Amelia Bedelia was a staple of my childhood. She was the lady who always got it wrong. But she got it wrong in a funny and lovable way. In this book the surprise shower is a wedding shower. Amelia still thinks it’s a shower with water. She’s asked to scale and ice to fish and covers them in chocolate. She’s asked to cut some fresh flowers and she chopped them up in a bowl. It’s a simple word misunderstanding that most kids would have if they didn’t know better. Well Amelia Bedelia is an adult in the book, she has the same qualities and misunderstandings as kids which makes her such a lasting character in our modern society. The story was quite lovely, but it’s a level two I Can Read book, and is more difficult than many other publishers level three and level for readers. ( )

"Mailbox", K-Gr 1, Jun/Jul 2006

Amelia Bedelia has to help her boss surprise one of her friends, Miss Alma, with a surprise shower, and Amelia enlists her own cousin to assist in the process. Just like Amelia Bedelia, cousin Alcolu takes every phrase and idiom literally, and things do not go as planned. Although this creates a headache for her boss and her friends, Amelia saves the day with her charm, humor, and delicious cupcakes.

I give this one four stars because it is funny and the illustrations have just the right amount of pop and color to accompany the text. Children can learn the concept of social norms and customs. They can also see that even a bad or awkward social situation can be fixed as long as one is willing to address his or her mistakes and hold oneself accountable. This text is an easy, timeless one. ( )

This book is about Amelia Bedelia, a housekeeper. Mr. and Mrs. Roger's ask Amelia to help prepare for a surprise shower. Amelia takes everything they say very literally, leading to some mishaps. I liked this book for two reasons. First, I liked the illustrations because they are simplistic, often having no background color. This allows the main focus to be the text, but also still provides the reader with a visual. For a book that is designed to help younger children learn to read, this is perfect because it limits distractions. Second, I liked the language. The fact that Amelia Bedelia takes everything so literally allows the reader to see that things can be interpreted in multiple ways. For instance, Mr. Roger's asked Amelia Bedelia to ice the fish. Amelia iced the fish with chocolate icing, but Mr. Roger's meant to put the fish over ice. The overall message was that everyone makes mistakes. Although Amelia made mistakes while helping set up for the shower, they all had a good time in the end and laughed about it. ( )

In my opinion this is a very fun, and entertaining book to read. I really like the writing of the book, as she uses a lot of figurative language but makes it easy for the readers to grasp the underlying meaning. For example, in one scene, the worker at the fish market instructed Amelia to “ice and scale the fish”. Instead of tail the scales off the fish and putting the fish in ice, Amelia put all the fish in a scale, and then proceeded to ice them with chocolate icing. I found myself laughing throughout the book. Another thing I liked was the plot. There is a rising action, when Amelia begins to prepare for the surprise party, and the reader starts to notice that all day Amelia has been doing everything wrong. There is a nice climax, when Amelia sprays the guest with the water hose because she thought that’s what a surprise shower meant, and a falling action and resolution when they all sit around the party table laughing about how funny the day has been. The main message off this story is, if something does not go as planned, you can always find a silver lining to the situation and if nothing else, you can laugh about it.