Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle
by Betty MacDonald
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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: Great books for ages 6 and up
Summary: 4 Stars
This book and the others in the "Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle" series all focus on gently humorous tales of a lovable old widow who specializes in helping parents resolve their kids' minor "behavior problems." When a child doesn't want to take a bath, do the dishes or some other thing that his or her parents have quite reasonably asked, and then not-so-reasonably ordered, that child to do, the harassed parents call upon Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, who always finds a way to make the chore fun or show the child the awful consequences of not doing what she's supposed to do. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle is very wise and persuasive and has the answers to every dilemma. The chapters are short and all follow the same pattern so these are fun books for digesting chapter-by-chapter. My friends and I loved these books when we were in the primary grades at school and we just adored Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle.
I would caution that these books are probably not for very young children. The misbehavior of the kids in the stories is pretty graphically depicted and you want to be sure the child is old enough to grasp the lesson involved rather than just act out the bad behavior. I would recommend the books for age 6 and up.
I am also giving this edition only 4 stars because while I think the books are 5-star books, the new jacket designs pictured on Amazon do not appear to have been done by Hilary Knight and Maurice Sendak, who did the original illustrations that I really loved as a kid (and that hopefully are still used inside the book). I'm not a fan of tarting classic books up with new illustrations and I think the new covers are frankly ugly. If you'd like the "classic" Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, buy the box set with the dust jackets I remember from childhood. I gave the box set 5 stars.
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 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!
Book Review: laughs everywhere
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a family favorite. I think it is better for reading out than as a chapter book, because reading it out loud together lets the parents in on the fun.
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle uses reverse psychology to change children's bad habits. Of course the situations are exaggerated, but they are funny and the children in the book are encouraged to be pleasant, responsive, responsible people. The parents are funny, too -- the dads are absorbed in work and lesiure pursuits, the moms hyperventilate and call one another about their little ones' character flaws. But Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, who wants everyone to be their best, has clever solutions.
My kids related the best to the Selfishness Cure -- they could really imagine locking all their things away in a hoard. In the end, they "got it" that selfishness is wrong, even though it took quite a bit of ridicule and very obvious peer pressure to change the character of the child in the story.
At the end of every chapter, it's almost a teachable moment for me to share why I'm so proud of my children -- for example, what they have willingly and cheerfully done, and why that makes me so proud. It sinks in very deeply after we have all been laughing together and enjoying one another.
I would give it four-and-a-half stars, but that's not an option. I'd hold half a star back because it is so OBVIOUS... but who am I kidding? I am raising Children of Oblivion, who wander around with garments inside-out or backwards half the time. If it isn't OBVIOUS, they are going to miss it. I'm going to go looking for a Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle that addresses tattling and interrupting. There are four or five books in the series -- I'll be putting them on my wish list.