Dinner at Auntie Rose's

Adele Ashby was the former editor of Canadian Materials for Schools and Libraries.

The front cover of Dinner at Auntie Rose’s shows a little girl on a doorstep in her Sunday best with a phony smile pasted on her mouth. It’s Lucy, who hates going to Auntie Rose’s house because she has to have her hair curled, wear a pink dress instead of jeans and a T-shirt, behave herself, and play with her cousin Jeremy (who is a turkey!). Auntie Rose and Uncle George talk about her as if she isn’t there, they serve her brussels sprouts, and on the way home her mother lectures her about her manners. Needless to say, Lucy hates all of it, but despite this litany of complaint, Lucy loves her family “just the same.”

This reviewer wonders just what is the point of this book. Is it intended to reassure children that it is OK to experience negative emotion? If so, then the book fails to do so because nothing in the story prepares one for the last line. Lucy’s loving her family “just the same” simply does not grow out of any thing that precedes. Moreover, Uncle George seems to have an unhealthy interest in Lucy’s underwear. I would hesitate to give this to any child.