Laundry Day Overload

by Shiane Salabie (Illustrator), Dorothy H. Price

It's laundry day, and J.C. is excited to help his mom. But when J.C. adds too much detergent to the machine, suds are everywhere! Laundry day turns into a mess for everyone in the apartment building. Can J.C. fix his mistake and save laundry day?

Genres: Picture Books

32 pages, Paperback

Published July 30, 2022

Reviews

[Mandy]

Children's early reader. Jalen is a 7 year old who moved from the country to the city with his family. He now lives in an apartment building. This story tells of his first laundry day with his mom, using the laundry room in the basement. Mom sorts the clothes into piles, and gives directions that each pile goes with one scoop into a machine. Most of the machines are taken, so Jalen stuffs everything into one but then still uses the same number of scoops. Predictably the machine overflows and they have to get the maintenance man to come over with the wet-vac.

I do appreciate seeing a slice-of-life story with a Black family, and seeing life in an apartment building represented. However the too much soap story was a bit far-fetched here. His mother added the coins, so she clearly knew everything was in one machine. She should have asked then how much soap he used instead of assuming he knew that the one scoop was per machine not necessarily per pile of clothes.

[AMY]

27 pgs. This time Jalen's mom is teaching him how to handle the laundry. He makes a mistake and learns a valuable lesson about following directions. There is a glossary and additional activities at the end of the book. Highly recommended for Grades 2-4.