Remember When Kids' Books Were "Jolly" ? (My Naughty Little Sister - Dorothy Edwards)

Member Name: karenuk

Product:	My Naughty Little Sister - Dorothy Edwards
Date:	25/01/01 (176 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: fun, easy to read, good stories

Disadvantages: rather dated

The collection of My Naughty Little Sister books written by Dorothy Edwards were very popular with me, when I was young and now my seven year old loves them too. They are ideal for reading aloud to children aged around four or five, or for older children to read to themselves.

The books in the collection are My Naughty Little Sister, More Naughty Little Sister Stories, My Naughty Little Sister And Bad Harry, When My Naughty Little Sister Was Good and My Naughty Little Sister's Friends. The editions we bought recently were published by Mammoth, illustrated by Shirley Hughes and priced £3.99 each.

The stories were originally written in 1952, so it is not surprising that the books have quite an old-fashioned charm. People use words like "tiresome" and "jolly", fathers go out to work and mothers stay at home to mind the children, bake cakes and curl hair. There is even a story entitled 'When my father minded My Naughty Little Sister'. Ho hum. Things change, times move on.

The timeless aspects of these stories more than compensate for the anachronisms. We all know naughty children, or have been one ourselves. Most of us know the joys and horrors of brothers or sisters. We will all be interested to see what the characters get up to, with the little kids wishing they could get away with the same things.

Each book is a collection of several short stories, which breaks the books up into nice easy segments. It is written in quite a conversational style, which children will find nice and approachable, as if the narrator is sharing a secret tale with them.

The books follow the naughty girl on her adventures, meeting her family, neighbours and friends on the way. We learn about (or remember nostalgically, depending on your age !)the days of chimney sweeps and weekly washdays; the time when children found hours of pleasure from cutting out pictures and sticking them in scrapbooks - long before Plays
tations, Gameboys and Pokemon.

So the naughty little sister goes fishing, to the pantomime, meets Father Christmas and has a wobbly tooth. These are things the children can relate to and enjoy hearing about.

My Naughty Little Sister is the first book in the series, but I am sure it will lead to your children wanting to have the other books, to see what else this naughty little girl will get up to.

Of course, we never find out My Naughty Little Sister's name - but then, that's because she could be anyone - your children will soon see her as themselves, an annoying kid at nursery or maybe their own real-life naughty little sister.

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