Mary Smith

Mary Smith
By: Andrea U'ren
Copyright: 2003
Pages: 32
Reading Level: 4-8



"For SHAME!" gasps Mary Smith.
"We really must work on your aim!"

Mary Smith is a picture book based on a real person. Mary Smith. She was the town "knocker-up", who is the person who wakes people up before there were alarm clocks. Most people would come to your house with a long lightweight pole which the were tap and scratch your window with. However Mary Smith had a very different way of doing it. She would shoot dried peas from a rubber tube at your window, till you woke up. So this book is hilariously illustrated book. Mary Smith seems like such a character. The story is of her going about town waking everyone up, and then she returns home to find her daughter still in bed. She cries for her to wake up, people wont trust her to wake them up, if she can't even get her own daughter to school on time. However her daughter explains that its not that she is late at all, she went to school but was sent home. Because Timothy was sleeping, so she tried to wake him up but she missed and hit the teacher instead. The mother cries "For Shame!" but then says "We really must work on your aim!" This is a fun, cute, and colorful story.

Recommended to: Everyone this is a family friendly book.
Problems: The only problem I could see, is that this might encourage children to make pea shooters of there own.
My Reaction: I just grabbed this book off the shelf because the cover is just so darn cute. This Mary Smith, is a big, and I imagine just a lovable women. And my favorite part of the book is a real picture of Mary Smith from 1927, and it looks just like the drawling. This book offers such a fun way to learn about an interesting fact in history.