Why Do I Have to Make My Bed?
Tricycle Press, February 22, 2011.
Hardcover, 32 pages.
ISBN: 1582463271
Ages 4-8
Why Do I Have to Make My Bed? Is a wry, amusing history of children's chores all the way back to the earliest humans. It certainly is a comical expansion on the time-honored parental sentence which begins with "When I was your age..." This book encompasses both moral teaching and history. Any child will see that life is so much easier now than it ever has been. One can only hope that the young reader of this book will cheerfully shoulder his burden while being grateful that he has it so easy. For those who would like to time travel, a good no nonsense look into history as it really was will dash such a rash desire.
Amusing illustrations by Johanna van der Sture drive home the harsh difficulties of being a child in times past (the little boy's grandmother had to wash the dishes, dust her the rock 'n' roll records, and put away her hula hoop, and early humans had to dust the stalagmites after hunting some mammoth for dinner). Her amusing drawings are explicit enough to show the twenty-first century rebellious child that he is exceedingly fortunate and hopefully assuage his outrage at taking care of the unhappy necessities of life, such as cleaning and making one's bed on a daily basis -- even if it's "just going to get messed up again."
-- Sarah Reaves White
Why Do I Have to Make My Bed? is available for purchase on Amazon.com
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