Thanks a Lot, Emily Post! - Jennifer LaRue Huget

Illustrated by Alexandra Boiger
Schwartz & Wade Books, 2009
$16.99
32 pages
for: kids...fun and full of chuckles
Rating: 4
Endpapers: Blue with a continues stream of Rules of Etiquette in aqua.

Apparently, Emily Post's original book of etiquette, Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics and at Home, was published in 1922. She invented people with appropriate names - Mrs. Toplofty, Mr. Kindhart, Mrs. Worldly, Mrs. Wellborn - to illustrate good manners. Ms. Huget includes them in this story. Emily Post's famous blue book is the basis for this picture book.

Enter one family - four kids and a dog - whose mother has just purchased Emily Post's groundbreaking book. Oh no....manners!

There's good storytelling foing on here, but it's the way that the illustrations and text interact that creates a little something extra. The 1922 family appears in full color, but many of the illustrations have blue and white ghostly additions - the aforementioned Mrs. Toplofty, Mr. Kindhart, Mrs. Worldly, and Mrs. Wellborn - "helping out."

The story has a clever turn-about twist near the end - with the help of Emily Post, naturally! Hey, what a great story....
Contents, check plus
Illustrations, check plus
New information, check

I'm reading this one aloud to my fourth graders!