Serefina Under the Circumstances

By Phyllis Theroux

Serefina has an imagination as vivid as clear blue sky. She also has a problem keeping secrets under certain circumstances. And you can bet a combination thereof will have hilarious results when the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0688159427
• ISBN13: 9780688159429
• Release Date: September 1999
• Publisher: Greenwillow Books
• Length: 32 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 7.4" x 11.4"
• Age Range: 5 years and up
• Grade Range: Preschool and higher

Customer Reviews

where contemporary realism finds a little magic

Serefina is a precocious and verbose young girl who has never kept a secret in her entire life. Still, her grandmother trusts Serefina with a big secret: she's throwing Serefina's little brother a surprise birthday party. Serefina's vibrant imagination envisions the secret growing bigger and bigger as she has a harder time keeping the secret. This books uses an immense amount of metaphor that almost places it into magical realism. Marjorie Priceman's illustrations often interpret these metaphors literally, which creates a beautifully expressive backdrop for this story.

Imagination vs. Never ending love!!

I thought this book was a great expression of imagination for younsgters to explore. The author truly was able to relay the message of how a young girls imagination got the best of her as she was honored to keep a secret her grandmother asked her to. Even though this young character in the story was not able to do what was asked of her for very logical reasonings on her part, the story was very well concluded with Serefina's grandmother expressing her never ending love and understanding of her granddaughters actions.