Fix This Mess! by Tedd Arnold

Fix This Mess! by Tedd Arnold

Rating: 4 stars

I like books about messes.

Growing up, The Berenstain Bears and the Messy Room was one of my favorites.  I must have read it a million times.  I loved the idea of taking a really messy place and organizing the bajeezus out of it!  When Mama freaks out and starts throwing EVERYTHING away and Papa hears the shouting from his workshop and comes in to restore calm and order...  Then, Papa listens to the problem and helps the kids work towards a solution that involves well-labeled boxes and a cool peg board and a snazzy toy chest.  All of the illustrations in this book make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside!

Note: I loved the IDEA of taking a really messy place and organizing the bajeezus out of it. I still love the IDEA of it.  But...actually doing it is a totally different thing.  One step in any room in my house and you will get exactly what I mean.  (I really, really, REALLY hope that you are nodding an empathetic nod while glancing around YOUR messy house rather than looking down on messy me from your perfectly clean and orderly abode!)

I LOVE this book, these illustrations,
how cheerfully they organized everything!

So this very simple, very funny, very easy-reader-y book was right up my alley.

And all my kids love Tedd Arnold's Fly Guy books with the funny, bug-eyed characters who are wonderfully silly and creative and nice.  So, when we saw this new book on the New Book shelf at the library, one of us grabbed it.  (I can't remember which one of us--we all grab a lot of books.)  We read it over dinner that same day.

Jake receives Robug (a robot that cleans) in the mail.  He turns it on, points to a chair covered with a whole lot of junk, and tells it, "Fix this mess!" Robug replies "I will fix this mess!" as his arms move impressively quickly, smoke clouds around his action.  When he's finished, the chair is clean.  But the TV now has a whole lot of junk--wait a minute, it's the SAME whole lot of junk!!--on it.  Jake repeats his order, Robug repeats his cleaning (which is just moving the mess...ah, this is my kind of cleaning...)  The whole lot of junk moves from room to room: into the bathtub and even onto the roof!  (Enter lots of kid giggles here.)

Finally, Jake himself cleans it all up.

"Jake missed a spot," Robug points out on the last page.