Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle Boxed Set: Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's Magic, Hello, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's Farm by Betty MacDonaldMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
We've read these books together many, many times, and the kids STILL ask for them! That is a sure sign that they're good! :)
As a mom, I LOVE the repetition for kids—there is a problem identified, a cure given, and all is well within 20 pages or so! It’s perfect to read one cure a night at bedtime, and they get the full gambit of the story from beginning to end before they slip off into dreamland! They’re sweet, funny, and predictable, which is perfect for kids!
The conversations of the moms with other moms are HILARIOUS!!! They’re perfect!! You call another mom to ask her for advice, but she goes off on how perfect her kids are and what THEY do is always right and wonderful...I laughed and laughed every time a mom would call her 'friend' to ask for help!
The cures in the first book are actually something that could be possible. Such as letting your kid live in his mess of a room until he can't possibly get out! Ha!
The middle two of the series have cures that involve magic pills/powders/talking animals that produce some pretty hilarious results (think pigs with manners, magic powder that makes show-offs invisible, pills that produce smoke with tattletales that puff out of the mouth…) They're fun and the kids loved them--always wondering what cure would be thought up next!
The last book (Mrs. P’s Farm) has cures that could reasonably happen (ie without magic), however the animals are very human-like and thus the cures have that added ‘charm’ so it’s not a ‘how-to’ book that can still be enjoyed by children and parents alike! All the animals have special 'talents' and seem very human like! Especially that crazy parrot! :)
The family setting is very ‘nuclear’—Mom, Dad, kids, family pets… The moms all stay home and bake goodies all day, and are pretty pathetic and wishy-washy. The dads go to work and read the paper and yell if anyone is too loud…they're quick to punish and ignore their family while reading the paper, and have no time to help the moms at all. The kids all walk to school by themselves and play all day without the moms really knowing where they are (the moms will call Mrs. P and Mrs. P will say she knows the children well and the moms are usually quite surprised by this!!!) Also, there's the old-school way of doling out punishment: yelling and spanking. The kids call each other names...and sometimes even call their parents names! (Such as dummy or idiot) I admit, I skipped over those when I read them aloud. Someday, my kids are going to go back and read these to themselves (or their children) and wonder why it is different than what I read! Ha!
My kids laugh and laugh and laugh! They really love the Never-go-to-bedders cure, the radish cure, the thought-you-said cure...and so many more!! As a kid, you can relate and find the action funny and wish you could do all those fun things, too! As an adult, you can also relate—recognizing all those ‘diseases’ in your own kids—and wish that you had a cure-all just a phone call away! I could sure use Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle once in awhile, and if anyone has her contact info, feel free to share!
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