No More Nice

Eleven-year-old Simon has been raised to be extremely well-behaved, but when he goes to visit his unconventional great-aunt he discovers that not everyone has the same ideas about good manners

Grade 3-6?Apprehensive about meeting his great-aunt for the first time, Simon envisions a stereotyped old, feeble, child-hating witch. What he finds instead is a kindhearted goofball who admonishes him for not interrupting and for asking too few questions. Along with her curmudgeonly and irascible husband Philbert, Mattie sets out to give goody two-shoes Simon "un-lessons" so he can produce a variety of armpit tunes, as well as burp satisfyingly. Cussing (as opposed to cretin cursing), using alliterative and creatively concatenated words, is another "proper kid" skill Simon learns. So, armed with new talents and an unabridged vocabulary, he returns to face his aunt, uncle, and corpulent cousin who are staying at his home until their seemingly interminable interior decoration project is completed. While Aunt Mattie and Uncle Philbert are supposed to be free spirits unencumbered by trivial adult rules, they come across instead as silly and irritating, sort of like bored, obnoxious children. Rudeness is a tricky form of self-defense, and MacDonald misleads her readers into believing they can cuss?and spit?their way out of confrontations with bullies. And sassing teachers (even when defending a fellow student), overbearing relatives, or a traffic cop may seem cathartic to rules-laden children, but they'll soon find that a dissolute week in the country may be as much anarchy as they can handle.?John Sigwald, Unger Memorial Library, Plainview, TX
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

When Simon's proper and stuffy relatives come to stay for spring vacation, his mother packs him off to the country to stay with Aunt Matilda and Uncle Philbert. Simon's not sure he wants to go. When people talk about Aunt Matilda, they raise their eyebrows and say, ``Isn't she sort of . . . you know?'' Simon has to fill in the blanks himself, and wonders if his great-aunt is a coldhearted child-hater. Actually, she's nothing worse than the owner of a trio of llamas, a 1946 New York taxi cab, and two horses saved from a glue factory. Both she and her husband, ``the rudest man in the world,'' are bent on tearing down the rules of convention and propriety. They serve Simon pizza for breakfast and pie for supper, and start right in on his ``un-lessons,'' teaching him how to burp, spit, and play tunes with his armpit. Reminiscent of Betty MacDonald's stories of Mrs. Piggle- Wiggle, this is rollicking good fun, with much of the drollery captured in Smith's black-and-white illustrations. MacDonald (Cousin Ruth's Tooth, p. 230, etc.) limns a satisfying conversion of Simon from goody-goody to a boy who won't take any guff. Sharp characterizations and crack dialogue will have readers laughing out loud. (Fiction. 8-12) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Gr. 4^-7. When 11-year-old Simon is sent by train to spend spring vacation with his eccentric great-aunt and -uncle, he is apprehensive but resigned. Simon realizes this will be no ordinary vacation when Aunt Mattie greets him with a dripping goldfish bowl on the front seat, and Uncle Philbert insists he learn how to burp out loud and cuss. He is shocked by their rude parrot and the general disarray of their unconventional home. He learns how to spit from three ornery llamas and sleeps with an obnoxious cat. By the time Simon returns to his parents, he has also learned the true reasons behind politeness and manners. He tries out his new lessons on several occasions with relatives and schoolmates, proving that he can think for himself about lots of issues. This book, illustrated with delightful pen-and-ink drawings by Cat Bowman Smith, tells a humorous story with a warm message. Susan DeRonne