Let's Bust a Recap : While Mrs. Coverlet Was Away

Well after a six-week hiatus due to unforeseen technical difficulties (read: the old laptop finally bit the dust and we had to spring for a new one), I'm back and ready to catch you up on some books I've finished recently starting with this tattered favorite that I read aloud with my nieces and nephews during April. 

When our girls got here on April 16th, we ran through the shelves and pulled several options down that we were interested in reading. Then we took it to a vote and to my delight, While Mrs. Coverlet Was Away was the unanimous winner. This old copy was one of my mother's childhood books and I read it when I was probably 8 or 9 years old. I remember loving it, so I was ready for a fun read aloud with all my favorite kiddos, and it definitely delivered. 

The premise of this 1958 children's book by Mary Nash centers around three siblings who are suddenly left home alone when their housekeeper is called away for a family emergency while their widowed father is on a business trip to New Zealand. Thirteen year old Malcolm and practical middle-child Molly decide they can manage their six year old brother Theobold (affectionately called "Toad") by themselves, and because Mrs. Coverlet had to leave in such a rush, no other adult knows that the children are home alone. So for the whole summer the siblings are left to their own devices and do quite a fine job of it, even starting a summer business selling a concoction of the Toad's to make some money to send their father to help his business of opening a tin mine along. 

Mix it all together and you're in for a laugh-out-loud good time. My nieces and nephews loved it as much as I did when I was their age, and we all had fun trying to guess what the Toad put in his purple concoction to make it taste so good. I especially enjoyed reading about Malcolm's complicated conscience and how he got around it and talking to my nieces and nephews about whether they thought they could take care of themselves for a whole summer without grownups. The consensus was a resounding "no". 

All in all, While Mrs. Coverlet Was Away is a book I'd recommend to just about anyone. It's silly without being completely ridiculous, and I particularly love this beat up old copy because it was my mom's and she wrote in it when she was little:

I mean, come on! Consider this a call to action to have your children sign their favorite books and then tuck them away for posterity's sake. What a treasure!