Author: Betty MacDonald
Illustrator: Hillary Knight
Age Range: 6-10
Genre: Beginning Chapter Book
I grew up with Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. I loved her, wanted to live in her neighborhood, and wanted to play at her house. I drew great satisfaction from the fact that I was far better behaved than the children in her book, and thought that my mom would never have to go to her for advice.
These days, I wish Ms. Piggle-Wiggle lived next door to me so I could go to her for advice with my own three munchkins, for you see, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle knows EXACTLY how to handle children. She loves having children go to her house and play there. (It doesn't hurt that her house is built upside down and she makes everything just fun for the children.) She allows children to play with her hair, dig in her yard, serve her tea, and in other words - play.
All this time with children has made her an expert in how to handle the most common childhood ailments. This book covers some childhood cures such as The Won't Pick Up Toys Cure. (I could use a few doses of this myself actually.) The cure involves no magic, but instead focuses on the child's behavior. The cure for this particular ailment is having the boy just play with all of his toys in his room, and his mother is NOT to pick them up. Eventually he gets stuck in his room and cannot come out. He doesn't care initially and his mom is somewhat worried about his food intake, so Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle says to hand up food to his window on a rake, which his mother dutifully does. After a few days of being stuck in his room, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle plans a parade which goes right in front of his house, and for sure, he wants to participate. Only he can't get out of his room. The only solution for him to get out of his room is to clean it up, pick up all the toys, and put everything back where he belongs. He does just this.
My favorite cure in the book is the Fighter-Quarrelers cure, which focuses on twin sisters who fight and argue over everything. (Anyone relate?) Their mother heads over to Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle at her wits end, and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's advice is this - fight harder and yell louder than the kids. The parents begin to argue more outrageously than the children, and this quickly silences them and makes them re-evaluate their behavior. Hmm...perhaps I should try this with my own Fighter-Quarrelers.
This is a fantastic book, and there are three more in the series. I highly recommend them all as great fun reads that your child will thoroughly enjoy. In it are the tiniest snapshots of our own children, in their own ways and all kids quickly relate and understand the book.
This one Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle uses a bit of magic to cure childhood ailments
Another fun one...including cures like The Slowpoke Cure
One where Mrs. Piggle Wiggle relocates to a farm
Note...Amazon does have a 4 books for 3 promotion - all these books apply, and I would say that these are a fantastic addition to your child's library. (they will want to read over and over.)
No comments:
Post a Comment