A Very Young Housewife

This book is out of print

What's it about? This is a parody of a series of books for children known as the "Very Young" books. In those books, a photographer followed around a "Very Young Dancer" (or Horseback Rider or Gymnast or Circus Flyer) and took pictures of her hard at work at her (usually) very expensive hobby. In A Very Young Housewife, the girl is not studying to be a dancer or gymnast, but a housewife.

Where did the idea come from? My own daughter used to bring home all the Very Young books from the library, and after she read each one she became convinced that she needed to become a gymnast or have her own horse or try out for the "Nutcracker" in New York. I got fed up with this after a while, and decided to write a book about a girl training to be a professional housewife. In the book, it is my own nine-year-old daughter who plays the precious little girl, Chelsea. We had fun making that book together.