Mommy and Daddy are going on a date, and the babysitter is coming. Our heroine doesn’t like that at all, so she tells her parents that she no longer needs a babysitter. She can take care of herself now. She thinks if she can convince her parents not to get a babysitter, she can convince them not to leave at all. Her dad doesn’t seem to be impressed with her wisdom and logic.
So she tells him three things that will scare him into staying home. If they leave, a storm will come up and blow the house down. She’ll get a stomach ache and throw up. And a moose will come in the house and eat her. Her parents still don’t yield.
She tries another tack – what if she comes with them? She grabs her things and is ready to go, but Mommy and Daddy still want to go out alone. What’s up with that, anyway?
What if Mommy goes out and then Daddy can stay with Sarah. Bingo – no need for a babysitter. That idea doesn’t fly either.
She decides that she’s never going to be nice to her parents again. She runs into the closet and sits in the dark. That’ll make them sorry! But they’re still planning to go out. What does she have to do to get them to stay?
Announcing that she’s going to run away, she hides under her bed. The babysitter comes, but she doesn’t come out. She’s pretending to be in the South Pole.
Sarah, the babysitter, comes in her room and asks if she can go to the South Pole too. They pretend to be penguins together. When Mommy and Daddy leave, she tells them to be sure they don’t forget to come back. Then she and Sarah make pizza, paint their fingernails, and drew clown faces on themselves with orange lipstick. Sarah even read her favorite picture book five times! That was really cool.
When she woke up the next morning, she found Mommy and Daddy safe in their beds. She really did have a good time with Sarah, and Sarah didn’t let a single moose come into the house.
(This book was published in 2004 by Candlewick Press and was illustrated by Harry Bliss.)
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