Friday, March 12, 2010

Feed Me Books Friday

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If you were to stop by my house, you would soon discover we love books.  Youngest once did a math study where he had to count something that we had a 100 or more of... Well, we had over 500 books... Some books we bought, some we were given, some were birthday gifts, some were - well, we love books.  As part of Feed Me Books Friday, I'm reviewing one of our favorites.

Book to Feed: The Pickle Patch Bathtub 
 by Frances Kennedy, Illustrated by Sheila Aldridge


It's 1925 and  the Donna has discovered her legs are too long for their washtub.  

She and her siblings decide they need a real bathtub made of steel, (a real luxury)  that they saw in  in the Sears, Roebuck catalog for $9.25, but it is expensive, and when you add $1.50 for shipping, it seems an impossible dream.  They start to plan how they can save their money - Christmas and birthday money, earning money for different chores... until Donna sees a sign :

So their journey as pickle growers begin, plowing the field, planting the rows and rows of seeds, waiting and watching, harvesting, and finally it is time to take their first crop to town where they learn that big cucumbers are not worth nearly as much as the small ones.  "It's going to take a lot of cucumbers to buy a bathtub." So back home they go where she deals with grumpy  siblings, the hot August sun, beetles,  and numerous trip to town to sell the cucumbers. 

Finally, just before Halloween, Donna has enough money and Papa takes her to the post office to send in her money order... it arrives in the middle of November but Papa was too busy to put it in, so it sat by the back door in it's crate until the second Saturday in December when Donna finally got her bath and found that...


her legs were not too long after all. 

I love this book because of the great story, but I remember taking a bath in a round galvanized washtubs in the kitchen when I was young.  It tells the true story of the Philp children who grew cucumbers for the Keokuk Canning Company and how they earned money to purchase a claw-footed metal bathtub. 




For more great books check out feed me books friday @ the adventure of motherhood

2 comments:

Flourchild said...

What a darling book and I love the pictures.. I love to read but my kids not so much. If they find a good book they do fine...but it's still not a fav. for them. I read to them all the time while they were growing up. It makes me sad they don't like to read on there own. I keep encourging them!

Janna said...

This is great! I missed it last Friday. Do you know how to put a link to your post on my blog? If not, I can explain how. That way more people can come and read it.

500?! Wow you've got me beat:)