Madeline (Picture Puffin S.) (Madeline)

by Ludwig Bemelmans

Ludwig Bemelmans (Illustrator)

"In an old house in Paris that was covered in vines, lived twelve little girls in two straight lines." Our first introduction to the twelve little girls and Miss Clavel. Something is not right with Madeline. She wakes up with a terrible pain one night - it's her appendix! She has to go to hospital to have it taken out. Her friends are sad and miss her very much. But when they visit and find her surrounded by all her presents - and, best of all, see her new scar - they all decide they want their appendixes out too!

• ISBN13: 9780590133371
• Publish Date: 1 September 1997 (first published December 1957)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 26 February 2010
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Scholastic
• Imprint: Scholastic Hippo
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 48
• Language: English

Reviews

I always enjoyed the Madeline cartoon as a kid. The song was catchy and Madeline (and Pierre) were amusing. That said, I don't think I ever read the books.

But the first book is not bad. Very similar to the show but lacking music. The story is a little confusing - orphans? Papa? boarding school? I don't really get the circumstances of Madeline's living arrangements but it's a minor thing to ignore.

I enjoyed the rhymes and the illustrations were gorgeous. Particularly the watercolour ones. I really liked the text arrangement on the last page, the way it echoed the trailing off of the rhyme. The story itself was fairly simple but entertaining to follow.

Target audience 4.5 stars, rounded to 5. For myself 3.5.

[ktshpd]

Precious. I'd never read it until yesterday but man I loved her spunkiness.

[cherryblossommj]

Madeline has been a character in my head from my youth and then years of baby sitting that I expected to come back to, but I didn't really remember the story. We read it last night as part of a Sonlight P3/4 suggestion, but I'm delighted to see that it will also be on our Memoria Press Junior Kindergarten list.

The edition that we read was a part of [b:The 20th-Century Children's Book Treasury: Picture Books and Stories to Read Aloud|238068|The 20th Century Children's Book Treasury Celebrated Picture Books and Stories to Read Aloud|Janet Schulman|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1411333628s/238068.jpg|230604]. I really enjoyed the story, but this is another example of one that really does not work in the condensed version. I think it would work for an older child, but for us it puts too much information on one page. I mean come on almost 12 individual pages on a two-page spread for the treasury? Sensory overkill, and ambiance loser.

I think now that I will have to get us our own individual copy of the book, but I need to decide whether paperback is fine, or if this is one that we need to splurge on as a hardcover. Opinions??

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