Please Don't Eat the Daisies

Please Don't Eat the Daisies (New York: Doubleday, 1957) is a best-selling collection of humorous essays by American humorist and playwright Jean Kerr about suburban living and raising four boys. The essays do not have a plot or through-storyline, but the book sold so well it was adapted into a 1960 film starring Doris Day and David Niven. The film was later adapted into a 1965-1967 television series starring Patricia Crowley and Mark Miller. Kerr followed up this book with two later best-selling collections, The Snake Has All the Lines and Penny Candy.

The first edition of Please Don't Eat the Daisies by Jean Kerr, published in 1957

Contents

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Introduction

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The introduction serves as yet another humorous essay, as Kerr describes how she came to be a writer.

Please Don’t Eat the Daisies

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Kerr begins the book with her take on parenting four small boys.

How To Be a Collector’s Item

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The trials and tribulations of an author who hopes her letters are being collected for future publication.

Greenwich, Anyone?

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Kerr's take on the popular trend of writers moving to the country to reconnect with nature.

How To Decorate in One Easy Breakdown

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Kerr gives her own helpful hints on how to redecorate on a budget.

Dogs That Have Known Me

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The author's experiences with dogs, large and small, through the years.

The Kerr-Hilton

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One of the principal sources for the later film, this essay tells how Kerr and her husband acquired their house in Larchmont, New York, complete with gargoyles, secret panels, and a 24-bell carillon that played the duet from Carmen at noon.

The Care and Feeding of Producers

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How to survive getting a play produced.

One Half of Two on the Aisle

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Musings from the self-proclaimed most experienced audience member in America.

Don Brown’s Body

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A parody of Stephen Vincent Benét's "John Brown's Body", which mixes in Mike Hammer and gangsters.

Toujours Tristesse

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A take-off of Francoise Sagan's A Certain Smile.

Snowflaketime

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Kerr muses on the state of school productions of holiday shows through the years.

How to Get the Best of Your Children

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Another essay on the joys of parenting.

Where Did You Put the Aspirin?

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Again, Kerr muses on coping with children.

Aunt Jean’s Marshmallow Fudge Diet

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One of many essays Kerr wrote on the subject of diets and dieting.

Operation Operation

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Kerr's take on hospital stays, doctors, nurses, and the need to insist on patients' rights.

Index

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In yet another satirical jab, Kerr included an index in the book, but with only the page numbers from the original magazines in which the pieces appeared.

Reception

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The book achieved the number one spot on The New York Times bestseller list in February, 1958.[1] Kerr's "wryly observant style" reminded Washington Post critic Richard L. Coe of James Thurber, E. B. White, and Cornelia Otis Skinner.[2]

Kirkus Reviews noted

Funny and refreshing, her maternal moments will find a sympathetic hysteria among others bedeviled by strident striplings and a perfect antidote toward accepted currently child raising programs: her take-offs, of Sagan, in Don Brown's Body, and her incisive words on writers (like E. B. White – leve majesti indeed) who move to the country – these are gifted and good.

Each short piece, from the introduction to the index, is loaded with laugh-out-loud-remarks, situations and ideas.[3]

Adaptations

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In 1960, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released a film adapted from the book, directed by Charles Walters with a screenplay by Isobel Lennart. It starred Doris Day, David Niven, Janis Paige, Spring Byington, Richard Haydn, Patsy Kelly, and Jack Weston.[4] A storyline was created for the film, involving Day as Kate Robinson Mackay, a housewife married to Lawrence "Larry" Mackay (Niven), a newly hired New York City drama critic. In his first assignment, Larry must review a new show produced by his best friend, and he is forced to pan it. Meanwhile, a search for a new home for the family — who ultimately settle in the fictional rural town of Hooton — leaves Kate dealing with the kids, carpenters, decorators, and the new neighbors by herself.

The film was in turn adapted as a television series that ran from 1965 to 1967 (58 half-hour episodes) starring Patricia Crowley and Mark Miller as Joan Nash, a newspaper columnist, and John Nash, a college professor, raising their four sons in fictional Ridgemont, New York.

References

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  1. ^ "The New York Times Best Seller List February 2, 1958" (PDF). hawes.com.
  2. ^ "Jean Kerr". Libraries. bios. Pennsylvania State University. Archived from the original on 2013-05-15. Retrieved 2015-06-30.
  3. ^ "Book Reviews, Sites, Romance, Fantasy, Fiction". Kirkus Reviews.
  4. ^ "Please Don't Eat the Daisies". Turner Classic Movies. Atlanta: Turner Broadcasting System (Time Warner). Retrieved August 20, 2016.
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