Something for Everyone - Hardcover

Grade 1-3?When Great-Aunt Elsie Appelbaum decides to retire to a "...warm country beside the sea," she sells her house and furniture but leaves her special things behind for her family to remember her by. Her cousins, aunts, great nieces, and "great-great-step-nephews-in-law" are not at all satisfied, however. They grumble and bicker over the rather odd belongings?a guitar, a pair of winter boots, an apple peeler. Only Tilda, Elsie's young next-door neighbor, sees treasure in the trash, and she assembles the relatives' rejects into an airship and sets off on a journey. As Tilda encounters a dark jungle and an ocean full of pirates, the special ojbects help her out of each jam until she finally arrives at Elsie's desert island just in time for tea. The cartoonlike illustrations add amusing details to the text. A globe positioned to show the South Pacific and a book about Gauguin on the first double-page spread foretell Elsie's destination, and photographs in her album suggest the warm relationship she shares with her young friend. Furthermore, the relatives' names evoke their greedy and unlikable natures, and the pictures further develop their unpleasant characters. An agreeable book that children should find entertaining.?Barbara Kiefer, Teachers College, Columbia University, NY
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