Everything on a Waffle

Renowned Canadian/American author Polly Horvath published the middle-grade novel everything on a Waffle in 2001. Over two years, the book received numerous accolades, including Mr. Christie’s Book Award, the Boston Globe Horn Book Award, the ALSC Notable Children’s Book, a Newbery Honor Medal, and the Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize. Written in the first person, 11-year-old narrator Primrose tells of her parents disappearing in a typhoon off the coast of British Columbia. Primrose discounts the universal assumption of citizens in her Coal Harbour community that her parents drowned. Deep within, she knows her parents are alive. She struggles against a duplicitous counselor who wants to remove her from the custody of a well-meaning but inept uncle and move her out of town into foster care. Primrose’s efforts to keep watch for parents’ return play out against a backdrop of consecutive catastrophes in a village populated by unique, quirky characters.

Summarized here is the 2008 Macmillan Square Fish paperback edition.

Content Warning: The book deals with the absence and possible loss of parents, fire-related destruction and injuries, endangering behaviors, and the death of an elderly character. In all, Horvath demonstrates that care systems, both for physical safety and for the emotional well-being of individuals, are in place and functioning.

Plot Summary

Primrose Squarp introduces herself as the narrator and protagonist of Everything on a Waffle, who has lived her entire life in the fishing village of Coal Harbour, British Columbia, Canada. Primrose’s mother sailed her skiff into a summer typhoon in an effort to find Primrose’s father, a fisherman. Both disappeared, causing everyone in the community to believe they drowned. Primrose, however, knows deep within herself that her parents are still alive, awaiting rescue on a Pacific island.

Primrose moves from the care of her elderly neighbor, Miss Perfidy, into the home of her newly arrived Uncle Jack, a real estate developer who wants to transform Coal Harbour into a tourist destination. The school counselor, Miss Honeycut, tries to send Primrose into foster care, believing that the girl interferes with Miss Honeycut’s potential romantic relationship with Uncle Jack.

Primrose lives in her uncle’s newly purchased home, which also houses a noisy community gymnasium. She has no friends among her classmates. The girls hound her about her unwillingness to accept the death of her parents. The boys play hockey in the gym. Adult citizens of Coal Harbor express impatience with Primrose’s belief that her parents will return, meaning she finds little solace among them. The exception is Miss Bowzer, the chef and proprietor of The Girl on the Red Swing café, who rescues Primrose from a hostile group of kids and becomes her mentor. Primrose always carries her mother’s recipe book and, with Miss Bowzer’s help, continually adds recipes. At the end of each chapter, Primrose lists the recipe for a dish she mentions in the chapter.

For Primrose, life has a single priority: affirming her inner knowledge that her parents are alive by waiting at the harbor each afternoon and watching for their reappearance. Curious as to why none of the authority figures around her accept her certainty about her mother and father’s survival, Primrose systematically asks various individuals if they have ever known the truth of something for which there was no rational evidence. While several grownups acknowledge having had such an experience, none accept Primrose’s contention that her parents are alive. Despite the town’s disbelief, several discouraging developments, and the outright antagonism of some in the community, Primrose periodically experiences irrational moments of joy.

A series of mishaps, none directly caused by Primrose, plague the narrator like a rising tide of disasters. She stands falsely accused of theft and mischief by local merchants, who ban her from their store. A truck strikes Primrose while she accompanies Uncle Jack to a real estate showing, resulting in a hospital stay, the loss of a little toe, and the false suspicion that she is suicidal. When her teacher forces Primrose to care for her class’s pet guinea pig, a freak accident scorches the animal. Her reputation suffers again because Primrose cuts away the guinea pig’s burned hair. When a second accident occurs, washing Primrose off a harbor pier and resulting in the loss of a digit of her ring finger, Miss Honeycut maneuvers Primrose into the care of Child Protective Services, which sends her to the city of Nanaimo and into the home of elderly, novice foster parents Evie and Bert.

Primrose bonds with her foster parents, who learn her story and come to view Miss Honeycut as a meddlesome antagonist. Evie and Bert travel back to Coal Harbour to allow Primrose to visit Miss Bowzer and Uncle Jack. Uncle Jack had sold a new home to Miss Honeycut. When Evie and Bert see Uncle Jack’s new housing development, they decide to sell their home in Nanaimo and move to Coal Harbour. Just after moving their furniture into their new home, the foster parents, along with Primrose and Uncle Jack, eat supper at Miss Bowzer’s café. As they eat, they learn that the new housing development is on fire.

Though firefighters save Quincehead, Evie and Bert’s dog, their new home and possessions burn. While Primrose watches with her foster parents, Uncle Jack enters the burning complex and saves the life of Miss Honeycut, injuring himself seriously in the process. Soon after, Miss Perfidy, Primrose’s elderly neighbor, dies in the hospital as Primrose talks to her, thus continuing her frequent ritual of leaving the room whenever Primrose tries to speak to her.

Miss Honeycut sues Uncle Jack for the house fire. However, the firefighters’ report  determines that the contractors did not build the houses according to Uncle Jack’s specifications, thus making him not responsible for the fire. Uncle Jack locates a recreational vehicle that Evie and Bert decide is an ideal home for them.

On an afternoon when all the main characters are at the ocean, Primrose sees a pleasure craft sail into the harbor with her parents standing on the deck. Each of the characters sees the Squarps. Uncle Jack passes out, and the other adults show stunned disbelief. Primrose rushes to greet them, after which they go to the hospital for treatment, having survived months alone on a Pacific Island. Primrose concludes the narrative with a summary of what happens to all the characters, as well as a description of the most important lessons she learned because of the ordeal.