The Adventures of Miss Petitfour

The charming, witty and wise Miss Pettifour loves her 16 cats and making and eating cakes. She has lovely adventures where she travels, mostly by tablecloth to lots of exciting places. But she also loves to sit in front of the fire, sipping cocoa and nibbling cookies. Miss Pettifour is a mix of Mary Poppins, Amelia Bedelia and Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. This is just a lovely, warm inviting book. Pastel invitations and the format of the book make young readers of all reading levels want to settle in for a long and comfy read. This book is now on my library book award list for next year

I am in love with this book!!! The Adventures of Miss Petitfour is of the best I've read this year. It's going to be one of my holiday features at the Elliott Bay Book Company this holiday season. What a story! What beautiful illustrations! It has the feel of a classic.

I love this book! The stories and illustrations are absolutely outstanding.  Miss Pettifour and her 16 cats go on lovely adventures and travel by way of a floating tablecloth. There is adventure, wit and a fantastic amount of baked goods. What more could you ask for in a story? This wonderful book is a must read for children and adults.

The delightful Miss Petitfour (“which conveniently rhymes with ‘spaghetti store’”) has five “just the right size” adventures in this slender, enchanting volume. On windy days, she travels by tablecloth, holding the corners of it in one hand with her arm into the wind, running errands (which ones, of course, depend on the direction of the wind) and airing her cats (she has 16). Each chapter covers a different adventure, and can be read almost as a separate short story.  Although the text seems challenging at first glance, Ms. Michaels does an excellent job at making it approachable for young readers. New vocabulary is introduces in colorful italics and defined in context, a la Lemony Snicket (“only attempting errands that were propitious, that is to say, favorable.”); while words that “open the story like a tiny key” (for instance, “THEN ONE DAY,” or “MEANWHILE”) are also in color and written in all caps, giving plenty of cues to the reader.
Emma Block’s charming illustrations add the perfect touch to this whimsical (that is to say, playfully quaint or fanciful) confection, and readers will gobble it up like one of the title character’s namesake cakes.