[BOOK REVIEW] Manners by Aliki

Title:  Manners

Author:  Aliki

Genre: Manners / Children

Year Published: 1990

Year Read:  2014

Publisher: Greenwillow Books

Source:  Library

Content Rating:  Ages 4+ (Some Rude Behavior)

Buy on:  Amazon  //  Book Depository 

Now, I will admit that I had only read a handful of Aliki’s works with “Feelings” being one of my absolute favorite books by Aliki.  So, when I found out that Aliki was making another book that followed up after “Feelings” called “Manners,” I just had to check this book out and believe me, I was totally blown away by the informative nature of this book!

In this book, children are taught about how to show good manners towards other people such as learning how to say “please” and “thank you” and to not be rude towards other people.

Aliki has done it again with creating a book that teaches children about good manners and also about how it is not good to show terrible manners (such as eating sloppily at the dinner table and being insulting towards other people).  Probably my most favorite moment in this book was when Aliki showed scenes of various children doing little skits about how to act during a certain situation, such as one skit called “Manners Lessons #4: At the Table” where it showed a girl and a boy performing a skit where the girl was politely eating her food at the table, while the boy was being extremely rude at the table by slurping down his food instead of taking little bites like the girl.  These skits can be used to help children who are reading this book on how to behave properly around other people and they could also try to do these same skits to practice showing good manners towards other people.  I also loved the fact that Aliki not only shows how to portray good manners towards people, but also shows what bad manners are like, such as in the “How Anthony Almost Ruined Diana’s Party” segment, the title character Anthony almost ruined Diana’s party by insulting everyone at the party by calling them names and being disrespectful to the other children who brought Diana various gifts.  Aliki’s artwork is both cute and expressive at the same time as they show various children performing different situations in which they show both good and bad manners.  Probably my most favorite artwork in this book was when they showed a girl and a boy in “Manners Lessons #4: At the Table” performing both the polite and rude way to behave at the dinner table, such as showing the boy shoveling food into his mouth and drinking his water in huge gulps, since it was so hilarious to see!

Overall, “Manners” is a fantastic book for children who want to learn about when to show good manners and what is considered bad manners for many people.  I would recommend this book to children ages four and up since there is nothing inappropriate in this book, unless you are worried about smaller children copying the bad manners segments in this book.