Raising Sweetness

I read this book (and the first one, Saving Sweetness) to my fifth graders this week. We loved every second of it. It is impossible to read it without a Southern accent. It has a lot of idioms to share with the students. I loved the language and the story is so cute. My students asked me to find more books by this author. I hope she writes more Sweetness books.

I have read this book to three different classes at the elementary school where I work as a reading instructor. In every class the children loved it. It has such quirky humor. The illustrations are great. I used props to illustrate the letters and what the teacher was telling the students about the alphabet and math such as 1+8 doesn't make 9, but 18. I kept this book so long that the library almost had to sell it to me.I enjoyed using character voices to make the book come alive for the kids. I can't wait to get my hands on the 1st book in the series (saving sweetness). I highly recommend this book.

My daughter found this book at her school library. My daughter is in first grade and enjoys a healthy sense of humor. She and I found this story to be hysterical. Laugh out loud funny. You can't help but fall in love with entire cast of characters. We enjoyed it so much we had to buy "Saving Sweetness". Now our only disappointment is that we can't find anymore books in this series.

The Sweetness of the title is a plucky little orphan who looks a lot like Tatum O'Neal in "Paper Moon," without the cigar.She and seven other orphans have been adopted by the kind, but addlebrained, sheriff of Possum Trot. He had rescued them from Mrs. Sump, the evil (naturally) head of the orphanage, in Stanley's previous book, "Saving Sweetness."In this funny sequel, the Sheriff takes to housekeeping like a fish takes to a pile of sawdust; that is, he is sorely lacking in the home arts. He serves tuna fish soup and pickle and banana pie and washes the windows with butter. The orphans, with Sweetness at the fore, decide to domesticate him. First, they need to learn to read so they can decipher a letter from the Sheriff's long-lost love, Lucy Locket, and then find a way to get them hitched.The twangy Texas lingo is snappy without being laid on too thick, helping rather than hindering when the book is read aloud. The mixed media illustrations, combining scribbly colored pencil drawings with collages of wallpaper, cut paper and masking tape, perfectly match the warm absurdity of the text. A heart warming and hilarious story.

This sequel to Saving Sweetness is a chance to romp in Possom Trot one more time. Stanley's adoptive father may be inept but he's a hoot, and Sweetness(his ever resourceful adopted daughter) is the perfect heroine. If you teach K-6 your students will love the colorful language and silly idioms, especially when read aloud.