Keeping House

by Margaret Mahy

Ashamed to let the housekeeper see how untidy her house has become, Lizzie Firkin cleans it herself.

Genres: Picture Books, Fiction, Childrens

32 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Margaret Mahy was a well-known New Zealand author of children's and young adult books. While the plots of many of her books have strong supernatural elements, her writing concentrates on the themes of human relationships and growing up.

Her books The Haunting and The Changeover: A Supernatural Romance both received the Carnegie Medal of the British Library Association. There have 100 children's books, 40 novels, and 20 collections of her stories published. Among her children's books, A Lion in the Meadow and The Seven Chinese Brothers and The Man Whose Mother was a Pirate are considered national classics. Her novels have been translated into German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Italian, Japanese, Catalan and Afrikaans. In addition, some stories have been translated into Russian, Chinese and Icelandic.

For her contributions to children's literature she was made a member of the Order of New Zealand. The Margaret Mahy Medal Award was established by the New Zealand Children's Book Foundation in 1991 to provide recognition of excellence in children's literature, publishing and literacy in New Zealand. In 2006 she was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Award (known as the Little Nobel Prize) in recognition of a "lasting contribution to children's literature".

Margaret Mahy died on 23 July 2012.

On 29 April 2013, New Zealand’s top honour for children’s books was renamed the New Zealand Post Margaret Mahy Book of the Year award.

For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret...

Reviews

[Sarah Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seems a bit daft to hire a cleaner and then clean before he gets there.

[Fred · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my life (without the creativity). Read it and weep.

[Patricia R · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book was interesting. It tells of a woman named Lizzie Firkin, who was a singer/songwriter. Her house was always untidy and in a very dirty state because she was always busy with work performing in clubs at night that went right up till dawn. When she comes home in the morning she tends to sleep through the day until her time to go back to work. She did not even have time to care for her pet cat and parrot because she was so busy. One day she decided to contact a cleaner named Robin Pucker-tucker, who was in the business of cleaning houses. However, before he came to the house to clean, she did not want him to see how unclean her house was, for fear of being judge as untidy. After coming home in the morning from preforming at the club, she decided to clean up the house. She cleaned so much that there left nothing for the hired housekeeper to clean when he came. Robin Pucker-tucker became sad, because his business was not thriving as he wanted, since everyone who hired him, kept cleaning their houses before he came to do the job. Until he opened the cupboard doors of Lizzie's house, and many sharp-edged containers and objects fell on him. Then he had to clean up. The housekeeper then vowed to always look in people's cupboard so that he would have a job to do.

I found great interest in the book from reading the title and just scanning through the pictures. Upon reading the story, it became relatively relatable to my current lifestyle, in that many times I am so busy with work, studies and being a mom, that I overlook keeping my house in the tidiest of conditions. Sometimes, I feel like hiring a Robin Tucker to clean my house. I think from Lizzie's viewpoint, maybe next time she should have faith in letting the person she hired to do a job to actually do the job. From Robin's viewpoint be determined and never give up on your aspirations, because at the end he did find somewhat of a solution to the struggle in his business career.

This book with spark great discussion among all age groups/levels. It would generate great problem-solving solutions for the scenarios at hand. They can even go through the personality traits of the characters and discuss their behaviors in the story.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought it was going to be cliche until near the end, but the surprise ending is marvelous. I really like Robin's apron, and how Lizzie paints her own clothes.

[Shelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lizzie Firkin is far to busy practicing and performing her dancing and tuba playing to clean her house. Her pets, fearing they might be featured an episode of Hoarders, finally pester Lizzie enough that she calls a house cleaning service to tidy up the place. Lizzie like most women, don't want the maid to see what a dirty pig of housekeeper she is and digs in and starts cleaning before the maid arrives. Super silly story that would make for a great read aloud.

[Brynna Schiller · Rating 5 out of 5]

;) so human
lol!

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

UFYH!