Happy Birthday, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle (Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle (HarperCollins)) [ペーパーバック]

I adored the original Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books by Betty MacDonald. I found them at my grandparent's house where they had belonged to my mother and my aunt. The books included collections of fabulous and fantastical short stories where children were duly 'rewarded' for their behavior. For example, The Radish Cure featured a child who didn't want to bathe; in due time, her mother planted tiny seeds in the caked on dirt. They sprouted and grew and her mother harvested the little radishes until she begged for a bath. Each story typically involved some sort of magic or slightly-over-the-edge logical consequential come-uppance. I still laugh hysterically at some of the stories (I Thought You Said Itis cracks me up even now). I was really thrilled to find a 'new' Piggle-Wiggle book...until I read it.

It was a crushingly disappointing read. Happy Birthday Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle lacks the backward charm and inventive cures of the originals... rather you're bludgeoned with politically correct solutions. It is not as well written or thoughtfully developed. Part of the charm of the originals was the magic -- the unwitting and clueless parents, the mature talking animals and children who were allowed to be their rather beastly selves. Happy Birthday tries too hard to homogenize the cures, the children and poor Mrs. Piggle Wiggle herself.

Truly, this book is a sad attempt and a poor tribute to Betty MacDonald's lasting legacy of humor and creativity. Save your money and buy the originals.

Two years ago when my favorite second-grader boy bookworm came home singing the praises of a book his teacher read to their class entitled, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, I stopped by the library, picked up the others, and read them to my two favorite bookworms with delight. So I was surprised but cautiously excited to find out what this "new" book was all about, especially as it lists the original author first, followed by her daughter, Anne MacDonald Canham. After delving deeper (which was worth it, since I found out about her bio, The Egg and I, which I'm now reading), I realized that was a bit of a stretch and, I might add, misleading. Betty MacDonald died in 1958 and her only contribution to this book was to the first (of eight) chapter. Her daughter, the primary author, does a pretty good job of following the format and including difficult vocabulary words, as in the original. Each chapter explains a situation involving a child's bad behavior, followed by some sort of referral of the parents to Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, who provides a spot on cure for what ails them. In this case, it's too much television, lack of dental hygiene, picky eating, being scared to try new things, messiness, and not finishing one task before moving on to the next. Unfortunately, the cures are not as creative and some of the story situations don't make sense. What I remember from the original is that the cures generally caused children to want to change. In this book, except for the first chapter (which, remember Mom MacDonald had a hand in), the cures are a bit hard to swallow. For example (alert - I'm about to share some of the cures, so if you don't want to know, STOP READING):

A friendly, tooth-brushing dog growls to get the girl to do the same. A parent could do that differently, but just as easily.

Magic powder makes all foods taste like noodles, the picky eater's favorite dish, until he gets tired of the taste. But why put it on delicious foods too? And while he's willing to go back to eating foods like pizza without the noodle-taste powder, there is no indication that he becomes more adventurous about trying foods he never liked.

Firefighters enlist the help of a boy afraid to try in rescuing a (complicit) cat from a tree by asking the boy to show them how to climb it. As I read it, I wondered, why not just use the ladder truck to pluck the cat from the branch, instead of using a land-based ladder and putting the little boy in danger.

Although the illustrations are commendable, their quality can't make up for a good but inexplicable attempt to recreate the marvelously wonderful Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books. Better: the originals, all by Betty MacDonald: Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle; Hello, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle; Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's Magic; and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's Farm.

it's definitely not like the original Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books. I understand that Betty Macdonald if responsible for the first chapter but it sounds to me like it was written recently. It makes me wonder if her daughter had to finish the material she found and used modern day language. For instance, the little boy says, "Cool," instead of "Zowie!" or some other old slang. The time in which the previous books were written was part of the charm for me and this book just doesn't have that old-fashioned feel.
The first chapter is also incredibly long, even for a Mrs. Piggle Wiggle book. I read to my boys a chapter before they go to bed. I've tried to read this chapter 3 times and have yet to finish it because they fall asleep before we get to the end. It's probably why this chapter didn't make it into one of her previous books.
It's okay but know that it's not the same as the originals.