The Man Who Kept House

by Kathleen Hague, Michael Hague

Chaos is the result, when a farmer tries to prove that his work is more difficult than his wife's and he stays home to take care of the house and baby

Genres: Childrens, Picture Books

Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

Reviews

[Junaid Amin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The women can either make or destroy your home... Women is the face of the house.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Title: The Man Who Kept House
Author: Kathleen Hague
Recommended Ages or grades: 6 - 9
The Man Who Kept House is a typical story about how a husband thinks that his stay-at-home wife has an easy job. So the husband and wife trade places for a day. The husband stays home and takes care of the baby and house chores. The wife goes out to the farm and does all of the chores on the field. The husband has one disaster after another teaching him a valuable lesson that his wife job isn't all that easy. In the end, they both realized that neither job is easy or harder than the other and decided to praise each other for their work.

I found this story to be funny but some of the words were a bit hard understand. A young child might get confused by some of these words, such as "grimly". I did like it because the moral of the story is a good one for all children to learn and appreciate what moms and dads do.

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book. The topic is as old as mankind... husband thinks his stay-at-home housewife has a easy job because she just stays at home all day. So they switch jobs for a day; the wife goes to the farm fields and the husband stays home to take care of the baby and house chores. The story follows the husband though his disasterous day and culminates with the husband learning a valuable lesson. This book's text is antiquated and would be difficult for today's students to understand. As I read this book aloud to students, I had to stop and explain several words and phrases because the students didn't understand. For example, one sentence reads "Grimly the man retrieved them and took them back for another round of scrubbing."