SILVER SPRING, Md, February 8, 2013, Tea Time with Sophia Grace and Rosie by Sophia Grace Brownlee and Rosie McClelland, illustrated by Shelagh McNicholas ISBN: 9780545502146
This is the story of two little cousins who love tea parties, crafts, princesses and pink. The two girls decide to have a very special tea party. Each girl gets to invite one very special guest.
The invitations are decked out with glitter and princess stickers. The party’s theme is debated until the girls settle on pink. And then the girls have to decide decorations, at which point they tap into their imaginations and use their magic wands to convert their bedroom into a castle. Next, a menu, which is set at chocolate and cookies, and then comes the final order of business: picking out their outfits. Pick tutus and princess tiaras are, of course, the perfect attire.
But with everything planned, the two girls still have not sent their invitations out to their special guests, but they decide that anyone who comes must love the same things they do and just as much. That night each girl tiptoe to the other’s bed while they were sleeping and slip the specially made invitation under her pillow.
Photo by Robynlou Kavanagh
In the morning the girls discover the invitation of the other. They proceed to have their tea party, deciding that they are glad it was just the two of them .
This book illustrates the power of social media in our time. The two authors are also the characters in the story, a nine-year-old and a five-year-old girl. These two girls gained fame when their YouTube performance of “Super Bass” went viral. Aside from international internet fame, the two girls made an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and their popularity has garnered them several more initiations to appear on the show, interviewing their favorite singers and hosting tea parties with Ellen and her guests during their very own segment, Tea Time with Sophia Grace and Rosie.
While this story may have been imagined by the girls, given the coherence of the writing, the publisher must have used a ghost writer in the composition of the work. It does not read like a child’s rambling storytelling style with a long series of “and then.”
There is a unique touch that seems to speak of the girls’ personality more than the overall story. It is the “Tea Tips” provided just inside the front and back cover. These six tips tell you how to host the perfect tea party.
This book is recommended for ages 3-5, although given that the two authors are five and nine, it would probably stretch to slightly older tea party hostesses. Regardless, it is a story for girly-girls. Tea Time with Sophia Grace and Rosie will appeal to fans of Pinkalicious and Fancy Nancy.
Photo by J. Aaron Farr. Click to enlarge.
The illustrations are well suited to the story and even in the sections where the girls’ imaginations take over, the pictures follow the transformation of mundane to fairy magic, to imagined wonderland.
Published by Scholastic Books in February 2013, Tea Time with Sophia Grace and Rosie is only available in hardcover.
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