text: The photo presented here is a bit too bright and the faces are not that orange in this paperback edition's cover. However you can get a feel for the checked floor and how after opening the pages of The Doorbell Rang you get an eye sore with the blue checkered tablecloth in the kitchen with the blue stove and red appliances. The mother and daughter are both redheads and there is a black cat that hangs around during the story that takes place in the kitchen. 
  
  With just twenty pages my seven-year old breezed through the book in six minutes. The favorite character in the book according to my son is the cat and watching where he was throughout the story. The Doorbell Rang begins with a Mother placing a plate of cookies on the kitchen table for her son Sam and daughter Victoria. " I've made some cookies for tea, said Ma". The children each took six cookies comparing the look and smell of these cookies to Grandma's.
  
  By flipping through the pages of the Doorbell Rang it looks like the kitchen table got bigger, but upon further inspection the same number of chairs are there, but more kids around the table and fighting over the seats. The cat is making his way around the kids to receive pats on the head and attention. More kids arrived bringing a bicycle and a doll carriage and the table shows each kid with one cookie. It is hard to tell if the cookies are on white plates or that is just part of the checkered tablecloth. The serving plate is clearly empty at this point and all the kids turn to see the latest bell ringer. Meanwhile over at the stove the steam is continuing but at a larger pace and it looks like fresh water now in the orange pail. 
  
  The final arrival for this story is Grandma, with a large cookie sheet type tray carrying freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. All the kids leave the table to greet her and the cat ends up alone on the kitchen table. Not very sanitary as far as I am concerned and my son noticed no napkins or drinks at the table. The dirty floor was bothering him as well and he wondered why the kids never took their shoes off for that is something we all do upon entering our home. 
  
   The portrayal of the Mother and how the stove was not being attended and having the cat on the table bothered me. The kids not stopping to wipe their feet or hanging up their own belongings and no one washing their hands before having a cookie and who knows how many times the kids each touched one of them. 
  
  At least the kids were dressed nice and the bucket of water never spilled and the Mother finally sat down. For a new reader this might be a fun read but for more than one read I highly doubt there would be interest. There is a lot of repetition with the arrival of new kids and then the sharing of the cookies while comparing them to each child's Grandma's cookies. There are roughly two to four sentences on each page. The good news is that my son did not ask for any cookies after reading this
  