Indescribably Arabella

By Jane Gilbert

Short-legged, funny-voiced Arabella feels like an old friend, and children will feel a kinship to her from the first line of the book: "Arabella Anastasia was not an ordinary girl." For one thing, she... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0689853211
• ISBN13: 9780689853210
• Release Date: June 2003
• Publisher: Atheneum/Anne Schwartz Books
• Length: 32 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.6" x 0.4" x 10.4"
• Age Range: 3 to 7 years
• Grade Range: Preschool to Grade 2

Customer Reviews

Sometimes being successful needs hard work and luck!

My wife had chosen to get this book, "Indescribably Arabella" as a gift for a family friend whose new baby is called "Arabella". (Every child should have books that feature characters with the child's own name!) We did not know the book, except for the title and the cover illustration. This particular Arabella is, as the title gives away, "indescribable". But where does this go? PLOT SPOILER!! Arabella wants to be famous. This is usually a dangerous start to a children's book. If the character succeeds, will this lead youngsters to think that not only anyone can be famous, but it is as easy as a few pages in a short book? Arabella thinks about how she could become famous: painter? dancer? actor? ... She takes classes in each possibility in turn. She practises hard. Alas! she lacks talent in anything she undertakes: that is, her teachers make it clear that she will never become famous in that way, because she is not original, nor high-achieving. But she remains enthusiastic, cheerful, and confident. She is true to herself, despite life's knocks -- and that is a good thing to develop in one's character, isn't it? She remains, obviously, INDESCRIBABLE! Young children having the story read to them will enjoy being able to call out the repeated descriptive word, although explaining it may take some hard thinking. (How do you describe "indescribable"? Maybe that is part of the joke.) If Plan A, and Plan B, and Plan C, ... fail, what is an indescribable fame-seeking Arabella to do? Here is where the luck comes in. LUCKILY Arabella meets people who appreciate her. And isn't that what we ALL need? Exactly who they are, and exactly why they are just right for Arabella, and she is just right for them, I will not reveal. The final charm of this book is that the author-illustrator Jane Gilbert tells us she kept diaries as a child, and, in preparing to make this book, she studied her old diaries, and her own childhood dreams, and her childhood Plans for being famous. This is a story that comes from a real child's life. Jane Gilbert has told the story as a child might, and drawn it as a child might. It's hard to come from a better place, when making a book for children! What a pity that Arabella is drawn with the fattest CALVES a character has ever had, without being an elephant or a rhinoceros. But I expect that only a few adults will be concerned about that. If only more authors and illustrators would tell us in their books where their ideas come from ...

Litttle Arabela...

Loved this book... its a shame its not in print version for the younger kids.. i loved the message and the illusstrations were awesome.. made the kids giggle..