Amelia Bedelia fans will welcome her return as she makes a hash out of helping out at the doctor’s office. Amelia volunteers to help mind Dr. Horton’s office while the doctor is away, thus giving her the opportunity to lay waste one idiomatic medical expression after another. As is her way, Amelia takes everything at face value, which manages to amuse the children and pique the adults. One man calls the doctor’s office to complain of ringing in his ears: “A ringing? Maybe you should answer the doorbell,” Amelia suggests. Amelia fields another call from a woman: “I’ve caught some kind of bug.” Amelia recommends to “let it go. Bugs can bite.” “Draw blood,” “check a temperature,” “take a test”—somebody get her to stop. While her literalness allays the fears of young kids, it winds up having a company of irate phone callers descend upon the doctor’s office. All is saved when the ice-cream man arrives: “I told you I was treating your patients,” Amelia explains to Dr. Horton, after she’s rushed back to the office on hearing the news of Amelia’s involvement. Sweat’s appealing pen-and-watercolor art works at times like a rebus, helping young readers understand Amelia’s take on the idiom. But there is little by way of story here. Parish has aimed instead for a steady—at times relentless—stream of yucks, which turns Amelia into a bit of a robot by erasing her endearing qualities. (Easy reader. 5-7)
Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-06-001421-0
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
Essentially a follow-up to Robert Kraus’s Leo the Late Bloomer (1971) and like tales of developing competency, this follows an exuberant child from morning wash-up to lights out at night, cataloguing the tasks and skills he has mastered. Activities include dressing himself and joining in school activities, choosing his own books, helping with dinner and other household responsibilities, and taking a bath alone before bedtime. In Aliki’s sunny, simplified pictures, it’s a child’s world, seen from low angles and with adults putting in only occasional appearances. Like the lad, the fitfully rhymed text gallops along, sometimes a little too quickly—many illustrations are matched to just a word or two, so viewers aren’t always given much time to absorb one image before being urged on to the next—but underscoring the story’s bustling energy. Young readers and pre-readers will respond enthusiastically to this child’s proud self-assurance, and be prompted to take stock of their own abilities too. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2000
ISBN: 0-06-028929-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2000
Part of a spate of books intent on bringing the garbage collectors in children’s lives a little closer, this almost matches...
Listeners will quickly take up the percussive chorus—“Dump it in, smash it down, drive around the Trashy town! Is the trash truck full yet? NO”—as they follow burly Mr. Gilly, the garbage collector, on his rounds from park to pizza parlor and beyond.
Flinging cans and baskets around with ease, Mr. Gilly dances happily through streetscapes depicted with loud colors and large, blocky shapes; after a climactic visit to the dump, he roars home for a sudsy bath.
Part of a spate of books intent on bringing the garbage collectors in children’s lives a little closer, this almost matches Eve Merriam’s Bam Bam Bam (1995), also illustrated by Yaccarino, for sheer verbal and visual volume. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: April 30, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-027139-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
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