In “Ellen Tebbits,” Beverly Cleary brings us another little girl who’s very ordinary, who has the same hopes, fears and dreams that nearly every little girl does.
The first chapter in the book is my very favorite. Ellen is off to ballet class, but she’s determined to get there first. She races up to the changing room, only to find Austine, the new girl, already there. Needing her privacy, Ellen slips into the janitor’s closet and there reveals to the reader what she hopes no one in her dance class will ever know – she is wearing long woolen underwear for the winter. No one else wears such old-fashioned underwear, and she would just die if anyone knew. She rolls them up inside her leotard and tutu, and goes out to join the class. But as she’s moving around, so does the underwear, until it’s bunching up in the strangest places and interfering with the grace of the dance. When it’s time to change, she goes back to into the closet – to find Austine there as well, unrolling her own long winter underwear from under her costume. This forges a bond between the two girls that can’t be broken.
Well, that is, until Ellen does something unfortunate and silly. It’s time for back to school, and the girls are looking forward to their new dresses. Their mothers have told them they may pick the fabric, and they decide to match. But Ellen’s mother is good at sewing while Austine’s is not, and Austine’s dress just doesn’t look anywhere near as good as Ellen’s. Feeling jealous, Austine pulls the bow on the back of Ellen’s dress until it comes undone, and that hurts Ellen’s feelings. But what makes things even worse is when it happens again, and Ellen turns around and slaps Austine’s face. She feels terrible, but Austine really was being terribly rude. When she finds out that it was really Otis Spofford, the most mischievous boy in school, who untied her bow, she’s very sorry for slapping Austine. The girls are able to work things out, but they each learn a valuable lesson in holding their temper.
While this book was written in 1951 and there are some things you’ll need to explain to your children, such as long woolen underwear and why the kids have to clap the erasers, the themes are universal for any time and I found this story to be a delight. My daughter adds her two cents: “It was funny, cute, charming, and it really was a great book.”
(This book was first published in 1951, but this edition was released in 1989 by Morrow Junior Books.)
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