Calling Doctor Amelia Bedelia

What has Amelia Bedelia gotten herself into this time? We follow Amelia to her doctor's office which is in need of help. Amelia answers phone calls and helps with patient's who are losing their patience. Her funny and entertaining misintepretations create a light-hearted good read. In the end, she puts a smile on everyone's face with her considerate demeanor and kind inentions.

I liked this book because of the numerous entertaining misinterpretations Amelia Bedelia makes throughout the book. She takes literal meaning of everything people tell her. Mr. Rogers tells Amelia Bedelia to “Jump into the car” so she gets in the car and “bounced up and down on her seat.” Then, once Amelia Bedelia is at the doctor’s office a patient tells her, “I have a frog in my throat”. Amelia Bedelia takes him literally and says, “Yuck! Spit it out!” Thinking that he has an actual frog stuck in his throat.
I also liked this book because it includes realistic events that occur in a doctor’s office. The phone was constantly ringing with patients calling, one woman said, “I am calling because I’ve got hives” show more another patient called complaining about “a ringing in [his] ears”. Both of these examples are real medical concerns that people call the doctor for. Realistic actions are also included, like comforting a girl who “is a little scared”, taking temperatures, “drawing blood” and using tongue depressors. Even though Amelia Bedelia does almost all of these things wrong the book does describe the correct use and action for each example.
I think that the main idea of this book is to show that it is ok to make mistakes in life and to learn from your mistakes. Even though Amelia Bedelia does almost everything wrong when trying to help out she comes out as a hero at the end of the book because she makes sure all the angry patients get ice cream. The doctor comes back and everyone eventually gets treated, they are no longer angry though because of the ice cream they got. Even though Amelia Bedelia did not help out how Nurse Ames was expecting her to help she was helpful in the end and all her mistakes for fixed and forgiven. Amelia Bedelia was also able to learn from her mistakes so that they won't happen again. show less

Amelia Bedelia is an amusing, relatable character whose scrapes and dilemmas are readily comprehensible to children. In this volume she introduces kids to a variety of common idioms and sayings, illustrating what they mean literally and what they are "meant to mean". A great book for building figurative language.

Amelia Bedelia gives hilarious insight into many double entendres that are used in our society. This book is incredibly entertaining and can be used to start conversations about word usage and different meanings for words and phrases. Amelia Bedelia books are great even just to have on hand in a classroom or at home for children. I remember reading them or having them read to me when I was young, and they had a lot to do with the development of my own love for reading.

Amelia Bedelia books are one of a kind stories. This story was about Amelia showing up at her doctor's office and because they were so busy she helped out with the patients herself. While trying to help out she misinterprets everything. My favorite example is when the nurse asked her to draw a little boy's blood and she tells the little boy to draw his own blood. She gives him a red marker and tells him to draw it on the big roll of paper. The reading level is probably around second grade. I read this book to my daughter, who is in second grade, and a lot of the humor she didn't get without me explaining it. So if I chose this book to read to a class I would keep that in mind.

your personal response to the book:

I've always been a fan of Amelia Bedelia. She is always so misguided. In this book, she steps up to help out at a doctor's office which is a bit unrealistic, but still comical.

This book doesn't have a lot of multicultural implications, however, it does feature characters who from the illustrations are obviously members of varied races.

curricular connections (how you might use it with students in a classroom or school library) or programming connections (how you might use this book in a public library setting):

With my students, I've done units where we just read a bunch of Amelia Bedelia books. Really, second graders and up are the best candidates to read these books to because they take some show more interpretation.

I think it would be a good activity, to take just one section where Amelia Bedelia gets confused, and write what the person was trying to convey to her and draw a picture that goes along with that. show less

Amelia Bedelia is up to no good again, but once again it is by accident. She goes to the doctor's office, and ends up becoming the secretary for a while. However, she has problems figuring out what the patients really want and keeps telling them the wrong things. Eventually everyone ends up showing up to the doctor's office really angry and just when it seems like everything is going to fall apart, the ice cream man comes and everyone is happy again.