Miss Tizzy

by Libba Moore Gray, Jada Rowland (Illustrator)

Overview

The neighbors may think Miss Tizzy quite peculiar, but the children love her. They love her colorful house and her colorful clothes, but most of all they love the special attention she pays to them all.
Together, they bake cookies, make pictures full of sunshine and butterflies for folks who have stopped smiling, play dress-up, put on puppet shows and parades, or stretch out on bright quilts in Miss Tizzy's backyard of an evening to sing moon songs.
When Miss Tizzy becomes ill and takes to her bed, the children know just what to do to let her know she is missed and loved. Here's a picture book certain to touch the hearts of children of any age.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780689818974
Publisher:	Aladdin
Publication date:	04/01/1998
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	530,148
Product dimensions:	8.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.20(d)
Lexile:	700L (what's this?)
Age Range:	3 - 7 Years

About the Author

Libba Moore Gray has been an actress, a dancer, and for twenty years a teacher of high school English and drama. Her poetry and short stories have appeared in a number of literary magazines, and Miss Tizzy was her first book for children. Ms. Gray’s four children include a businessman, a ballerina, a teacher, and a professional clown. With her husband, Robert, she makes her home in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Editorial Reviews

An elderly woman plays games and bakes cookies with a multi-cultural group of neighborhood children, until she falls ill. The children think of a week's worth of ways to show her they care. Ages 4-8. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

K-Gr 2-Miss Tizzy, an elderly, somewhat eccentric black woman, lives in an idyllically multiethnic neighborhood. All of the houses are neat and white, with treeless, orderly yards-except for hers. She has a pink house and a lovely, overgrown garden, resplendant with flowers that spill out onto the sidewalk. The local children-about 10 of various ages-spend a lot of time with her, and the book describes what they do together on each day of the week. Every couple of pages end with the annoying refrain, ``And the children loved it.'' However, in the only picture depicting parents, the two on-looking grownups don't look exactly thrilled-in fact, a mother's lips are turned down in a sad frown. One day (and perhaps it's from the strain of all that playing), Miss Tizzy falls ill, and her friends take her gifts and try to amuse her. Rowland's watercolor illustrations reflect the sweetness of the text, and are pleasant and pretty. Unfortunately, the story line is cloying and contrived, and no real sense of community comes across.-Vanessa Elder, School Library Journal

School Library Journal