Amelia Bedelia Treasury

Amelia Bedelia interprets every request literally. This makes for jolly good fun at first, though it starts to get tiring after a few reads. This book consolidates three early Amelia Bedelia books. The first book stands on its own very well. The next two are obviously derivative. They employ the same literal-speaking misunderstandings, but seem to lack the originality and spunk of the first one. (The "misunderstandings" also become more of a stretch.)

I'm also a little curious about the illustrations. The pictures are copyrighted by Fritz Siebel, yet the illustration byline of the second two books goes to Barbara Siebel Thomas - after the drawings of Fritz Siebel. I'm not sure what this means. Perhaps he drew black some drawings and she colored them?