At Least Amelia Bedelia Doesn't Try Sitting on the Baby...

I've done a lot of baby-sitting in my life, but most of it has not involved actual babies. While older children are often more demanding than infants, I find the inevitable language barrier with pre-toddlers frustrating. Especially when there are massive amounts of crying involved. So I sympathize with the bewildered heroine in Peggy Parish's Amelia Bedelia and the Baby.

Amelia Bedelia is a perpetually sunny, extremely literally-minded maid who works for a wealthy couple. In this book, her employer, Mrs. Rogers, sends her off to babysit for Mrs. Lane, a neighbor. Evidently Mrs. Rogers offered Amelia's services, despite the maid's lack of experience; the book doesn't say definitively, instead dropping us into the middle of a scene with Amelia's objection of "But Mrs. Rogers, I don't know a thing about babies."

It's true. Amelia is utterly clueless on that score, and neither Mrs. Rogers nor Mrs. Lane supplies her with much information, though the latter furnishes a list, which she does her best to follow. In typical Amelia style, however, she misunderstands an item or two... You would think that Parish would have run out of ideas rather quickly for a series about a woman who incorrectly interprets nearly every instruction. Instead, she wrote book after book conveying Amelia's cheerful ineptitude.

It seems like a bad idea to stick someone who claims no past association with babies in a situation where she will be alone with an infant for several hours. But although Amelia has never even heard of a baby bottle before, she's a fast learner, and she improvises solutions to several problems that present themselves as she works her way through the list, with a smile on her face as always and a tasty recipe up her sleeve.

Amelia Bedelia and the Baby is illustrated by Lynn Sweat with line drawings featuring varying shades of yellow, pink and black. Amelia, in her black dress, white apron and flower-fringed bonnet, is cheerful and charming, and the slightly disastrous scenes attending her first bout of babysitting are entertaining. The book is about 60 pages long with several sentences on each page, so while it is designed for beginning readers, it is on the lengthier end of the spectrum. But that shouldn't pose much of a problem. Amelia's exploits are so enjoyable, this is the sort of book kids will want to see through to the end. Hopefully the complications won't turn too many of them off baby-sitting...