Wednesday, February 06, 2013

Amelia Bedelia -- Celebrating 50 Years


Amelia Bedelia Fiftieth Anniversary Edition
by Peggy Parish
illustrated by Fritz Siebel
Greenwillow Books, 1963/2013
review copy provided by the publisher

Hard to believe that Amelia Bedelia has been blundering along taking life literally for fifty years. I bet she still makes a mean lemon meringue pie!

This Fiftieth Anniversary Edition of the original picture book comes with seven pages of backmatter, including original advertisements, The Story Behind the Story with information about both Peggy Parish and Fritz Siebel, and a timeline of the ways Amelia Bedelia has been portrayed in illustrations from 1963 to the present.

It doesn't seem fair that while all the rest of us have been aging these last 50 years, Amelia Bedelia has been getting younger -- she began as a somewhat grandmotherly housekeeper and now she's a skinny legged girl in polkadot tights!

Peggy Parish's died in 1988, but her nephew, Herman Parish, continued the series in 1995. Amelia Bedelia can now be found in I Can Read! books (levels 1 and 2) and in short chapter books.





Amelia Bedelia Chapter Book #1: Amelia Bedelia Means Business


For more anniversary fun, visit Amelia Bedelia's website at HarperCollins, and follow her on Twitter @AmeliaBedelia.

1 comment:

  1. These take me back to when my own kids were little - we loved reading these!

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