From School Library Journal
PreSchool-Grade 2-A tidy Edwardian house becomes a disaster as a mouse, dog, cat, and two children create an ever-escalating mess throughout the day while Nanny snoozes. The awakening of the nanny and arrival of the father precipitate a frenetic clean-up just in time for mother's return for a spaghetti supper cooked by her husband. The watercolor-and-ink illustrations feature plump characters and display Alley's trademark stop-action mayhem. The rhythm of the overly wordy and slow-moving text in the vein of "This Is the House That Jack Built" is occasionally forced, and the Edwardian sensibility sometimes clashes with modern touches like Dad preparing dinner. Kids may find the illustrated chaos the biggest attraction in this house.
-Marge Loch-Wouters, Menasha's Public Library, WI Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
PreS-Gr. 1. As the title suggests, the text reprises the rhythm and pattern of "The House That Jack Built," though with a little more originality and narrative structure than most other picture books inspired by the nursery rhyme. Left with their nanny, a girl and boy wave good-bye as their mother departs one morning. They retire to the house, where the nanny hauls the laundry upstairs and soon falls asleep. When the children swipe cookies from the jar, they drop crumbs that tempt a mouse, who is soon pursued by the cat, who is chased by the dog, causing the girl to spill the milk. The father arrives home to find the house in an uproar, with his daughter and son and their nanny atop a table and the three animals running circles around them. Alley's endearing ink-and-watercolor illustrations place the action in an Edwardian setting, where the prim propriety of the household at the story's beginning makes the ensuing havoc all the more comical. Great fun.
Carolyn PhelanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
