Amelia Bedelia's First Apple Pie (2010).Amelia Bedelia's First Valentine (2009).

Amelia Bedelia's First Day of School (2009).Amelia Bedelia Under Construction (2006).

Amelia Bedelia, Rocket Scientist? (2005).

Amelia Bedelia Goes Back to School (2004).

Amelia Bedelia and the Christmas List (2003).

Amelia Bedelia and the Surprise Shower (1966).

In 2009, Herman began writing books about Amelia Bedelia's own childhood experiences, starting with Amelia Bedelia's First Day of School, illustrated by Lynne Averill. He then undertook authorship in 1995 with the full support of his family. Her nephew, Herman, felt uncomfortable to let her work be continued by someone not in the family. Much of her employment is as a maid for a wealthy couple known as the Rogers, who are astute enough to realize her literalism and write their requests as 'un-dust the furniture' and 'put the wet towels in the laundry and replace them with clean dry ones', as opposed to simply 'change the towels'.įollowing Parish's death, children would send in fan letters asking about the continuation of the book series. However, she almost always manages to win everyone over at the end with her excellent cooking, particularly of desserts. Part of the reason given for this behavior is that she comes from a family who takes everything literally: their method of ridding their house of dust is to 'un-dust' rather than dust the furniture. Other examples include “tag a player out” when playing baseball resulting in her placing an actual tag on the player then picking up the person to ask how far out they should be. For example, she interprets a request to 'put the lights out' as a request to physically put the light bulbs outside. The stories involve Amelia Bedelia's repeatedly misunderstanding various commands of her employer by taking figures of speech and various terminology literally, causing her to perform incorrect actions with a comical effect. Many of the books are published as part of the I Can Read! series, levels 1 and 2. There is a statue of Amelia Bedelia in Manning, South Carolina, Peggy Parish's hometown. In 1992 HarperCollins republished the three original stories ( Amelia Bedelia Thank You, Amelia Bedelia and Amelia Bedelia and the Surprise Shower) with illustrations by Fritz's daughter, Barbara Siebel Thomas. They have been illustrated by Wallace Tripp, Fritz Siebel, and the two current illustrators, Lynn Sweat and Lynne Avril.

Statue of Amelia Bedelia at the Manning, South Carolina public library.Īmelia Bedelia is the protagonist and title character of a series of American children's books that were written by Peggy Parish from 1963 until her death in 1988, and by her nephew, Herman, beginning in 1995.

Peggy parish amelia bedelia books