Posted on by TracyC

The House Without a Christmas Tree

The House without a Christmas Tree by Gail Rock, 1974.

Addie Mills starts the story reminiscing about a special Christmas that she had when she was young and living in a small town in Nebraska with her father and grandmother in the year 1946. The story talks about the things that she did with her friends while they were getting ready for Christmas and buying presents for each other and such, but it mostly centers on how badly Addie wants a Christmas tree.

Addie is ten years old, and she can’t remember ever having a Christmas tree in the house. Apparently, the last time there was a tree in the house was when Addie’s mother was still alive, when Addie was a baby. Addie tries to talk to her father about it, but he just gets angry. Addie’s father doesn’t want a Christmas tree because it reminds him of Addie’s mother, and he still misses her.

Addie feels self-conscious because other families have Christmas trees, and she schemes to find a way to get one. When Addie wins a tree in a guessing contest at school, beating a girl from a needier family, Addie’s father gets angry and makes a scene, which makes Addie feel terrible. She gives the tree to the other family, and worries that her father doesn’t really love her. 

Seeing Addie’s desperation, Addie’s grandmother lectures Addie’s father, saying that his grief over his dead wife is keeping him from being happy and is making his daughter miserable too.  In the end, Addie’s father sees the importance of the tree to Addie and decides that it’s time the family had one again.

This book is a little unusual in that the movie version came first, and then the book was written.  Sometimes, you can find the movie or clips of it on YouTube.  The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.  There are also other books in the Addie Mills series.

My Reaction

Some people in real life also struggle with Christmas because Christmas can sometimes bring out sad memories or highlight losses. Christmas is often a time of reflection, the last major holiday before the end of the year and a very sentimental and idealized time, but life isn’t always idea. People who have suffered a loss or are unhappy with their lives in some way tend to reflect on what they don’t have, whatever or whoever is missing from their lives. This is how Christmas is for Addie’s father at the beginning of the story, and Addie’s grandmother is correct that either wallowing in sad memories or trying to hard to avoid them is holding Addie’s father and Addie herself back. It’s time for them to move on and build new memories with each other.

I like the story because the characters are very realistic. Addie and her father, like real people, often find it difficult to communicate and understand each other, but in the end, family love wins over the situation. Addie does get the tree she’s been longing for, and for the first time, her father talks to her about her mother. The Christmas tree and coming to terms with the memories of Addie’s deceased mother help the family to heal old wounds and establish better relationships with each other.

Posted on by TracyC

Changes for Molly

American Girls

MollyChanges

Changes for Molly by Valerie Tripp, 1988.

MollyChangesLetterMolly’s family has wonderful news!  Molly’s father is coming home from the war to take charge of a veterans’ hospital right in their home town!  Everyone in the McIntire is happy, but Molly has one worry: In her father’s letter, he talked about how much her brothers and sister have grown and changed since he’s been away, but not her.  Molly still feels like plain old Molly, and she thinks that her father will look at her like she’s still a dumb little kid.  What can she do to show her father that she’s grown in the last two years, like her siblings have?

One thing she can do is get the role of Miss Victory in her dance school’s performance.  She’s favored to get the party anyway because she dances it so well.  But, with her plain, old, straight braids, Molly thinks that she looks too plain and little-kid like to get the part.  What she wants more than anything is to have curls.  Miss Victory’s pretty crown would look great on a girl with a head full of curls.

MollyChangesPinCurlsHer friends try to help her by buying a box of hair permanent and offering to help her use it, but it soon becomes obvious that they really don’t know what they’re doing.  Fortunately, Molly’s older sister, Jill, catches them before their experiment goes too far and talks them out of it.  Molly’s older sister likes to trade hair tips with her friend, Dolores, and she’s more experienced with doing hair.  She says that if curls are important to Molly, she’ll help her to set her hair in pin curls until it looks the way she wants.

As Jill helps Molly with her hair, Molly talks to her about how grown up she is and how she still feels like such a kid who hasn’t changed much since their father went away.  Jill says that she doesn’t think that it’s true.  Jill is five years older than Molly, and she tells her that growing up is something that takes time.  A ten-year-old like Molly just isn’t going to be the same as a fifteen-year-old like Jill, and she shouldn’t try to be.  Jill says that the war and their father’s absence has made them all grow up a little faster than they would have otherwise.  They’ve had to become more mature, more accustomed to making little sacrifices and making do.  In a way, Jill envies Molly for having some of her childhood left to spend with their father when he comes home.  Jill has already left a lot of hers behind.  But, she says that even if Molly doesn’t look very different on the outside, she’s changed somewhat on the inside.  She’s developed a more mature outlook on the world.  She’s become more aware of some of realities of life and what’s important (at one point in the story, she and her friends talk about the people they know who have returned from the war permanently injured and some, like their teacher’s fiancé, who were killed and will never come back), and she’s starting thinking about other people more (Jill reminds Molly of how understanding and generous she became when Emily was staying with them).  Molly just wishes that she would look more mature on the outside, too.  More than anything, she hopes that her father will arrive home in time to see her as a beautiful Miss Victory!

Molly gets part of her wish in getting the role of Miss Victory, but it seems like everything is ruined when she comes down with a bad ear infection and won’t be able to be in the performance at all.  Her father’s arrival home is also delayed, so Molly is stuck at home alone while everyone else is at the performance.  But, just when Molly is feeling horrible and gloomy, what seems like a disappointment turns into something good when she is the first person to welcome her father home, a father who is glad to see her looking just the way he remembered her, braids and all!

In the back of the book, there is a section of historical information about the end of World War II and what happened when soldiers began returning home.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

MollyChangesHistorical

Posted on by TracyC

Molly’s Surprise

American Girls

MollySuprise

Molly’s Surprise by Valerie Tripp, 1986.

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Christmas hasn’t been the same in the McIntire house since Molly’s father went overseas as a doctor during World War II.  As Molly writes her father a letter before Christmas, she and her mother and siblings talk about whether or not he might send them presents.  Molly is sure that he’ll send something and adds a “thank you” to the letter she’s writing, but her older sister, Jill, is less sure and worries that he’ll feel bad if Molly thanks him for presents that he was unable to send.  The boys talk about whether or not any presents that he might send could be shot down before reaching them, and Brad, the youngest child in the family worries about whether Santa might get shot down, too.  The children’s mother reassures them, but it’s just another sign of how the war has changed the feeling of Christmas.

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Jill tries to be realistic and tells Molly that she should be, too.  Jill thinks that there probably won’t be many presents this year, and what they get will be mostly practical things, handmade gifts, or hand-me-downs because of war rationing and the family’s need to be frugal.  Everyone is determined to be practical and patriotic, but Molly finds all this “realistic” talk depressing.  When her father was home, Christmas was always a time of surprises, and she likes to believe that, somehow, he will still find a way to surprise them.

When the children’s grandparents call and say that they won’t be able to come after all because of car trouble, and they won’t be able to bring them a Christmas tree as promised.  The kids are depressed, but Molly says that they’ll just have to do as their mother told her earlier and rely on themselves to make their own Christmas surprises this year.  Jill, Ricky, and Molly pool their money and go out to buy a tree.  As in the Charlie Brown Christmas special, the only tree they can afford is small and scrawny, but it’s better than no tree at all.

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Once they get the tree decorated, it looks much better.  As they decorate the tree, Jill admits that some of her attitudes about how this Christmas should be different and more simple from others is because she really misses their father, and when everything looks the same as it did before he left, it just reminds her of how much she misses him.  Molly also admits that she doesn’t really care what presents their father sends; she’s only worried that, if a package doesn’t arrive, it might mean that something bad had happened to him.  All of the kids want the reassurance that their father is still okay.

The next day, when the children go out to play in the snow, they find the package from their father that they’ve been waiting for!  However, there is a note on the package that says, “KEEP HIDDEN UNTIL CHRISTMAS DAY!”  Probably, their father wanted their mother to hide the package from the children, but since Molly and Jill are the first to find it, they decide to do the hiding themselves, putting the box in the storage room above the garage.  Jill thinks they should tell their mother about it, but Molly persuades her to wait because she doesn’t want to ruin their father’s surprise.

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On Christmas Eve, the girls retrieve the box and put it under the tree after everyone else is asleep.  However, that’s not the end of the Christmas surprises.  Their father has one more special surprise for them . . .

There is a section in the back of the book with historical information about Christmas during World War II.  Many families couldn’t be together during the war because families members were overseas and because many civilians limited their traveling during the war in order to save gasoline.  In fact, speed limits were greatly reduced in order to save gas – the “Victory Speed Limit” restricted people to driving no faster than 35 mph.  Public transit, like trains and buses, was often needed to transport soldiers, so civilians avoided traveling as much as possible.

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People also had to get creative about Christmas treats because some essential ingredients, like butter and sugar, were rationed.  People also made their own decorations.  The selection of toys was somewhat limited because factories had been converted to making war materials, and many families gave their children practical gifts. However, there were still toys available, and people managed to give their children a few special surprises.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Happy Birthday, Molly

American Girls

MollyBirthday

Happy Birthday, Molly! By Valerie Tripp, 1987.

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Molly is excited because she has just learned that an English girl will be coming to stay with her family for a while.  The girl, Emily, is one of the child evacuees from London.  Really, she’s supposed to be staying with her aunt, who also lives in Molly’s town, but her aunt is in the hospital with pneumonia and won’t be able to take her for another couple of weeks.  In the meantime, Molly and her friends are eager to meet her, imagining her to be something like the English princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret Rose.

The girls have a fascination for England after all the things they’ve seen in movies and newsreels.  Recently, they saw a newsreel about bomb shelters in England.  Inspired by what they’ve seen, the girls make a pretend bomb shelter under an old table and enjoy pretending that they are like the people in the newsreel.  Molly’s brother, Ricky, says that it isn’t very realistic, and the girls say that they’ll have to ask Emily when she comes.

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However, Emily turns out to be very shy and quiet.  She’s pale and skinny and hardly talks at first.  When the girls show her their “bomb shelter”, she doesn’t want to play in it.  Molly thinks that maybe Emily doesn’t like them, but her mother reminds her that, in World War II England, bomb shelters aren’t places to play.  Emily is the same age as Molly, and the war has been going on since she was a little kid.  Molly’s mother points out that Emily probably doesn’t remember much about life before the war.  Emily is accustomed to bombings and danger all around her, and Molly’s mother compares her to a flower “who’s not sure it’s spring yet.  It will take some time for her to realize it’s safe to come out now.”

Emily goes to Molly’s school, and their classmates are fascinated with her.  This fascination makes Emily even more shy than she would be otherwise as kids try to imitate her accent and ask her questions about what it’s like to see buildings bombed.  To the America kids, the war seems exciting, and they want to know what it’s like to see it up close, but Emily dodges their questions.

Molly finally comes to understand why Emily is so evasive when their town has a blackout drill.  When the drill starts, a siren sounds, and everyone has to go down into their basements until they get the signal that it’s all clear.  Molly is surprised to see that Emily is actually frightened by the drill, but everyone assures her that it’s just for practice, not because Illinois is actually going to be bombed.  In Molly’s family, it’s almost like a game, but Emily has memories of real bombings during the Blitz.  As they sit in the basement during the drill, Emily explains it to Molly: the fear, the explosions, destroyed buildings, people getting hurt or killed.  Molly and her friends thought it was exciting to hear about the war in newsreels, but living it is an entirely different thing.  The drill and everyone’s questions about what bombings are like bring back bad memories for Emily.

As Molly comes to understand Emily’s feelings more, Emily opens up to her.  The girls discover that they share a fascination with Princess Elizabeth and her sister Margaret Rose.  They start playing a game where they pretend to be the princesses, dressing alike in blue skirts and sweaters.  Because the princesses have pet dogs, the girls also pretend that they have dogs, using jump ropes as leashes for their imaginary pets.

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Molly’s birthday is approaching, and she offers to let Emily share in her party and help plan it.  She’s curious about what people in England do on their birthdays, and the idea of an English tea party sounds great to her friends.  However, Molly doesn’t like the way that Emily describes English birthdays, and the types of sandwiches that the English tea with tea don’t sound very good.  Worst of all, Emily says that, at her last birthday before the war rationing started, she had a lemon tart instead of a cake.  Molly can’t imagine her birthday without a birthday cake.  Mrs. Gilford, the housekeeper, has been saving up rationed goods for her cake this year, and it’s what she’s been looking forward to the most!

Sharing things with Emily becomes more of a trial for Molly, and when the girls argue about their countries’ contributions to the war effort, they get into a fight and Molly starts thinking that she doesn’t even want Emily at her birthday party.  However, Molly’s mother points out to the girls that the war effort is a team effort.  A couple of special birthday surprises help the girls to make up, including something extra special that helps Emily to heal further from the trauma of the war.

In the Molly, An American Girl movie, Emily plays a larger role than she did in the books.  This is the only book in the series where Emily appears.  Her story was changed somewhat for the movie, too.  In the movie, she says that her mother was killed in a bombing.  In the book, her parents are both still alive, and it was her dog who was killed.  Molly doesn’t learn that until the end of the book when her family gives the girls a pair of puppies as a present, and Emily tells her about her pet dog who died.

In the back of the book, there’s a section with historical information about what it was like to grow up in the 1940s.  It explains how women used to stay in the hospital for about a week after giving birth, and sometimes, they could hire a practical nurse to help them at home as well.  Canned baby food was a new invention, and vaccines helped to prevent disease.  Back then, people still got smallpox shots because the disease hadn’t been eradicated, but there was still nothing to prevent chicken pox or measles, so children with those diseases had to be kept at home with warning signs out front to tell people to stay away from the quarantined house.  (Note: My father was born in 1944, the year that this series takes place, and he said that throughout his early childhood, parents who knew of a child who had chicken pox would deliberately take their children to visit and get the disease.  It wasn’t that they really wanted their children to get sick, but since there was no way to prevent the disease at the time, they had to accept that it was inevitable that their child would catch it eventually, and chicken pox is somewhat peculiar in that there is a kind of age window in which the disease isn’t likely to be too bad.  If you waited too long, and the child got older or even to adulthood without getting it, it was bound to be much worse when they eventually caught it.  So, if your child was about the right age for getting it, in early childhood but no longer a baby, people thought it was best to get it over with so they could benefit from the lifetime immunity afterward.  This remained true even up through the 1980s, my early childhood, which is why I have a permanent scar on my face from the disease.  Now, there are vaccines to prevent it, although I understand that some people still have chicken pox parties in places where the vaccine isn’t readily available. If you have the option, go for the vaccine.  Preventing chicken pox also prevents shingles.)

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The historical section also talks about child evacuees, like Emily, and what teenagers did during the 1940s.  It was around this time that people began looking at the teenage years as being a distinct phase of life, and businesses began specifically catering to teenagers.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

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Posted on by TracyC

Who’s Afraid of Haggerty House?

HaggertyHouse

Who’s Afraid of Haggerty House? By Linda Gondosch, 1987.

Kelly McCoy is eager to begin selling greeting cards for the Bismarck Greeting Card company because she wants to earn extra money for Christmas shopping.  Her best friends, Jennifer and Adelaide are selling cards, too, and Kelly is looking forward to teaming up with them.  However, she soon finds out that Jennifer and Adelaide have already finished their selling.  While Kelly was visiting her grandparents for a couple of days, the other girls hurried right out and started selling their cards.  They were worried about other kids beating them to the neighborhood houses.  By the time Kelly is ready to begin, the others are done and tired of going door-to-door, and many of the houses in the area have already bought all the Christmas cards they want.

Angry and hurt, Kelly has a fight with the other girls, and they mention that one house they didn’t visit was Haggerty House, which is supposed to be haunted.  Although the house spooks Kelly, she decides to go there and try to sell her cards.  When her brother, Ben, followers her and hits her with snowballs, further angering her, she dares him to come to Haggerty House, too.  Ben might be annoying company, but he’s still company.

Usually, the only time that kids in the neighborhood go to Haggerty House is on Halloween, and old Mr. and Mrs. Haggerty give good treats for the kids who are daring enough to visit, usually candied apples and nickels.  When Kelly and Ben approach the house to sell Christmas cards, Mrs. Haggerty invites them in for hot chocolate.  Mrs. Haggerty buys one of Kelly’s cards, and Kelly and Ben learn that Mrs. Haggerty is very lonely.  Her husband is ill and in the hospital.  She invites the garbage men in for hot chocolate, too, but is disappointed that they can’t stay very long because they have to finish their rounds.

Kelly and Ben can’t stay very long, either, much to Mrs. Haggerty’s disappointment.  However, Kelly later accepts an invitation from Mrs. Haggerty to visit again.  Mrs. Haggerty shows her some Christmas cards that people have given her previous years and tells her about her son, Tyler, who is a filmmaker in Los Angeles.  Tyler doesn’t visit very often because his work keeps him busy.  Mrs. Haggerty plays the piano, and she’s writing a song for Tyler for Christmas.  Mrs. Haggerty enjoys Kelly’s visit and wishes she could stay even longer.

Mrs. Haggerty becomes closer to Kelly’s family.  Ben helps Kelly to take Mrs. Haggerty’s picture and record the song she’s writing for Tyler so she can send it to him for Christmas.  Mrs. Haggerty also comes with the McCoys when they go shopping for a Christmas tree, and she comes to see Kelly as the Ghost of Christmas Past in her school’s A Christmas Carol play.

Then, while the kids are helping Mrs. Haggerty decorate at her house, an eccentric woman from the neighborhood, Malvina Krebs, comes to the house to ask if Mrs. Haggerty would like to participate in one of the seances that she holds regularly with friends.  Actually, they are hoping that she will let them hold a séance at her house because her house has such wonderful atmosphere and “vibrations.”  Mrs. Haggerty agrees because she’s never seen a séance before, and the séance group will be additional company.  Kelly asks if she could come because she’s curious to see what a séance looks like as well, and the ladies agree.

The séance is a very strange experience, although Kelly later discovers that some of what happened was a prank by her brother and his friend.  It occurs to Kelly that what she likes about visiting Mrs. Haggerty is that, unlike her friends right now, Mrs. Haggerty is always glad to see her and the interesting things that they do take her mind off of her fight with her friends.  However, she has come to miss talking to people who really understand her.  She can imagine what Jennifer would say about the séance and how she would find it interesting and how she would understand how Kelly felt about it.  Kelly’s earlier anger at her friends wasn’t really about how they made money with their cards and left no customers for her so much as they were having a good time without her and how they no longer seem interested in spending time with her.  She confides a little in Mrs. Haggerty how she feels about her friends, and she says that friends don’t always act like friends should.  Mrs. Haggerty herself doesn’t have as many friends as she used to because many of them have passed away.

Kelly does make up with Jennifer and Adelaide, inviting them to a Christmas party at Mrs. Haggerty’s.  There, she learns that some of their stand-offishness and secretiveness was because they’ve been planning a special Christmas present for Kelly.  The Christmas party is fun with a lot of old-fashioned games, but the best part is when Tyler finally comes home for Christmas!

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction

Friendship is a large part of the theme of this story.  Kelly comes to understand Mrs. Haggerty’s loneliness partly through her quarrels with her friends.  At this point in their lives, each of them needs the other because they don’t really have anyone else.  Kelly’s time with Mrs. Haggerty gives her a new perspective on her relationship with her friends, and she also comes to understand some of the difficulties that Mrs. Haggerty faces because she is elderly.  Mrs. Haggerty’s song for her son is what makes him realize that he needs to spend more time with his aging parents, and Kelly and her friends decide that they will continue to visit with Mrs. Haggerty regularly.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

The Mystery in Arizona

Trixie Belden

TBMysteryArizona

#6 The Mystery in Arizona by Julie Campbell, 1958.

TBMysteryArizonaRanchDi’s Uncle Monty (the real one, not the fake from previously in the series) has invited her and the other Bob-Whites to spend Christmas at his dude ranch near Tucson, Arizona. At first, Trixie is worried that she won’t be allowed to go with the others because her grades in school are bad and she needs to study. However, her parents finally agree to allow her to go when the boys offer to tutor her over the holidays, and Trixie can get information that she needs on Navajo Indians for her theme. It won’t be easy, though.

From the very start of their visit, problems plague the ranch, and it seems as though everyone has a secret. Most of the members of the Orlando family, who usually take care of cooking, cleaning, and other tasks on the ranch, have mysteriously disappeared, except for Maria and her young son. Maria refuses to say where the others are, but the little boy is unhappy that he couldn’t go with the rest of his family and makes strange comments about skeletons and other frightening things. Also, Rosita, a Navajo girl working as a maid at the ranch, is deeply unhappy and in need of money for reasons that she doesn’t want to explain.

Meanwhile, there is a trio of lonely and unhappy guests in need of cheering up. In an effort to help, the Bob-Whites volunteer to take over the Orlandos’ chores to keep the ranch running during the holidays. As Trixie gets drawn further into the mysteries plaguing the ranch, she finds it difficult to balance her work and her studies. Trixie worries that this might turn out to be a terrible way to spend Christmas, but with some help from the Bob-Whites, things might work out even better than anyone hoped.

One of the things that they discover is that the Orlando family is celebrating a family tradition similar to Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead, similar to All Souls Day and Halloween) but their family celebrates it at a different time of year than is customary because they want their celebration to coincide with the birthday of one of their ancestors.  They left without explaining because they were worried that no one would understand their traditions or approve of them.  Maria Orlando did not go right away because she was worried about leaving her job, but when her son tries to run away and join the rest of the family, she decides that it isn’t fair to keep him away from the family celebration.  After making sure that the Bob-Whites can handle the chores on the ranch, she takes her son to join the others in Mexico.

The three unhappy guests, Jane Brown, Mr. Wellington, and Mrs. Sherman, also have their problems solved.  Jane learns to get over her shyness and enjoy herself.  Mr. Wellington’s children, who had decided at the last minute to spend the holidays with friends, change their minds and come to spend Christmas with their father instead, cheering him up.  After Maria leaves, Mrs. Sherman cooks Christmas dinner for everyone, allowing her to once again do the work she loved when she and her late husband ran a restaurant.  Rosita’s secret is that she feels responsible for an accident that her father suffered when he was working with some  more modern tools that she gave him for his silversmithing work.  She took a job at the ranch to get some money for his medical treatment, but she is worried that she cannot earn all the money she needs during the holidays so that she can return to school.  She sold some of her silver jewelry to Mrs. Sherman, but she refused to take more than $100 dollars for it, although Mrs. Sherman would gladly have given her all the money that she needed.  Rosita is too proud to ask for or accept help from others.  The Bob-Whites solve her problem by giving her the money that they earned working at the ranch as a Christmas present.  In spite of all these distractions, Trixie manages to improve her math and get enough information for her theme on Navajos from Rosita.

This is the last Trixie Belden book written by Julie Campbell, the original author of the series.  From this point on, the series continues with other authors.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Thomas’ Snowsuit

ThomasSnowsuit

Thomas’ Snowsuit by Robert Munsch, 1985.

Thomas absolutely hates the new snowsuit that his mother bought him.  He thinks it’s ugly.  When it’s time for him to go to school, his mother has to wrestle him into it because he refuses to put it on himself.

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That’s fine until it’s time for Thomas to once again put on his snowsuit so he can go outside for recess.  His teacher insists that he has to wear it, but he refuses.  When the teacher tries to wrestle Thomas into his snowsuit, the results are hilarious!

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Thomas and his teacher end up getting their clothes all mixed up.  When the school’s principal tries to help, it only makes things worse.

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Finally, Thomas is persuaded to put on his snowsuit when a friend of his wants him to come out and play.

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Thomas eventually helps set the teacher and principal right again after recess, and the principal decides that it’s time to retire to Arizona, so he won’t have to deal with snowsuits again.

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Like all Munsch books, the storyline is bizarre and hilarious, and half the fun is watching it unfold in the pictures!

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Murmel, Murmel, Murmel

Murmel

Murmel, Murmel, Murmel by Robert Munsch, 1982.

Robin is playing in her backyard sandbox when she hears a “Murmel, Murmel, Murmel” sound from a hole that she has never seen before. In the hole, Robin finds a baby. Since Robin herself is only five years old, she decides that she needs to find someone older to take care of the baby.

Robin asks various people, but they all have reasons why they can’t take the baby. Then, Robin encounters a truck driver who is enchanted with the baby’s “Murmel, Murmel, Murmel” and says that he wants him.

The story never explains where the baby came from, how he ended up in Robin’s sandbox, or if his parents are looking for him, but apparently, he’s happy with the truck driver. As for the truck driver’s truck, he says that Robin can keep it because he already has seventeen others. Robert Munsch books are like this. That’s basically the explanation.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

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Posted on by TracyC

Something Good

SomethingGood

Something Good by Robert Munsch, 1990.

Tyya begs her father to buy “something good” at the grocery store. Tyya would much rather have him get something like ice cream and cookies instead of boring things like bread and eggs, which is what he usually gets.

However, when she tries to get whole cartloads of ice cream and candy bars, her father makes her put it all back. Tired of her messing around, Tyya’s frazzled father tells her to just stand in one place and not move. Unfortunately, he tells her that near a display of large dolls. Because she doesn’t move, a store employee mistakes Tyya for a doll and puts her on the shelf with the others, giving her a price tag of $29.95.

Some people try to buy Tyya, but she yells at them, scaring them away. Tyya’s father comes to get her, but he has trouble taking her out of the store because she still has a price tag on her, and the man at the register insists that her father has to pay for her.

In real life, no grocery store would try to sell a child, and it would be a crime if they did. However, because this is a Robert Munsch story (where all kinds of crazy things happen), Tyya’s father finally pays the $29.95 because she’s worth it, and Tyya says that her father finally bought something good at the grocery store.  Sort of touching, in an odd kind of way, I guess.

One of the benefits of this story is that it has a lot of potential for reading aloud because the reader can really play up the parts where the characters yell.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Moira’s Birthday

MoirasBirthday

Moira’s Birthday by Robert Munsch, 1987.

Moira wants to have a birthday party and to invite every kid in her school, from kindergarten to sixth grade. Her parents say that she can have only six party guests total, not six grades’ worth. However, so many kids at school want to come to her party that she ends up inviting the whole school anyway.

When every kid in school shows up on the day of the party, Moira’s parents are bowled over. There are so many kids that they hardly fit in the house. Moira calls up a pizza place, asking for an enormous amount of pizza, and a bakery, asking for an enormous amount of birthday cakes. The kids also help out by supplying their own food from home.

Naturally, Moira’s house is a mess, and her parents are upset, but Moira, seeing the enormous pile of birthday presents that everyone brought, promises a present to everyone who helps to clean up.

But, just when everything seems to have worked out all right, the trucks from the bakery and pizza place show up with the rest of Moira’s order.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.