Max, the Bad-Talking Parrot by Patricia Brennan Demuth, illustrated by Bo Zaunders, 1986.
Don’t worry, Max’s “bad” talk isn’t really that bad.
Max is a parrot who belongs to a woman named Tillie. They live in a house that has been made into two apartments. The woman who lives in the apartment above them is Mrs. Goosebump. Mrs. Goosebump is Tillie’s friend, and Max likes her, too.
Because Mrs. Goosebump works the night shift in a toll booth, she always comes to see Tillie and Max in the morning, when her shift is over. Max always greets her with one of his rhymes. Everything Max says is a rhyme.
However, one day, as Max is dozing on Mrs. Goosebump’s shoulder during one of her visits, he thinks that he hears her calling him an ugly bird. Max gets upset and returns to his cage, not ever saying goodbye to Mrs. Goosebump when she leaves. He feels badly about the insult, and when Mrs. Goosebump visits later, he only gives her insulting rhymes, like, “Cupcake, bagel, cinnamon roll, Your brain’s as full as a donut hole!”
Mrs. Goosebump and Tillie have no idea why he’s so angry. The only thing that they can think to do is ignore him.
Later that night, a burglar breaks into Tillie’s apartment and starts stealing some of her things, including Max! Max is scared, but by coincidence, the burglar stops to pay at Mrs. Goosebump’s tollbooth. When Max recites some of his rhymes for her, she recognizes one of his usual rhymes and calls the police.
After Max is rescued, he finally tells Mrs. Goosebump why he was so angry, and Mrs. Goosebump explains that she actually said that he was “snugly”, not ugly. With the misunderstanding cleared up, the two of them become friends again. Max is also considered a hero for alerting Mrs. Goosebump about the robber.
When I was a kid, I thought that Max’s rhymes were funny, and the scene with the robber at the tollbooth is funny because Max tricks Mrs. Goosebump into believing that the burglar is insulting her before he says the rhyme that Mrs. Goosebump recognizes. The book is also a good lesson about the importance of talking to people about what you’re feeling in order to clear up misunderstandings.
The girls ask Miss Wade about the doll, and she says that she knows the one they mean, but she no longer has it. Her mother’s uncle was the captain of a ship and used to bring her presents from around the world. The doll, called Lady Vanderbilt, was very fancy, and Miss Wade describers her costume to the girls. However, she says that the doll disappeared after she rented her house out to a family one summer while she was traveling. She never found out what happened to the doll, but she assumed that the children of the family probably found her and either took her or broke her. Miss Wade said that she didn’t think that the doll was worth making a fuss about, so she never asked the family about it. The girls note that Miss Wade doesn’t seem to know anything about a precious jewel in the doll, but they decide not to say anything about it since Miss Wade doesn’t have the doll anymore.
The girls tell Miss Wade and their mothers about the doll, but when they try to ask the people in charge of the auction where the doll came from and who bought her, they learn that the woman who was in charge of organizing the toys has already left on vacation. The only clue that the girls have is that the woman who bought the doll left the auction in a red Jaguar.
This book was originally written in German. It was written in Germany during the 
At the beginning of this story, it explains that Emil Tischbein’s father died when he was very young and that his mother works hard as a hairdresser to support the two of them. When she can, she saves a little money for Emil’s grandmother as well. When the story begins, Emil is preparing for a train trip to Berlin to visit his relatives. Emil will be traveling by himself and will meet his relatives near the station when he arrives. His mother gives him some money to take to his grandmother and warns him to be careful. Emil pins the money inside his pocket for security.
Determined to get the money for his grandmother back, Emil searches for Herr Grundeis and spots him getting off the train. It’s too soon for Emil’s stop, but he follows Grundeis off the train anyway, tracking him to a café.
Gustav recruits a bunch of other boys from the neighborhood, and they continue tailing Grundeis through the city to his hotel. The boys call another friend at home, who keeps track of their progress and gives them reports about what others have said. Emil gets one of the other boys to tell his relatives that he has been delayed on important business, causing his cousin, Pony Hutchen, to come and tell him that everyone is worried and that he’s going to be in big trouble with his relatives if he doesn’t show up soon. However, they still have the problem of deciding how to confront Grundeis and get him to return the money. In this case, the detectives don’t need to solve the mystery of who the thief is. The real problem is how to prove it.
There was a note in the beginning of my copy of the book that says that many of the character names in the book are actually jokes on the part of the author. It’s not as obvious in English because the forms of the names sound reasonable for German names, but anyone who knows German would spot that they aren’t real names. For example, Emil’s last name is Tischbein, which means “table-leg,” and the thief’s alias, Grundeis, means “ground-ice.”
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