How can you misplace a parrot? Louella is back and Eddie has managed to lose her - for once through no fault of his own. The adventures that follow are like the other books in the Eddie series, very true to life and with plenty of fun.

No one writes for children like Carolyn Haywood- funny, sweet, slightly adventurous. These books are set in real families with wise parents and siblings who tease but love and care for each other.

I liked it.

Six years after the parrot Louella joined the Wilson household in "Eddie's Pay Dirt," she reappears again in a zany mix-up that, oddly enough, isn't of Eddie's engineering.

Eddie loans out Louella for the tropical decorations for a ball at the hotel in town. A confused doorman, however, lets Louella and 10 or 11 other parrots out of their cages to hang them on the chandeliers. In the scramble to get the parrots back in their cages, the doorman makes a mistake, and a cranky parrot named "Sourpuss" goes home in Louella's cage. When the parrot says "Nuts" and "pickles," Eddie thinks that Louella is a precocious learner to have picked up so many new words after her short stay at the hotel. But when the parrot calls his mother "Old sourpuss" instead of "pretty girl" like Eddie taught her, Eddie decides something is up, and the big parrot hunt is on.

In the meantime, Eddie is harboring a reddish golden retriever that he found by the hotel and struggles with the friendly policeman Mr. Kilpatrick's admonitions to find the dog's owner. It's hard to want to return a dog when he has wanted a dog for years and years and his father has always been opposed up till now. The first night the dog is staying in the house, the boys forget about giving the dog a bath and the bathtub overflows and leaks through the dining room ceiling.

"I want that dog taken to the shelter tonight," said his mother. "He has caused enough trouble."
Eddie's father cleared his throat. "Why, it isn't the dog's fault that the water in the tub overflowed," he said.
Eddie's mother turned to his father and said, "You were the one who said, 'No more dogs!'"....
"I never had a dog that fetched my slippers before," said Mr. Wilson.

In another town, another little boy has taken home his parrot after the ball, and this bird has gone from being a grouchy blabbermouth to saying nothing at all. Soon there are two investigations underway to find the lost birds. As usual, Eddie will go to great lengths for the sake of one of his critters.

I liked eddie and Louella

I have been looking for these books everywhere and I am so glad to have finally found them! While my friends in elementary school were always checking out the more "popular" books in the library, I found myself coming back to this series again and again. I'm pretty sure I read every book in the series at least twice! I'm a little perturbed to discover that they've been re-released with a more modern cover, because I actually prefer the vintage look. Brings back so many memories and should I stumble across these somewhere, I may just have to read them again!