Madeline

Description

A Caldecott Honor Book

Madeline in reality needs no introduction. A long lasting classic, Madeline continues to enchant readers more than seventy years after its first publication.

Nothing frightens Madeline—not tigers, not mice, not even getting unwell. To Madeline, a go back and forth to the hospital is a grand adventure. Poor Miss Clavel! In “an old house in Paris that was once covered with vines,” Miss Clavel oversees the education of 12 little girls, the littlest of whom is the mischievous Madeline. Regardless of her size, she fearlessly pooh-poohs the tiger in the zoo and frightens Miss Clavel with her adventurous antics. When she awakens all of the house with her plaintive cries in the midst of the night, Doctor Cohn whisks the appendicitis-stricken Madeline off to the hospital where, some two hours later, she awakens to find a scar on her stomach! The scar (not to mention the flowers, toys, and candy given to Madeline by her father) proves somewhat interesting to the remainder of Miss Clavel’s charges when they make a special go back and forth to visit her. Ludwig Bemelmans’s lilting rhymes are music to children’s ears, and the quirky, oddly perfect drawings of the girls in “two straight lines” lend an enticing Parisian flavor to this perennial children’s favorite. (Ages 3 to 8)