Phoebe Dupree is coming to tea! by Linda Ashman. Illus. by Alea Marley

A wonderfully funny verse tale of afternoon tea, as Abby invites her best friend Phoebe to her house, but with some trepidation. She prepares for her friend: tells the dog how he must behave, cooks cakes and sets them out on a tray, prepares the table, and then dresses herself. All the time she is concentrating on how best to present herself to her friend, wanting every thing to be perfect so that she will come again.

Trepidation reigns, and when Phoebe rings the doorbell, she is just herself.

All is in readiness, the dog behaves beautifully, the table is lovely and the cakes are ready to be brought in. But Abby slips - the cake tray is very heavy and the cakes are scattered across the floor, causing Phoebe to fall from her chair, the dog then runs in to join the commotion and as he has been in the pool, a place he was told not to go, sprays water over them all.

Abby is mortified. All her fears have been realised, the afternoon tea is a disaster.

But all is well when Phoebe kicks off her shoes and announces ‘this is going to be fun’. She picks up a cake from the floor and eats it, offering one to Abby. Smiles greet the readers on the very last page as the two sit together in the mess created.

A delightful look at how things can go awry, the disasters that can happen quite by accident, the mopping up that brings friends together, this book will be a wonderful read aloud, inviting readers to join in, predict the rhyming words and laugh lots.

Using pencil, watercolour, crayon and digital pencils, Alea creates vibrant, colour filled scenes. Readers will love finding patterns on each page, checking out the textures and different sweeps of colour. Each scene is full of fun and humour as the characters display the attributes given in the text. Their clothing and hair tell us so much about their personalities! Just wonderful.

Themes: Friendship, Afternoon tea, Invitations, Perseverance, Verse.

Fran Knight