How to Behave at a Tea Party

Julia wants to have a tea party. She wants her brother to come, but first he needs the rules on how to behave. Julia goes over the rules with her brother, but he doesn’t pay very good attention. Charles, Julia’s little brother, brings animals to the party; a snake, a frog and a dog. He then invites the McKagan brothers to the tea party. The boys try to eat the peonies that Julia has placed on the table. Nothing is going right and this makes Julia angry. In order to calm down, she takes deep breaths and counts to seven. It’s then time to pour the tea and eat tiny sponge sandwiches. Instead of behaving correctly, the boys don’t say please and thank you and they slurp the tea like moose. These actions make Julia take deeper breaths and count to 382. After the deeper breaths the boys build rockets out of sugar cubes, tie Bearie to the chair and build towers made of teacups. Those actions by the boys makes Julia shut the party down. Eventually Julia cleans up the mess and the boys come back and everyone enjoys the party.

My favorite picture is when Julia ended the party. This book isn’t the easiest book for beginning readers, but young kids will enjoy the story.