What Do Parents Do When You're Not Home? [Hardcover]

Jeanie Franz Ransom (Author), Cyd Moore (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 4 and up | Grade Level: P and up

The tables are turned and the grown-ups have all the fun in this wickedly silly story of parental mayhem.
Two children set off to spend the night at their grandparents'. Throughout the course of the day, the young boy's imagination runs wild as he imagines what his parents are doing while he's away. Jumping on beds, he thinks, or sledding down the stairs on pillows. Watching hours and hours of television, playing ball in the house, dressing up the dog, eating junk food, playing video games, and in general making one VERY big mess!
The next morning when the kids come home the house looks tidy. "It was pretty quiet," says Dad... but was it? Mom is hiding something behind her back. And those socks hanging from the ceiling fan... they weren't there yesterday.
Cyd Moore's antic illustrations contrast the wild adventures at home with the more wholesome fun at their grandparents' house. Jeanie Ransom's clever tale will keep young readers laughing long after the story has ended.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 2—In the same spirit as Anne Bowen's What Do Teachers Do (after YOU Leave School)? (Carolrhoda, 2006), this entertaining story explores the trouble that mischievous adults can get into when they have the house to themselves. The young narrator and his sister spend the night with their grandparents, leaving Mom and Dad home alone. According to the imaginative boy, his parents jump on the bed and slide down the stairs on pillows. They play video games and eat pizza in front of the television. The young-at-heart adults also fight over his toys and dress up the hapless dog. At the end of each page, the son follows up his recounting with a parental admonishment. ("Somebody always gets hurt when you play rough" or, "Is that the best use of their time?") Meanwhile, the kids enjoy a well-behaved visit with Grandma and Granddad, which is depicted in illustrations set off in the bottom corners of the pages. Of course, when the children return home, all evidence of their parents' rowdy evening has been erased. The watercolor-and-colored-pencil illustrations add humorous details to the story. The fluffy, white mutt's expressive reactions to the unaccustomed mayhem are particularly comical. This fun-filled selection provides an inventive twist to a typical story.—Linda L. Walkins, Mount Saint Joseph Academy, Brighton, MA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

What, indeed? According to the young narrator, when the kids aren't home, the parents jump on the bed, watch TV shows "they've seen a bazillion times," and dress up the dog. The main illustrations feature two exuberant adults making a mess with toys, food, and clothes, while smaller pictures show the narrator and his little sister having fun at their grandparents' house. Young listeners may be familiar with the narrator's reactions to parental misbehavior: "They've probably ruined their appetites." "They better hope those Kool-Aid stains come out!" Most fun, though, are the household mysteries that are explained: a game in which socks are tossed on the ceiling fan engenders the comment, "No wonder we can never find two socks that match!" Moore's illustrations, which bring to mind Marc Brown's Arthur books (without the animals-as-people angle), include some nice touches, such as the patient-looking dog wearing gloves on its ears. Abby Nolan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 4 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Peachtree Publishers (March 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1561454095
• ISBN-13: 978-1561454099
• Product Dimensions: 12.2 x 9.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,629,710 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Book provides a humerous answer to the title question, July 11, 2007

By 

Lane Young "Teacher and Librarian" (Highland Park, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: What Do Parents Do When You're Not Home? (Hardcover)

When a boy and his sister go to visit his grandmother, the boy responds to the question of what his parents are up to. The answer is no good. The parents are doing all the wrong things, such as jumping on the bed and sitting too close to the TV. The cheerful illustrations simultaneously show the fun that the children are having at the grandparents and the fun the parents are having at home. The book's strength lies in the narrator's ability to repeat parent phrases (such as "Even though that's not the way we treat pillows in our house") with explanations of life's little mysteries (why are there always missing socks). A fun read for children and parents alike