Love Love Love

Eloise By Kay Thompson
“I am Eloise. I am six. I live at the Plaza hotel.”  Her mother travels and she is left in the care of Nanny.  She is a very busy little girl and spends most of her day entertaining herself with mischief!  She does all kids of naughty things such as running down the hallways with drumsticks and banging on the doors with them as she passes; pouring water down the mail slot so the person at the bottom gets wet; and generally harassing her tutor and everyone at the hotel.  She orders room service and stays up late with Nanny.  This is a very boisterous book that is at first glance a bit of a pain to read.  The sentences are very long and run together.  About a quarter of the way through the book, I realized I was doing it wrong!  It is written in first person with our mischievous six year old as the protagonist.  Once I understood the cadence, the book was a pleasure to read.  In the beginning of the book, it should state the directions.  "Please read using the following rules.  Take a deep breath at the beginning of every sentence.  Use only one breath per sentence   Picture a six year old telling an exciting story and using "and then, and then" between lines."  We adore the way Nanny says one word three times. "Eloise, that would be rude, rude, rude."  I've heard my littles say things like that several times in the last few weeks.  The book was written in the fifties and so there are some interesting things included.  For example, one evening Eloise and Nanny are watching TV and Nanny is smoking.  There are a lot of people that find all of that objectionable.  Perhaps, I am not as good of a mama but we think it is a rollicking good time!!  We love Eloise's impetuous nature and giggle at at all of her pranks.  A few times as we were reading, I stopped and stuck in something like, "it isn't very nice to say that someone is boring, boring, boring is it?"  I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but I will remind you of my position.  I don't think that EVERY book needs to help kids tune their moral compass.  Some of them can just be pure entertainment.  This is the latter and we love love love it.