Do I Have to Say Hello? Aunt
Delia’s Manners Quiz for Kids and Their Grownups. By Delia Ephron. Drawings
by Edward Koren. Blue Rider Press. $24.95.
Emily Post this isn’t. Or,
rather, Emily Post this is, sort of,
but with a far lighter approach to life and far less concern about minutiae.
Delia Ephron spends no time on matters such as the correct order in which to
use utensils in a fancy restaurant. She is much more interested in asking what
you should do in that fancy restaurant if you notice a fly swimming in your
soup. The three choices: “Do you swat it?” “Do you eat it?” “Do you say,
‘Excuse me,’ to the waiter, ‘but a fly is swimming in my soup’?” Lest there be
any uncertainty about the best response (there is no answer key here!), Edward
Koren’s perfectly apt but marvelously outlandish illustrations show a little
girl standing by a giant bowl of soup, wielding a fly swatter; a little girl
about to devour a fly that is as large as her head and is sporting a bewildered
expression; and a little girl talking politely to the waiter as a fly almost
the size of the soup bowl does what appears to be the Australian crawl.
Ephron and Koren have so
much fun with matters of manners that kids (and parents) will inevitably have
fun with the topic, too. And a good thing: upcoming holidays are always fodder
for figuring out the right thing (and many wrong things) to say. For example,
“Which of these are appropriate subjects for Thanksgiving dinner conversation? Whether
the turkey knew it was going to die. The time cousin Michelle laughed so hard
while eating that a hot dog came out of her nose. Stink bombs. Pilgrims.”
Remember, there is no answer key!
Most pages of Do I Have to Say Hello? are filled with
questions and potential answers, but a few are crammed with illustrations that
may make some adults wonder whether they have wandered by mistake into The New Yorker, to which Koren
frequently contributes cartoons. For example, one two-page spread is called “The
Noise Chart” and asks, “Which noises are acceptable at the dinner table?” There
are 10 possibilities here, and examining the kids’ expressions will not provide
any clues: whether going “cluck,” “ugh,” “moo” or “yech,” the kids are smiling
and appear to be thoroughly enjoying themselves. Parents should warn of
incipient expression changes if their
kids are caught making most of these sounds (“mmmmMMMMMM” is acceptable).
There are the usual subjects
here for kids interested in manners (or being forced to pay attention to them):
visiting, eating, car, school, playground, birthday party. But there are some
unexpected areas as well, and some possible responses that may take a bit of
time to think through. Under “Beach Manners,” for instance, is the question,
“Which of these things is it okay to say in a loud voice at the beach?” There
are six possibilities given: “Oh, it’s so beautiful here.” “The sand in my suit
is making my butt itch.” “Why is that man so fat?” “Boy, did that bathroom
smell.” “Aunt Delia, that woman isn’t wearing a top.” “Sharks! Sharks!” Now,
the first of these is clearly intended to be the right answer, but maybe it would be all right for a child to
comment on a topless beachgoer, and it would certainly be acceptable to shout about sharks if there were in fact
any swimming around. Do I Have to Say
Hello? invites kids and their parents to discuss just these sorts of issues
– that is, to consider what it is appropriate to say, where and when, and under
what circumstances.
Among the other
out-of-the-ordinary sections here are ones on soccer manners (including goalie
and referee bonus questions), movie manners (including bonuses for the candy
counter and for popcorn – with response ratings ranging from G to R), and video
game manners. From this section: “Yikes, a zombie is coming after you. Aunt
Delia says, ‘How was school this week, sweetie?’ What is the most polite
answer?” The choices are: “Not now, I’m busy.” “NOT NOW, I’M BUSY!” “May I
please tell you later? I’ve got zombie problems.” “You just made me die.” Now
there’s a scenario missing from all old-fashioned etiquette books!
The point is that Do I Have to Say Hello? is distinctly
and deliberately not old-fashioned,
and yet there is an undercurrent of politeness and deference to others here
that is just as important as in more-traditional etiquette books. And just as
Ephron is expert at coming up with three or more bad choices for every good
one, so Koren does a wonderful job of finding lots of wrong things to show and
just one or a few that are right. The Ephron-Koren team is a winning one
throughout. One page in the video-game section, for instance, is a “Facial
Expression Chart” proffering the question, “Which expressions are the most
likely to get you more time for playing video games? Which are the least
likely?” Kids can look at the eight possibilities, then look in a mirror, and
try to figure that one out on their own. There is a pervasive sense of fun here
– not something usually associated with manners books. Even soup can be fun,
and not just when there are flies in it. A page called “Tricky Question 4”
asks, “Who is using the soupspoon properly?” There are only three drawings
here, one showing a girl eating soup, one showing a girl using a gigantic spoon
as a canoe paddle, and one showing a boy during a downpour, using a huge spoon
as an umbrella. The answer, obviously, is that all three are proper soupspoon
uses – if you happen to have a gigantic spoon and no paddle or a huge spoon and
no umbrella during heavy rain. This is probably not the intended answer, but at least kids who use the spoons those ways
won’t end up eating flies. But beware, parents, of children who think about
their responses too creatively: they may grow up with a sense of humor akin to
those of Ephron and Koren. Uh-oh.
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