literal interpretation – Jestress's Forgotten Books and Stories

Posted on October 28, 2025 by TracyC

Happy Haunting, Amelia Bedelia

Amelia Bedelia

Happy Haunting, Amelia Bedelia by Herman Parish, pictures by Lynn Sweat, 2004.

When Amelia Bedelia arrives at the Rogers’s house just before Halloween, she is appalled by all the cobwebs. The house looks like a run-down haunted house, and Amelia Bedelia thinks someone wrecked it. Mr. and Mrs. Rogers reassure her that the house is just decorated for the Halloween party they are having that night. Amelia Bedelia almost forgot what day it was because she’s been busy, helping the local children make their costumes.

When Amelia Bedelia tries to help the Rogers get ready for the party, she demonstrates that she still takes everything way too literally. When Mr. Rogers asks her to both get the hammer and to crack a window, Amelia Bedelia assumes that he means her to use the hammer on the window and actually breaks it. When they ask Amelia to add an extra leaf to the table for the guests, she assumes they mean a tree leaf, and when Mr. Rogers asks her to hand him a witch, she asks him “Which what?”

Amelia Bedelia is enough to drive anyone batty, but she really does her best work in the kitchen. She is a good cook, and she and Mrs. Rogers have fun making a bunch of traditional Halloween goodies. Then Cousin Alcolu arrives with a bunch of pumpkins and a scarecrow for the party. They ask Amelia Bedelia what costume she will wear for the party that night, but she doesn’t have one. Mrs. Rogers says that she has an idea for her and for Cousin Alcolu.

The Rogers’s party that night is a success, and Amelia’s influence is obvious in the literal nature of some of the treats and the costumes she helped the children make. However, nobody can figure out where Amelia Bedelia is. At first, Mr. Rogers thinks that maybe Amelia is offended because he mistakenly called her normal outfit a costume, but then, he is sure that he recognizes Amelia Bedelia in her Halloween costume. Is he right? It certain seems something strange is going on! But, then again, Amelia Bedelia is there.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

My Reaction

This is one of the newer Amelia Bedelia books, written after the death of the original author. Parts seemed a little cheesy to me, like Amelia Bedelia seeming confused about the Halloween decorations after helping the children make Halloween costumes. Amelia Bedelia is often a little mixed-up, but getting confused about the nature of the holiday just seemed to be overdoing it. Then again, even in the original books, she was confused about ordinary things associated with holidays, like what kind of “star” goes on top of a Christmas tree. It might be more in character than I thought at first, and it just seemed like overdoing it in this book because I read the original books when I was a kid wasn’t thinking that deeply about it back then.

I did like it that Amelia Bedelia’s tendency to be overly literal is going strong in this book. Besides the mistakes she makes while helping Mr. and Mrs. Rogers get ready for their party, I enjoyed seeing the costumes that Amelia helped the children make. They’re all puns and literal interpretations of common expressions. Amelia Bedelia’s own costume is a fun twist!

Posted on January 11, 2019January 18, 2019 by TracyC

Amelia Bedelia Helps Out

Amelia Bedelia Helps Out by Peggy Parish, 1979.

Mr. and Mrs. Rogers are loaning their maid/housekeeper, Amelia Bedelia, to a friend, Miss Emma to help her with a few things around her house. Amelia Bedelia also has her niece, Effie Lou, with her to give her a hand. Effie Lou doesn’t quite know what her aunt does for a living, but although Effie Lou’s first instincts seem to do the normal thing with the instructions that Miss Emma gives them, Amelia Bedelia quickly “corrects” her niece to do things in her quirky, literal-minded way. For example, when Miss Emma tells them to weed the garden, Effie Lou starts to pull the weeds, but Amelia Bedelia convinces her that they are supposed to add more since Miss Emma didn’t say “unweed” the garden.

From there, Amelia Bedelia interprets Miss Emma’s order to “stake” the beans in the garden as tying bits of steak to them. They also give the chickens Miss Emma’s quilting scraps instead of food scraps and sew grass seeds onto thread instead of “sowing” them into the ground.

Is Amelia Bedelia a bad influence on her niece? Maybe, but once again, her baking skills come to the rescue. Miss Emma asks her to bake a “tea cake” for some guests who will be coming over.

Now, depending on where you live, “tea cake” actually can mean different things. Sometimes, it’s just a small cake that’s served with tea, and other times, it’s a special kind of cookie or biscuit (the distinction is regional). The way Amelia Bedelia interprets it is a cake that actually includes tea as an ingredient. Surprisingly, though, everyone loves it, even more than the nut cake she also baked.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on December 8, 2017December 20, 2018 by TracyC

Amelia Bedelia’s Family Album

ABFamilyAlbum

Amelia Bedelia’s Family Album by Peggy Parish, 1988.

Mr. and Mrs. Rogers realize that they’ve never met the rest of Amelia Bedelia’s family, so they tell her that they’d like to give a party for her and family. Amelia Bedelia is happy about the party and shows Mr. and Mrs. Rogers some pictures of her relatives.

It turns out that her tendency to be extremely literal is a family trait. Her father is a telephone operator who operates on telephones and her mother is a “loafer” who makes loaves of bread. One of her uncles is a “big-game hunter” and has a checkers set that takes up an entire room, and another “takes pictures” in the sense that he is basically an art thief.

With each relative introduced, readers can pause for a moment to consider what each of Amelia’s relatives do, in a very literal sense, based on Amelia’s description, before turning the page to confirm it. (I kind of identify with the “bookkeeper” because my room looks kind of like that, for similar reasons.)

In this picture book, Amelia Bedelia isn’t doing any chores or getting confused about instructions, like in other books, but all the occupation-related puns have the same feel as Amelia’s routine misunderstandings about the multiple meanings of words from the rest of the series.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on December 6, 2017December 16, 2021 by TracyC · 1 Comment

Merry Christmas, Amelia Bedelia

Merry Christmas, Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish, 1986.

Christmas is coming, and once again, Mrs. Rogers has left a list of things for Amelia Bedelia to do while she goes to pick up her Aunt Myra, who is visiting for the holiday.

Leaving Amelia Bedelia unsupervised with a list of instructions can be dangerous at any time of the year, but this time, Amelia Bedelia is in the holiday spirit, determined to do her literal best to stuff stockings (with the same kind of stuffing you might use with a turkey), trim the tree (to the size that she thinks Mrs. Rogers would want it), deck it out with lights and balls (light bulbs and sports balls of all kinds), and find an appropriate star to put on top (and, you know, who wouldn’t want to be a star?).

Merry Christmas Amelia Bedelia Balls on Tree

Merry Christmas Amelia Bedelia Tree Star

So what will Aunt Myra think of Amelia’s special brand of literal kookiness? Fortunately, she loves the idea of being a star, too. Amelia Bedelia may be aggravating in the way she interprets the instructions given to her, but she’s also endearingly humorous . . . and she bakes a really good spice cake, too.

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

Merry Christmas Amelia Bedelia Aunt Myra

Posted on December 3, 2017December 20, 2018 by TracyC

Good Work, Amelia Bedelia

Good Work Amelia Bedelia

Good Work, Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish, 1976.

Amelia Bedelia works as a maid/housekeeper for Mr. and Mrs. Rogers. They like her, but they have to be extremely careful about the orders and instructions that they give her because Amelia Bedelia takes everything literally. For example, when Mr. Rogers asks her for toast and an egg for breakfast, she gives him a raw egg straight out of the refrigerator because he never told her to cook it. Telling her to “go fly a kite” is also pointless because she’ll simply go to the park and do it.

Good Work Amelia Bedelia Fly a Kite

Possibly the most dangerous thing Mr. and Mrs. Rogers can do is leave Amelia Bedelia alone in the house with a “to do” list. Unsupervised, she reads each item on the list and does her best to obey all of the instructions to the letter. From putting plants in pots from the kitchen to making sure that the bread rises by hanging it from a string to making a “sponge cake” that includes actual sponge, Amelia Bedelia muddles her way through, getting everything wrong while still being technically correct.

Good Work Amelia Bedelia Bread Rises