Every babysitters nightmare ! (An Evening At Alfies - Shirley Hughes)

Member Name: Karenwilson

Product:	An Evening At Alfies - Shirley Hughes
Date:	30/07/01 (77 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: a good read

Disadvantages: Mr MacNally

I decided to write another children’s book review. This is by one of my favourite children’s authors, Shirley Hughes. This book is called “An evening at Alfie’s”, but before I go into detail about it I will tell you about the author first.

~~ Shirley Hughes ~~

Shirley Hughes trained at Liverpool Arts School and Ruskin Arts School in Oxford. She began writing children’s stories when she had her own children. Her first book was published in 1960 and was called “Lucy & Tom’s Day”. Since then she has wrote over 200 books. My favourite books by this author have to be about Alfie & Annie Rose. These stories follow a young brother and sister in their daily lives, and gives an insight into the innocence of children’s minds.


~~ An Evening at Alfie’s ~~

It’s a cold winter’s evening and Alfie and Annie’s mum and dad were going out to a party. Mrs MacNally’s daughter Maureen was baby-sitting. Alfie and Maureen waved goodbye to them out of the living room window. Annie was already fast asleep in her cot.

Alfie was fond of Maureen as she always took the time to read him stories. This night she read him the story of Noah’s Ark. This was one of his favourites as he liked to hear the noises made by the rain whilst lapping against the sides of the Ark. Once the story was finished Maureen put Alfie to bed; they had to creep upstairs so as not to wake up Annie.

Alfie was not tired, he lay in bed gazing up at the ceiling and then after a while he heard a strange noise outside on the landing. The noise was familiar and when he looked outside he noticed that the drip drip sound was in fact a leaking roof.

Poor old Maureen she was downstairs doing her homework. Alfie rushed down to tell her and they run off in search of buckets. Maureen decided that it was a burst pipe. Surprisingly Maureen wanted to be a plu
mber when she left school. Once the bucket was over the hole, water then seemed to pour out of other holes in the ceiling and the pair of them end up rushing around picking up any bowl and bucket that can be found around the house.

Maureen had eventually had enough and rang her mother asking for help. She only lived across the street so came over immediately. Mrs MacNally ordered them to get some floor cloths as the floor was now soaking. To make matters even worse poor Annie Rose wakes up due to all the commotion going on in the landing. She cried even louder when Mrs MacNally peered over the cot at her. Meanwhile Alfie is in his element jumping in all the puddles whilst the other two are rapidly running around the place in an attempt to control the water.

After some time Mrs MacNally suggests that the water needs to be turned off. Unfortunately the book is a bit disappointing at this point as they have to get Mr MacNally to come and do it. What happened to the independent women bit !! Mr MacNally’ uttered “What’s all this then”? No words are uttered by the two women I on the other hand would have shouted at him “Well what do you think has happened”. After a bit of time wasting he heads down stairs and eventually finds the tap.

The water stops and they all look a little relived, unlike poor old Annie who is still crying her heart out in the cot. Alfie goes along to try and cheer her up; he puts his hand through the bars of her cot and pats her. Poor Annie Rose she had a wet nappy and wet cot. So they dry her off and bring her downstairs and settle her down with a quilt on the sofa. They then have a biscuit each. Alfie and Annie are really contented and it’s not long before the shattered little pair fall happily asleep.

THE END

The pictures in this book are detailed as if drawn in rough pencil and coloured in. The style makes the books have an old fashione
d look to them, but still seems to appeal to young children. Luke my four year old son, loves the Alfie and Annie Rose stories as they are based around daily activities or events that happen in young children’s lives and he regularly says “that is like me and Charlotte”.

Summary: