Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle by Betty MacDonald Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle
Book Review: Review of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle
Summary: 4 Stars
I just finished reading this book to my niece (4) and nephew (6). There are so many things I loved about it, I think I'll just list them out here.
1. Everything was so simple - simple enough for me to laugh and enjoy reading, and simple enough that the children could understand what I was reading about. As much as I love reading descriptions aloud to them, it's more fun for THEM to hear dialog and funny cures.
2. The symptoms are VERY real ones. Never wanting to go to bed, fighting all the time, never wanting to take a bath. While it's somewhat ridiculous to think the parents were so at wits end it's also not all that ridiculous. After all, how many times were you in that very place?
3. The cures are creative, fun and really get the kids laughing. I can't count the number of nightly belly-laughs I heard from my niece, or the number of tears I saw escaping from my nephews eyes because he was laughing so hard.
4. This is the first book that both children couldn't wait to have me read to them. They'd sit completely still, eagerly wanting to hear about whatever the night's cure would be. We'd speculate before we began reading the chapters and sometimes we were spot on.. and others.. well, the Radish Cure wasn't what I was expecting!
Most importantly, this book gives children someone to love within the book. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle is the perfect "adult". She doesn't mind messes, she lets girls dress-up in her clothes, she plays make-believe, lets children dig holes in her backyard and experiment with planting flowers in her front yard. Oh, and did I mention? Her house is.. UPSIDE-DOWN.
I loved this book and plan on reading all of its sequels to my niece and nephew. They can't wait and made sure the last time I was at the library that I had the next one in hand, ready to be checked out.
Book Review: Still enjoyable
Summary: 5 Stars
I remember Mrs Piggle-Wiggle when I was a kid. I was pleased when my daughter asked me to buy this for her. Mrs Piggle-Wiggle is still as much fun as I remember. My daughter enjoys the stories and thinks Mrs Piggle-Wiggle's cures are funny.Book Review: Stories cute, but dated & unrealistic...
Summary: 3 Stars
I read these book when I was in second & third grade & enjoyed them then, but now as an adult & a writer ( I've toyed with the idea of writing for kids), I leafed through the books again recently & find them to be somewhat unrealistic. I know they're aimed at second & third graders, so the part about Ms. Piggle-Wiggle's magic cures is fun for kids, but you can tell it's written WAY back in the fifties when people wanted to fantsize about "perfect" families with a housewife Mommy & a Daddy who rushes off to work every morning & sweet, rosy all WASP neighborhoods where things like divorce, sex, peer pressure, & poverty are unheard of. So...you might call these fantasy stories that are taken to another degree. It's amazing that NONE of the mothers in any of the four books have ANY career; their whole lives revolve around "curing" their children of faults(the ultimate conservative fantasy of "perfect" children who never make waves being played out here, perhaps?); when they call Ms. Piggle-Wiggle for help, they introduce themselves as "Mrs....,the mother of....", never their first names. Another word of caution: some of the parents (usually the dads) spank the children & it is presented as acceptable. Also troublesome: the mothers, usually "at their wits' end," often whine to their husband about their children's bad habits, then the dad steps in & deals with the kids. This could send a bad message to girls, so before your kids read these, make sure they understand how dated the stories are. The books might be a springboard of discussion in classrooms & families about how people idealized how life "should" be...then & even today.Book Review: The Original Love and Logic
Summary: 3 Stars
I believe it was my third grade teacher that began reading these to me, and instantly I was hooked. Betty MacDonald is an authoress who can write to both adults and children with fine hilarity, and her character Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle makes Mary Poppins look like a moron. I find her the progeny to the Love and Logic system. The book is filled with multiple stories about kids with various, common behavior problems. Concerned parents call up Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle who then doles out a hilarious but effective cure. It's fairly scripted, but the stories are cute and funny just the same.Book Review: The first in a classic read-aloud series
Summary: 5 Stars
From the first chapter, which introduces the character of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, you will wish she were real. It's not just her cleverness with children, it's her rapport with them. She admits that adults make her nervous, and she has little use for adult conventions. Children understand immediately that she is on their side.She is therefore free to "cure" them of traits that parents might not like, but that their fellow children do not like either: selfishness, rudeness, showing off, and lying, for example. Her "cures" are mostly exercises in reverse psychology, and almost always challenge the parents' assumptions as well.
This is a book of short stories, and the first in a series of four books. You may as well get all four now, because you and the children you read to will not be able to get enough.
Each story takes about twenty minutes to read out loud, and that is the way these stories are meant to be shared (MacDonald wrote them to read aloud to her daughter). Children and adults will laugh, gasp, and nod knowingly at the same points.
The stories have become code-words for managing our household: we all know immediately what the issue is when one of us says, "Aha! An I-Thought-You-Saider." Or "A What'll-I-Doer." Or the ever-popular, "Don't-Want-To-Go-To-Bedder."
In my childhood in the early 1960s, these books were reserved for babysitters to read to us, the result being that we WANTED our parents to go out.
I suggest that you preview each story before using it for a read-aloud session. The values are sometimes out-of-date, and though I think they are harmless, or can easily be handled by supplementary discussion, they might make you uncomfortable. That sounds like a heavy warning, but I do not mean it to be. Just have fun!