This Is the House That Was Tidy and Neat - Hardcover

Teri Sloat is the author of There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Trout! and both author and illustrator of Pieces of Christmas, as well as many other books for children. Ms. Sloat lives with her husband in a tidy house north of San Francisco.

R. W. Alley has illustrated nearly a hundred books for children, including Cat Skidoo, by Bethany Roberts, and the bestselling series about that beloved bear Paddington. The Alley family (the mom, the dad, the girl, and the boy) lives in a neat (except for the studio) house in Barrington, Rhode Island.

Visit Teri Sloat and R.W.Alley at their websites: www.terisloat.com and www.rwalley.com

PreS-Gr. 1. As the title suggests, the text reprises the rhythm and pattern of "The House That Jack Built," though with a little more originality and narrative structure than most other picture books inspired by the nursery rhyme. Left with their nanny, a girl and boy wave good-bye as their mother departs one morning. They retire to the house, where the nanny hauls the laundry upstairs and soon falls asleep. When the children swipe cookies from the jar, they drop crumbs that tempt a mouse, who is soon pursued by the cat, who is chased by the dog, causing the girl to spill the milk. The father arrives home to find the house in an uproar, with his daughter and son and their nanny atop a table and the three animals running circles around them. Alley's endearing ink-and-watercolor illustrations place the action in an Edwardian setting, where the prim propriety of the household at the story's beginning makes the ensuing havoc all the more comical. Great fun. Carolyn Phelan
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