary McKay, Micah Player (Illustrator)

Overview

School has started, and secrets and adventures await Binny and her family in this delightful sequel to Binny for Short, which Publishers Weekly called “a well-crafted story that balances moments of hilarity with poignancy” (starred review).

Binny’s blissful summer is over and school is beginning. And it’s horrible. From the awful secondhand uniforms to the stuck-up kids, who call her a grockle, Binny hates everything about school and the kids who torment her.

When a storm damages the roof of their home, Binny and her family must move to a rental home out in the country. Binny, her sensible older sister Clem, and her rambunctious brother James (and his chickens) begin adjusting to a new household. Then one of James’s beloved chickens vanishes. What kind of creature is lurking in the undergrowth? And does it need Binny’s protection?

Brilliantly written and full of heart, this humorous story is interwoven with the adventures of three children from 1913—Ed, Peter, and Clary—who lived at the house previously. The stories of both sets of children come together as Binny discovers that secrets in the past and the present have connections she never suspected.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442482807
Publisher:	Margaret K. McElderry Books
Publication date:	06/16/2015
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
Lexile:	680L (what's this?)
File size:	21 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Hilary McKay is the award-winning author of The Time of Green Magic (which received five starred reviews), The Skylarks’ War (which was a Boston Globe Best Book and received three starred reviews), Binny Bewitched (which was a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year and received two starred reviews), Binny in Secret (which received three starred reviews), Binny for Short (which received four starred reviews), and six novels about the Casson family: Saffy’s Angel, Indigo’s Star, Permanent Rose, Caddy Ever After, Forever Rose, and Caddy’s World. She is also the author of The Swallows’ Flight, Rosa by Starlight, and Wishing for Tomorrow, the sequel to Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess. Hilary lives with her family in Derbyshire, England. Visit her at HilaryMcKay.co.uk.

Read an Excerpt

Binny in Secret
September the first, and the sort of burglar wind that plucked litter from trash cans and petals from flowers and balls from toddlers and anything else it fancied. The market stalls packed up early and the pigeons all vanished and people walked slightly sideways and screwed up their eyes.

* * *

Binny, aged twelve, reluctant owner of a dark purple school blazer that looked (though it wasn’t) almost like new, was in town with Clem, her seventeen-year-old sister.

It was the last day of the summer break. The next day would be school. Binny so much did not want this to be true that she was busy in her head rewriting the future. She told the improved version to herself like a story.

Lightning zipped . . . zipped or unzipped? Lightning unzipped the sky straight above the Staff Room where all the teachers had rushed to the windows. Not one person escaped the shattering white blast . . . Not cruel, decided Binny. Instant. Painless, probably. And who would want to be a teacher anyway?

Moments later, the whole school was a great pile of smoldering emb . . .

A star-shaped brightness interrupted Binny, a glowing painted airiness, a butterfly.

Lemon yellow, etched with black. Lapis blue edging on the lower wings, each set with a dusty ruby. Caught and lifted on the air.

It was so different from any butterfly that Binny had ever seen before, so unexpected and so lovely, that she dropped her bag to race after it for a closer look.

“Binny!” screeched Clem.

“Oh!” cried Binny, dodging the traffic but colliding with a passerby. “Oh! Oh, stay!”

It didn’t stay. It vanished over the high church wall, gone between one moment and the next, and Binny tumbled back to earth and for the first time saw the results of her collision. A smashed box lay in the gutter, the pavement was scattered with broken flowers, and a voice was shrieking, “LOOK what you’ve done! Look!”

Editorial Reviews

"Hilariously and sensitively told."

Booklist

*"Even those unfamiliar with Binny’s first outing can pick up the thread here, and the mix of history, mystery, and sympathetic everyday-life story will captivate a wide variety of young readers."

September 2015 - *STARRED Review* BCCB

*"McKay continues to enthrall readers with her vigorous blend of screwball comedy and heartfelt emotion."

starred review The Horn Book

*"McKay continues to enthrall readers with her vigorous blend of screwball comedy and heartfelt emotion."

Starred Review Horn Book

"Hilariously and sensitively told."

Booklist

06/01/2015
Gr 4–6—Engaging and earnest 11-year-old Binny returns in a welcome sequel to Binny for Short (S. & S., 2013). It's the end of summer in Cornwall, and Binny's status as the bullied new girl at school is countered by her excitement about the possibility that a strange, exotic wild animal resides in the beautiful and untamed moor around their rented house. McKay alternates Binny's tale with the story of three kids living in the house in the 1910s and their interest in the collection and classification of natural specimens; the two eventually tie together. As always with McKay, the warmth and sweetness of Binny's family shine almost brighter than the excitable protagonist, and the side characters are irresistible. This title would work as a standalone, although the author's breezy writing, sheer number of characters, and habit of assuming that readers can remember who everyone is just by their names can make things confusing at times. But Binny is wonderful to spend time with, and putting down the book is like leaving a wonderfully comforting, very British setting filled with good friends. VERDICT Hand this to lovers of Jeanne Birdsall's "Penderwicks" series (Knopf).—Rhona Campbell, Georgetown Day School, Washington, DC

School Library Journal

★ 2015-04-01
Newly arrived in a small Cornish town, 12-year-old Binny Cornwallis struggles to find her footing as disasters and mysteries pile up inexorably. Hardly has she had time to get decisively off on the wrong foot on the first day of school and so become victim of a campaign of petty harassment led by classmate Clare, than a destructive gale forces Binny and her family into a hasty temporary move to an isolated cottage. There, one of her little brother's chickens is snatched (by a rare lynx or, as young James puts it, a "jagular"), and the brusque new landlady turns out to be…Clare's mom. With masterful comic timing McKay spins a whirl of horrifying yet hilarious admissions, mishaps, tart exchanges, and domestic tempests, as well as profoundly affecting discoveries and epiphanies, around her intense, sensitive, impulsive protagonist. Usually hilarious, that is—along with a poignant subplot, told in flashbacks, about a trio of siblings who summered in the cottage before and during World War I, the author weaves in mutually harrowing encounters between Binny and a rifle-toting neighbor. (Player's illustrations not seen.) There's never a dull moment in the Cornwallis household—nor one not rich with love and laughter. Fans of Binny for Short (2013) will welcome this second chance to look in on the commotion. (Fiction. 11-13)

Kirkus Reviews