THE SEVEN SAYINGS OF MR. JEFFERSON

Mr. Jefferson was a parrot. When Miss Terraberry left him at the pet shop he heard her name her destination -- ""Nassau"". His owner approved six of his sayings, but was sceptical of the seventh -- a Dutch expression. Spieling his seven sayings as he goes, Mr. Jefferson escapes from his cage and sets out to find Miss Terraberry. The peripatetic parrot saves a lady from an alligator; arouses the townspeople as he lodges in the steeple and shouted for help, that he was robbed; and precipitates a truck driver into a trip toward Nassau. When the talkative parrot finds his mistress again, on shipboard, she finds that his seventh saying is not as bad as she'd feared, for the Dutch skipper translates. Illustrations are in three colors by Mildred Sophie Porter. Each sequence devolves on the misinterpretation consequent to one of the parrot's seven sayings. Mr. Jefferson is a comical bird-character whose adventures will appeal not to every child, but to some. The text is too substantial for usual read-aloud procedures so independent reading is its goal, for eight, nine, ten year olds.