HENRIETTA AND THE GONG FROM HONG KONG

by Winifred Rosen ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1981

In this third story about wild Henrietta, the family visits her grandparents' antique-filled home for lunch, with predictably disastrous results. With demure sister Evelyn keeping a low profile in her new velvet jumper (purchased, Harriet's followers might remember, on . . . The Day of the Iguana), dungareed Harriet refuses to eat her soup and casserole but scoops up some forbidden chocolate-cake icing anyway, and panics when Evelyn tattles. In the ensuing fracas she dumps the cake on Grandma's beautiful tablecloth, knocks over an antique vase, and sends Grandfather's magnificent Hong Kong gong crashing down a flight of stairs. But the vase isn't broken (it hit Harriet's toe before landing on the floor), the cake washes out of the synthetic tablecloth (""an antique [cloth] with Harriet coming to lunch? I'd have to have my head examined,"" Grandmother assures them), and the gong rings out splendidly after Grandfather rehangs it. Best of all, Harriet learns from Grandmother that her own mother was once nearly as wild, and almost as fussy an eater, as Harriet herself. With the scruffy charm of Chorao's Harriet, the Hong Kong gong for resonance, and only a trace of the Eloise archness that marred . . . the Iguana, this is a Harriet story that rings with recognition and gratification for other small wild women.

Pub Date: March 1, 1981

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Four Winds

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1981

Categories: CHILDREN'S