The Leftover Kid
(A Northern Lights Young Novel)
Red Deer College Press, 1997 
ISBN 0-88995-160-8 $9.95 pbk

When Willa's mother marries the Prime Minister of Canada, Willa suddenly acquires fame and five identical stepsisters. 

The celebrated Sweetwine Quintuplets are smooth, poised, and picture-perfect.  They are everything Willa is not. 

To make matters worse, something sinister is going on at the Official Residence.  When a near-drowning and an attempted kidnapping threaten the family, Willa resolves to set things right. 

By the time it's all over, things at the Prime Minister's house will never be the same again.

• short-listed for a Red Cedar Book Award 1999-2000
• recommended in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Books-For-Kids List (July 1998)
• translated into Swedish

"The Leftover Kid is funny, it's witty, it's blessedly without a message of any kind, and Stanbridge carries it all off beautifully."--Globe and Mail, August 16, 1997.

"Stanbridge is a sure hand at writing comedic episodes, and readers will sympathize with Willa's predicament.  Her emotions are authentic and her antics are very funny.  The story is populated with many memorable characters, and children will feel they have found a friend in Willa." --Montreal Review of Books, April 1998.

"The Leftover Kid is an imaginative, humorous novel that uses Canada's most famous address for its setting...Kids joining blended families often have feelings of alienation and long for their old family. Joanne Stanbridge acknowledges all the emotions that run through a child's mind..."  Read the complete review on-line in CM (Canadian Materials)  (September 5, 1997)

"Stanbridge has created a tale that manages to deal with the serious subject of divorce and remarriage and its effects on the family in a way that is both sensitive and rib-ticklingly funny." --The Ottawa Citizen, September 7, 1997.

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Joanne Stanbridge says, "The idea for The Leftover Kid came by accident. I was supposed to be writing an essay about the poet Emily Dickinson. 

In the D volume of the encyclopedia, I saw an amazing picture of five identical sisters.  They were the Dionne Quintuplets.  I forgot all about Emily Dickinson and started reading everything I could find about these amazing girls.

I wondered what would happen if a set of identical quintuplets were born in the 1990s.  What if they were forced to grow up in the public eye?  What would happen if an ordinary girl came into a family like that?  Okay, maybe Willa isn't exactly ordinary... but she thinks she is!"

Stanbridge spent nearly ten years writing and revising The Leftover Kid.

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