The Perfectly Orderly House - Hardcover

McKenzie, Ellen Kindt

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805019464 ISBN 13: 9780805019469

Publisher: Henry Holt & Co, 1994

Synopsis

A colorfully illustrated alphabet storybook with a difference tells of the Old Woman who builds a new house with all of the rooms in the order of the alphabet, starting with the Attic for storing apples and aprons.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

A fastidious pack-rat all her life, an Old Woman decides she must organize all her possessions-and what better way than alphabetically? Her brother offers to help, and soon has built her a "perfectly orderly house" that sprawls into a monstrosity of rooms, each one designated by a different letter. The plan seems a great success-until the Old Woman has a party and the preparation and celebration demonstrate the difficulties of the new household arrangement. McKenzie's (Stargone John) inventive premise falls short of real excitement as she tries to negotiate a fine line between fantasy and reality. The enormous house and the Old Woman's logic about organizing things often border on the ridiculous while the problems she faces in the process are very recognizable. Children will enjoy the silliness quotient, helped along by Lloyd's (The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything) whimsical artwork, tightly rendered in colored ink. For example, Lloyd comically builds on the text by filling the Waiting Room with Women who wear White and eat Watermelon-providing plenty of opportunity for identification fun. Ages 5-8.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist:

Ages 5-7. A veteran middle-grade novelist ventures into the picture-book arena with this delightful romp through the alphabet. When a little old woman runs out of space in her house, she decides what she really needs is some order. A new, perfectly orderly house seems appropriate, with each room beginning with a different letter of the alphabet: an attic ("Everything that starts with A will go into the A room"), a basement for B things, a very large closet (for it had to hold the cat, the canary, and anything else beginning with the letter C), a dining room, and so on. Of course, all kinds of complications ensue. The dialogue is clever and witty, and Lloyd's colored-ink illustrations are busy, cheerful cartoons that perfectly complement the hectic goings-on. An amusing way to reinforce the alphabet. Lauren Peterson

About this edition

• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0805019464
• ISBN 13: 9780805019469
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 1
• Illustrator: Lloyd Megan