Good Work, Amelia Bedelia (I Can Read Level 2)

Mr. and Mrs. Rogers leave for the day and give Amelia Bedelia a long list of chores to do. Not one to stand still, Amelia Bedelia gets right to work — with totally unexpected results!

Amy S. Hansen - Children's Literature

Perpetually naïve Amelia Bedelia strikes again, misunderstanding and misinterpreting more simple instructions. She pots the plants by putting them in her cooking pots. She is asked to make a simple chicken dinner, and presents her employers with plates covered with chicken feed. And, my favorite, she gets bread dough to rise by tying the pan up with string and attaching the string to a pulley system. My main complaint with this book is the inconsistency of the character. Amelia is supposed to be a good cook, and yet she serves raw eggs to Mr. Rogers because he asks for eggs and toast. She makes an amazing butterscotch cake, but doesn't know anything about sponge cake. From an adult's viewpoint the book becomes implausible, and for that matter, adults may find the jokes overused Amelia has been around for 40 years. However, young emergent readers are still likely to enjoy her mistakes, at least until they read the other fifteen Amelia Bedelia books. Lynn Sweat's drawings give Amelia a cheerful if not amazingly intelligent persona. 2003, Greenwillow/HarperCollins, Ages 4 to 8.