A wonderfully written, nicely designed book of manners and understanding. ( )

This book is about a girl named Julia trying to teach her brother Charles, and her neighbors how to behave at a tea party. At first, we see that Julia is very stricts about her rules and is upset that no one is listening to them and she thought that the whole party was ruined. That was until she started to have fun like everyone else and she wasn't following her strict rules anymore but, actually having fun. I liked this story because it shows us that you don't always have to follow strict rules to have fun and the illustrations show us how she is truly having fun with everyone now ( )

Big sister tries to teach little brother the rules of having a tea party. She's stereotypically frilly and girly; he's stereotypically a bit destructive and into everything.As you'd expect, all is a disaster and the guests (brother and neighboring twins) run off after they've wreaked havoc. But if you want a tea party, you have to reinvite the guests and be a bit more open to different kinds of fun. And she does just that. Turning tablecloths into capes, climbing trees turns out to be more fun. ( )

Julia invites her brother, Charles, to her tea party, but when his friends show up along with the dog, who wants to eat the peonies, and a frog that jumps in the teacups, the party becomes a disaster. No one is listening to an increasingly bossy Julia and, in frustration, she yells and sends them all scurrying away. But you can’t have a tea party without guests, so Julia tries again and re-invites her brother and lets him bring his friends.

The book is only 32 pages long with cute and often humorous illustrations. There is not a lot of text with only a sentence or two on each page. The book is intended for preschool children and beginning readers. Besides teaching etiquette and manners, Julia also learns tolerance and acceptance of others. And, I suppose, a glimpse of what it’s like in the real world. I would have liked it a little more if it taught the same lesson without using stereotypical ‘girl’ behavior vs ‘boy’ behavior. ( )