April & Mae and the Tea Party

by Megan Dowd Lambert, Briana Dengoue (Illustrator)

Fans of King & Kayla and Charlie and Mouse will love this delightful beginning chapter book series that celebrates friendship every day of the week!

It's Sunday, and April and Mae are having their weekly tea party. Mae usually bakes goodies, and April always sings and dances. But this Sunday, April decides to try a new activity. When April's juggling causes her to break Mae's favorite teacup, the two friends navigate their first disagreement and eventually apologize and forgive each other.
 
With imagination and humor, Every Day with April and Mae brings all there is to know and love about friendship to life in a way kids can both relate to and learn from making this a perfect fit for young readers ready to step up from picture books.
 

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Friendship

48 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2022

Reviews

[anakdenesor]

A story about the friendship of 2 young girls, April & Mea together with their pets. A good book to read to the early years kids for their IPC topic which is friendship. It is a straightforward book, but I love the mixed feelings that have been introduced in this book. They can feel angry, sad, and lonely also how and what they do to fix the broken relationship.

[Reading_ Tamishly]

Thank you, Charlesbridge, for the advance reading copy.

This is such a delightful colourful read witha dash of playful words!

The story will tell the young readers it's okay to be friends with someone who's different from us. And even pets can be our best friends too!

I really, really love the characters! I appreciate the multicultural representation.

The colourful amazing illustrations makes this book more wholesome I would say.

I am planning to get all the books.in this series. Such a good collection it will be!

[Angie]

April and Mae are two girls who are friends but are quite different. They deal with typical elementary type disagreements such as deciding on an activity and breaking a treasured belonging. Young readers in the age 5-7 range will relate to these characters for sure.

One thing I'm not sold on about this book is that it is being called a beginning chapter book, and I wouldn't necessarily call it that. As a grade 3 teacher, I see many kids reading beginning chapter books and they would be a bit annoyed if I handed them this. While it may "look" like a chapter book, there aren't any chapters (this is a big deal to 8 year olds). The writing is in large font, and simple sentences, which is great for early readers, but it does not really look like a chapter book, other than maybe number and size of pages. The text is made up of mainly decodable words and sight words and I think it would be accessible for children in about grade 1. I think this would be a great book for those students who are becoming a bit bored with simple leveled picture books and want to see themselves as a reader of longer books, but I would be hesitant to call it an early chapter book or recommend it to students above grade 2.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book!

[Kirsten Caldwell]

April and Mae are best friends and their pets are best friends too. Every Sunday they get together and have a tea party and April does an act and Mae applauds. This week though, April accidentally breaks Mae's favorite tea cup and they get into a fight. It takes apology letters and gifts to get them back together but they are still best friends.
This is a cute story about friendship, though I did not like how Mae kicks her friend out of the house when she is mad. That seemed like such a dramatic reaction. I thought it was cute that they wrote apology notes to each other and gave each other gifts, but I didn't like that the story said it took gifts to get them back together. We do not always need to give gifts to apologize and to forgive.
This was a cute early reader chapter book, but wasn't my favorite.

[Pam]

I received an electronic ARC from Charlesbridge Publishers through Picture Book Palooza.
A new series for beginning readers. Each book is connected to a day of the week. This is the Sunday book. April and Mae are best friends and so are their pets. On Sundays, they hold tea parties at Mae's home. Sadly, one day April breaks something of Mae's and the two argue and separate. Both spend some miserable days until one reaches out to the other.
Gentle way to start dialogue about valuing friends over things and also being careful with what we do.

[Connie T.]

April and Mae are best friends. In some ways they are alike and in others they are different. Every Sunday they have a tea party - until April accidentally breaks Mae's best teacup. There's a squabble and the friendship is tested. Apologies, notes, and gifts rectify the situation and all is well.

April is dark-skinned and Made has light skin. The writing is a bit stilted and repetitive but this is to be expected with an early reader.

[Megan Hawley Steinfeld]

A charming and sweet story of friendship with excellent lessons. The engaging pictures make it great for early readers just graduating from picture books. My 6-year old Mae absolutely loved it and rated it 1,000 stars.

[Jen]

I loved this book! What happens when friends hurt each other? Saying sorry is good, but it’s not always that simple. Really appreciated the way the relational conflict and eventual resolution was portrayed.

[Themountainbookie]

These good friends have a disagreement about their weekly tea party. The book could have been a bit more descriptive as to how the conflict got resolved. More feelings between the characters could have been shared. My kids haven't asked once to have the book read again.

[Andréa]

Note: I received a digital review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.

[Jennifer]

I received an eARC courtesy of Charlesbridge Publishing in exchange for my honest review.

[Christine]

Super adorable art and a story with a great lesson. I love seeing readers that don't have animal characters.

[Nessa]

Really cute book about how two best friends overcome a tiff they had.

[Leslie]

These are great books for early readers.

[Earl]

I decided to read this because I first saw the second book in the series- the book club one- and thought all the titles would be about these two friends having problems that only being booklovers can solve. But I was mistaken. This was a cute story though and I enjoy the premise of the series.

[Simone]

A sweet friendship story that bridges the gap between early reader and early chapter books.