The Vanderbeekers

The Vanderbeekers is a series of seven middle-grade children's novels written and illustrated by Asian American author Karina Yan Glaser.

[5] The books feature the Vanderbeeker family—a biracial family consisting of a mother, father, five children (twins Isa and Jessie, Oliver, Hyacinth and Laney), and a cat, dog and rabbit—along with a large cast of friends and neighbors.

After their beloved neighbor Mr. Jeet suffers a stroke, the children plan to transform an abandoned lot on 141st Street into a garden that will welcome him home.

When the children accidentally destroy Mrs. Vanderbeeker's baking business, they must race to fix their mistake, against the backdrop of a series of mysterious packages arriving at the door.

But after he leaves town to help a good friend, the Vanderbeeker children find surprise guests at the brownstone and learn more than they knew about their paternal grandfather.

During the fall after their road trip, amid preparations for the wedding of two dear friends, one of the Vanderbeeker children receives a cancer diagnosis.

In The New York Times Book Review, Jennifer Hubert Swan called the first installment "a warmhearted, multiracial update to the classic big-family novel."

"[1] In 2019, reviewing The Vanderbeekers to the Rescue, Swan described the book as "almost a case study in why these kinds of series are so captivating for young readers: Above all, while the happy ending might be a foregone conclusion, there is great satisfaction in seeing how their favorite characters untangle the knot this time.

[8] The Vanderbeekers and the Hidden Garden reached ninth on the New York Times Best Seller list for middle-grade children's books in October 2018.