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Amelia Bedelia and the Cat is a silly book where the main character takes any hyperbole said literally. Amelia Bedelia finds a cat in the book and then goes all over town to take care of it. She encounters many funny situations on her way. At the end of the book, Amelia's kitten is taken by her mother. The big cat takes the kitten back to her litter and they are all reunited with their owner.
I can definitely see how this would be a fun book for a student to read. This book gives great examples of figurative language. If I were to read this book to the class, I could make a lesson out of it by teaching how to write hyperbole and idioms. We could write sentences like "It's raining cats and dogs" and the class could draw out both the literal and figurative meanings. Overall, a fun read! ( )

I loved reading Amelia Bedelia as a child so I picked this book this week as some nostalgia, however I was a little disappointed. It is listed as a beginning reader book and while the words were simple, I found some of the dialogue pages to be confusing and worded and ordered poorly. I also remember thinking as a kid how funny it was that she would misunderstand everything and take everything literally, but reading it today, I was just frustrated. It also makes housekeepers look intellectually beneath their families. There are also social disorders that are characterized by misunderstanding innuendos and figures of speech. This book followed Amelia Bedelia finding a cat and then going all over town to try and gather the things a cat needs. She calls the zoo and has a 3 page misunderstanding with Mr. Lyon, and also learns the difference between a litter of cats and cat litter. There are lessons to be taught from this book about homophones and other social situations, however I was mainly underwhelmed reading this as an adult. ( )

This particular series written by Herman Parish has always been fun to read. Though the central message isn't quite clear for each specific book, the underlying message is that no matter what challenges you face you will always get through. Amelia Bedelia and the cat is a fun story about Amelia finding a pet cat outside. She has no clue the first thing about cats, but she is determined to take the cat ,in and give it a home. With the help of her neighbors and Mrs. Rogers she is able to do so. Unfortunately, Amelia can no longer take care of the cat when Mama Cat comes along and takes her back home. Amelia learned new things, just like we do on a day to day basis. ( )

The main message of this book is to take care of anyone that needs help even animals.
I was not fond of the characters of this book or the illustrations but I did like the plot of the story.
The characters of the story were a bit odd for me as an adult to read about because the they took everything literally. When Mrs. Rogers said that it was going to rain cats and dogs, Amelia actually expected dogs and cats to come falling out of the sky. It was just a bit silly for me to read because I knew that often the book was using expressions but the characters took it in a literal way. I also wasn’t fond of how the main character, Amelia, acted to silly with Mr. Lyon from the zoo, assuming that he was a lion. Yes, it may be funny for young children to read but as an adult it was a bit asinine.
I also wasn’t in love with the amount and types of pictures that are throughout this book. Most of the page is white while having little pictures strategically placed around the page. Despite this book being designed for older children, I would like for there to be an abundance of pictures and less white along the pages. Although I wish there were more pictures, I did enjoy the style of the pictures that were provided. They were not too complex and very easy to look at. Also they helped to make connections with the words on the page just enough for the reader to understand what is going on in the storyline.
Lastly, I enjoyed the plot of this story because of its simplicity and it can be easily related to someone’s personal experiences. I appreciated the moments of craziness, when Amelia was stuck in a tree, as moments to create suspense or to create a problem for the plotline. ( )