So, we just hired ourselves a brand new pastor for our church. Her name is Emelia. Naturally, the thing that popped into my mind was Amelia Bedelia, which sounds similar, although spelled slightly differently. anyway, I just had to read an Amelia Bedelia book. I hope our new pastor will forgive me.

So, this book is full of plays on words. Young children, it seems, tend not to understand figures of speech, so take things literally. In this book, Amelia Belelia wants a new bike, but her parents tell her she needs to get a job to make half the money. So, she gets a job as a waitress in training. But, when a customer in a hurry asks for cherry pie, and emphasizes his request by appending "and step on it" to the end of his request, Amelia Belelia does exactly what he asks: she brings the pie to his place, then literally steps on it, squirting cherry pie filling all over the place.

Then, she sets up a lemon aid stand in front of a busy block where there's a prominent car dealer. She makes a huge sign that says, "Lots of Lemons", and places it next to the car dealer's sign. Naturally, that causes rather a lot of trouble.

Well, you get the idea. A short, amusing book with oodles of plays on words. It's not literature, but not a bad way to do some reading.
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Cute and punny. ( )

In "Amelia Bedelia Means Business" by Herman Parish, Amelia is jealous of Grace's new bike. As a result she begs her parents for a new bike. Her parents tell her that they can't afford a new bike like Grace's but that she can raise money for a new bike if she pleases. The first thing she does is get a job as a waitress, but she takes things too literally and ends up getting fired. After that, she decides to set up a lemonade Stand but that doesn't work out well either. The last thing she does is start a lemon tart business. She then finds out that there's a race to win a new bike and she ends up winning the race and getting the bike after all. Through this story the author is able to show that hard work pays off. I would recommend this book to early elementary students who are learning how to read because it's a good beginner's chapter book that will keep them interested throughout. The text is large enough for them not to get lost and there's occasional illustrations to help them visualize the story. ( )