Ever since Amelia Bedelia made her debut almost 30 years ago, young readers have been laughing out loud at the antics of this literal-minded but charming housekeeper who never fails to confound the Rogers family.

Debuting in 1963, Amelia Bedelia has charmed generations and is likely to be a shared memory and delight between you and your child (and perhaps even grandma and grandpa!).  Amelia Bedelia – who is always referred to by her whole name – is a maid whose misunderstandings and misinterpretations lead to hilarious outcomes sure to entertain your child. This is also an excellent beginning reading book, marked at a level of “high-interest for developing readers.” The sentences are short with simpler words, while the story is entertaining and fun.  The type is a large, clear font, with occasional cursive (when Amelia Bedilia is reading from her ‘to do’ list). The illustrations are drawn in ink and painted with watercolors. The book shows it’s age in some of the illustrations, such as the hand mixer and coal oven Amelia Bedelia uses to make her pie. It may be fun to see if your child notices these things.

The book’s primary humor is through homonyms – words that sounds the same, but mean very different things. Amelia Bedelia takes each of her housecleaning tasks extremely literally, such as dumping powder onto the furniture to ‘dust’ it “That should be dusty enough. My, how nice it smells.”, or removing the light bulbs from the lamps and hanging them outside to put the lights out. “So those things need to be aired out, too. Just like pillows and babies. Oh, I do have a lot to learn.”.  This story provides an easy to talk to your child about choosing words wisely. Can you think of a story when they misunderstood a direction you gave them because the words sounded alike but had more than one meaning? Relating the book to a personal experience may help them better understand the meaning of a homonym.