Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle by Betty MacDonald
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.
