Small Change: The Secret Life of Penny Burford

"It's not what you have but what you do with it that counts." This is the story of how that philosophy worked out in the life of Penny Buford, an ordinary housewife who leaves an extraordinary legacy.

Yandell's Small Change is about a devoted housewife, Penny Burford, who scoops up her husband Roy's loose change and eventually puts together a substantial bank account. She uses the money for secret charities, of which the phlegmatic Roy learns only upon Penny's death. Why Penny did what she did the way she did it then becomes the story, and the reader must return to Roy and Penny's childhoods to understand it fully. Yandell is sentimental but not syrupy: Roy and Penny's marriage is realistically drawn, and the points she makes about the nature of charity are well taken.

John Mort
Copyright American Library Association