Along with Amanda, Melissa and Pee Wee, I loved Aunt Sally's storytelling, building a tree house, and teaching the children how to eat meatloaf by adding surprises. The children continued to wonder why their dad did not want her around. Aunt Sally came to stay with Melissa, Amanda and Pee Wee while their parents went to Paris. From the beginning, I wondered why she was the last resort, and Dad did not want to call his sister. The week before Mr. and Mrs. Anderson were to leave Tenderly, Ohio, for the somewhat more bustling metropolis of Paris, their babysitter…came down with a minor case of bubonic plague and called tearfully to say she didn’t want to spread the buboes around. Aunt Sally talks to the kids as people and not kids. Her stories are entertaining but with a message about families and how the members relate and the importance of families. Some seem so full of exaggeration to be hard to believe and some so very down to earth. With one crucial difference—Joseph forgave his siblings. Robbie never quite could. Even at the end of the book, he refuses to look Sally in the eye.

It starts when Melissa, Amanda, and Pee Wee's usual babysitter "came down with a mild case of bubonic plague and called tearfully to say she didn't want to spread the buboes around." So her parents (who are going to Paris for a week) are forced to call on Aunt Sally, whom they have never met and their father never talks about.I won't give away too much from here on out, but there are some spoilers. I would say the following observations may help you enjoy the book a bit better. Here's a sample insight, "Now that it's too late, I wish I had asked Grandma Evelyn what the deep dark secret was.... So let that be a lesson to you, ask your parents all these questions before it's too late...." I certainly wish I had asked my parents more questions. Most of the stories within "The Trolls" went well over my kid's heads (6.5; 8; 10; and 11 year's old respectively). They were waiting for the trolls to appear and didn't like that the story never made them known; and, they didn't like an ending without end. This book was no winner for them.

Each night, the children would beg for green beans. Pee Wee built them into log cabins before eating them. And each night she would tell of the family history. Aunt Sally told them about Uncle Lewis who came for two weeks and stayed to six years. There was also a tale of Great Aunt Hatty and the mysterious man.So they’re quite unprepared for the charismatic and whimsical figure that arrives, with her towering blonde beehive of hair, her fondness for green beans and surprise meat loaf, her talent for drawing, and most of all her storytelling abilities. From the Vikings to the Moomins, the Brothers Grimm and the Three Billy Goats Gruff, Trolls: An Unnatural History explores the panoply of trolls and their history and their continuing presence today. Language: Melissa and Amanda are cutting and a bit rude to their little brother, constantly telling him to shut up and that he doesn’t know anything. Sally has no patience for this. One could argue that the girls learning to treat Pee Wee well is the whole point of the book, so their unkindness is there to teach a lesson. Everyone needs an Aunt Sally. Someone who mixes truth with play; deeper meaning, for those who wish to extract more than just what the surface of listening carries within it. However, what I got instead was the undercurrents of the story. The hints of the real and the relational in the story. The sadness of the stories not because of the things that happened but instead because of the things that don't. As an adult I saw the truth of family relationships that broke and the knowledge that there might be no way to mend the relationship.