Amelia Bedelia Sets Sail

Herman Parish's Amelia Bedelia Sets Sail is a seaside holiday story for 6 year olds about a girl who hears every word exactly as it's said.

What happens

Amelia Bedelia is off to the seaside with her parents, staying at Aunt Mary's place with her cousin Jason. The traffic on the bridge is bumper to bumper and her dad explains that it isn't really a bridge, it's a causeway.

"'Cause why?" asks Amelia Bedelia.

That's the engine of the whole book and it never runs out. Dad's swimming trunks are in the trunk. Amelia Bedelia strips off in the driveway and announces she'll be in her birthday suit in two seconds, which makes three grown-ups go very still (she's wearing her swimming costume underneath).

Then it's skimboarding, a fishing boat where Captain Will teaches them bow and stern and the rule of the road, and a hermit crab that clamps onto her ear.

The best stretch is the sailing. Pearl was born on a sailboat, fixed hers up herself, and explains tacking properly, with a sketch. Sails are giant vertical wings. You can go faster than the wind. Amelia Bedelia's answer to that is "No, that's science", which tells you a lot about her.

Then the story turns. Amelia Bedelia wakes in the night and watches Jason climb out of the bedroom window dressed as a pirate. She thinks she's dreaming. The second night she follows him, and finds twenty boys round a campfire with a plan to wreck the town's big summer parade.

So she's stuck with the thing children are actually stuck with. Her favourite cousin is about to do something rotten and she's the only one who knows.

It's American through and through, which is worth a mention because a few of the jokes hang on it. Corn dogs, wee-wee pads, a boardwalk. Nothing that stops a six year old, and Pearl's sailing lesson is good enough that your reader may want a boat.

Reading it aloud is where the puns pay off, because half of them are heard rather than seen. Sail and sale. The bow of a ship and a bow at the waist. Your reader gets to be the clever one who spots it first, which is most of the fun.

What to read next

For more of the same beach, Amelia Bedelia Digs In brings her back to the same town with her friend Alice from camp, and this time there's pirate treasure to dig for.