It's Aunt Miranda's birthday! The WellieWishers want to give her something special, but they can't agree on what it should be. Then Kendall discovers the Tomorrow Pile. What looks like a bunch of old, dirty, broken things to the other girls looks like cool fun stuff with lots of potential to Kendall! Can the girls work together to create something wonderful for Aunt Miranda? 88 pages. Paperback. Author Valerie Tripp. Ages 5+
Valerie Tripp is a children's book author, best known for her work with the American Girl series.
She grew up in Mount Kisco, New York with three sisters and one brother. A member of the first co-educated class at Yale University, Tripp also has a M.Ed. from Harvard. Since 1985 she has lived in Silver Spring, Maryland. Her husband teaches history at Montgomery College.
Right out of college, Tripp started writing songs, stories, and nonfiction for The Superkids Reading Program, working with Pleasant Rowland, the founder of American Girl. For that series, Tripp wrote all the books about Felicity, Josefina, Kit, Molly, and Maryellen and many of the books about Samantha. She also wrote the "Best Friends" character stories to date, plays, mysteries, and short stories about all her characters.. Film dramatizations of the lives of Samantha, Felicity, Molly, and Kit have been based on her stories. Currently, Tripp is writing a STEM series for National Geographic and adapting Greek Myths for Starry Forest Publishing. A frequent speaker at schools and libraries, Tripp has also spoken at the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, The New York Historical Society, and Williamsburg.
Like all the books in this series, it was a really quick read for me. It's written on a level where younger readers could manage it on their own. Smaller kids would enjoy looking at the pictures while a parent or older sibling read it to them - maybe even pointing out the words.
I loved the story and the lesson it taught. The kids make some believable mistakes and then work together to "fix" the problem and apologize. It also gives them an idea to solve the main problem of the book: a birthday gift for Aunt Miranda. Again, there are the tie-ins between things the WellWishers have in the book and items you can buy for your kids' dolls. This is a plus to me, since it's not just this random thing you can buy. It has meaning in the context of the WellWishers universe.
There are pages at the end that are clearly meant for the parents to read. These give some ideas for how your child can help with cleaning and recycling (which ties back to the activities that the girls do in the book). I love seeing this type of thing in these books!
The Wellie wishers are a group of five little friends. The girls enjoy spending time in nature and their aunt Miranda’s garden. In this story, they work together to plan a birthday surprise for Miranda. There are lessons of comprise and teamwork, as well as reusing/recycling. The friends have to solve a few friendship problems along the way as well. Perfect as a read aloud or chapter book for early elementary. There is also a parent section at the back that highlights some ideas to fit along with the reusing and recycling theme. Very cute, colorful illustrations throughout the book (on almost every page). This book is somewhat focused on Kendall, but each of the friends is a part of the story.
The Wellie Wishers are planning for Aunt Miranda's birthday. They find the tomorrow pile filed with things Miranda means to fix but never does. Kendall uses it to help make gifts, but gets upset when her friends play with her tools and then leave them in the rain to get ruined. The friends, realize they made a mistake, so they make her new tools and apologize by singing to the tune "I'm a little tea pot." Ends with crafts that involve reusing items.
Would love to see more stories focused on Kendall, she is a great character.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
The WellieWishers want to make Aunt Miranda’s birthday special but all come up with eccentric and hard to accomplish tasks. Then they see her tomorrow pile and Kendall sees a fun project they can do together... until things go wrong.
The girls once again proved that if they work together and listen to each other that they can solve the problems and all in the end give Aunt Miranda a wonderful birthday gift and solve the issues of her tomorrow pile. It was a cute read.
The Rainstorm Brainstorm: not the strongest WellieWishers story. Of course it's still a sweet series for young readers, with charming illustrations, but this installment, with its focus on the contents of Kendall's tool kit, felt a bit more like an advertisement for the WW toys than a cohesive story. Also, if I were in Kendall's place, I'd feel a bit annoyed about