Amelia Bedelia Wraps It Up is Herman Parish’s Christmas one, a chapter book for 6 year olds where nearly every joke comes from taking a grown up at their word.<\/p>\n
It opens in the attic with the decoration boxes coming down. Amelia Bedelia is carrying a stack of them when she sneezes, and her mother asks if she’s catching a cold. No, says Amelia Bedelia, her hands are full, so she can’t catch anything.<\/p>\n
That is the machine the whole book runs on. Her father wants to trim the tree and she offers to shorten it. Her mother has bought antique trimmings at a flea market and Amelia Bedelia is appalled at the idea of flea-bitten branches going on a perfectly nice tree. Her parents mention that they were once so poor they didn’t have two pennies to rub together, and she wants to know why anyone would rub them.<\/p>\n
Then comes the bit that gets the story moving. Her parents start reminiscing about a snow globe they bought on their very first Christmas, with a little couple inside who looked like them, and how Uncle Marvin tripped and smashed it. Her mother goes quiet about it.<\/p>\n
Amelia Bedelia decides then and there to find them a new one. She needs money. So she and her friends set up a gift wrapping service.<\/p>\n
She is, it turns out, a genuinely brilliant wrapper. Asked to wrap a plate for a teacher’s birthday with no wrapping paper anywhere in the building, she makes it into a white rabbit with pom-pom nose, button eyes and pipe cleaner whiskers, because the teacher once had a rabbit called Daisy. Her classmate Clay then performs an actual rap about her being a wrapper, which is the sort of joke this book enjoys.<\/p>\n
There’s no caution needed here. It’s warm, it’s silly and nobody is unkind to anybody.<\/p>\n
What’s worth thinking about instead is whether the jokes will land. They all depend on your reader already knowing the idiom that’s being taken literally, so a lot on my plate, giving someone five, finding the time. A child who has those will laugh out loud. A child still learning English, or one who reads very literally themselves, may just find it confusing.<\/p>\n
It’s also thoroughly American Christmas. Eggnog, Santa handing out candy canes, a town holiday pageant with a mayor lighting the tree. Not a problem, just not a British December.<\/p>\n
If it goes down well, try Amelia Bedelia Makes a Splash next. Same girl, same sort of jokes, and it starts with her absolutely furious on a bus to a summer camp she never wanted to go to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amelia Bedelia Wraps It Up is Herman Parish’s Christmas one, a chapter book for 6 year olds where nearly every joke comes from taking a grown up at their word. It opens in the attic with the decoration boxes coming down. Amelia Bedelia is carrying a stack of them when she sneezes, and her mother […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":11244,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":6798,"lr_next_read_anchor":"Amelia Bedelia Makes a Splash","lr_seo_hook":"A gift wrapping business run by a girl who takes every word literally."},"book_tag":[23],"age_group":[31],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[383],"class_list":["post-6802","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-funny-books","age_group-books-for-6-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-herman-parish"],"yoast_title":"Amelia Bedelia Wraps It Up by Herman Parish | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A gift wrapping business run by a girl who takes every word literally. For ages 6+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n