Customer Reviews

Mad About Madeline

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

My daughter had seen a couple of Madeline videos (including Madeline's Resuce) and really enjoyed them, so I decided to purchase this book. Well, after only having it for a week and a half, she is pulling it off her bookshelf and asking me to read it to her. The sing-song quality of the prose has her "reading" along with me as best she can already.

These stories can be understood by toddlers even at this early age, although the "recommended" age for this book is older.

A great book and a good deal - worth the price.

Our two little girls, three and two years old, LOVE Madeline. Daddy reads them one story each night -- they always get to pick which. For Christmas they got two new books which are still almost unread, since every night they want Madeline! The stories are exciting, but gentle and sweet; they are moral but not preachy. And the poetry is wonderful! Also the stories are not too long for a tired parent's voice at bedtime. But with only two little ones of my own, I wonder how DOES Miss Clavel keep TWELVE little girls in two straight lines?

I am sitting here with a young lady four years old who is also called Madeline and a large part of her being named Madeline was that I as her father - am "Mad about Madeline" too.

It is the flow and rythmn of the stories plus the beautiful water color illustrations. My four year old's favorite is "Madeline's Rescue". My favorite is "Madeline and the Gypsies" but they are all outstanding. A childhood without one of these books - buy one of the paperbacks if you you are new to Madeline and don't want to buy the complete selection yet- is incomprehensible.

As the title indicates, "Mad About Madeline: The Complete Tales" has the virtue of providing all six of Ludwig Bemelmans stories about the irrepressible Madeline, who first made her appearance way back in 1939. There is also an introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anna Quindlen; an essay by Bemelmans on how he invented Madeline entitled "The Isle of God"; and never-before-published photographs of the Bemelmans family and working sketches of Madeline. I was rather surprised to learn Madeline was celebrating her 60th birthday and even more surprised to learn these stories were not originally written and published in France (I thought it was obvious they were).

Ludwig Bemelmans was actually born in Merano, Italy, and came to the United States in 1914. A painter and illustrator, Bemelmans contributed covers to "The New Yorker," and also started writing fiction. A world traveler and true cosmopolite, Bemelmans wrote and illustrated "Madeline" in 1939, naming his most popular creation for his wife, Madeleine Freund. They had a daughter named Barbara, who would provide inspiration for some of the six Madeline books. In addition to the rhyming descriptions of "the old house in Paris that was covered with vines" and the "twelve little girls in two straight lines," for me the chief attraction were the Paris scenes that Bemelmans worked into his stories. He takes full advantage of the complete palette when he does most of those scenes. Plus, children like him because he colors outside the lines, just like they do.

"Madeline" (1939) is still the best of the bunch, as we learn that Madeline might be the smallest one of the twelve girls, but she "was not afraid of mice," just said "Pooh-pooh" to the tiger in the zoo, and knew how to frighten Miss Clavel more than anybody else. Madeline is smart, says what she thinks, and is she is a bit disobedient that is just another reason to love her. Perhaps not all little girls would be as brave as Madeline when they are rushed out to the hospital in the middle of the night for an emergency appendectomy, but I suspect they would like to think that they would be as brave and show off the scar on their stomach with as much ?lan as Madeline (5 Stars).

In "Madeline and the Bad Hat" (1956) the Spanish Ambassador moves into the house next door. Miss Clavel is excited to see that His Excellency has a boy, but Madeline knows as soon as she sees him that Pepito is a Bad Hat (a colloquialism for an unscrupulous person) and his actions prove her right. Miss Clavel finally decides that Peito needs an outlet for his energy, and so she gets him a chest of tools. But Pepito builds himself a guillotine and while we do not actually see it in action the device is clearly used to cut the heads off of the chickens the cook is preparing for dinner. Pepito clearly deserves a comeuppance and what is surprising is not that he gets one, but that it is rather painful and the former Barbarian is reformed (4 Stars).

"Madeline's Rescue" (1951) is more about Madeline's rescuer, the dog that rescues her from the river. Miss Clavel and the other girls take Madeline and the dog home, but there is a fight among the girls as to where the dog should sleep. The dog, named Genevieve, proves to be clever and everybody is happy for six months. Then comes the day of the annual inspection by the trustees, and these wretched people order Miss Clavel to get rid of "it." This is where we learn that we were wrong about the title, because it is not about the rescue OF Madeline but the rescue BY Madeline, Miss Clavel, and the other girls. For it is Madeline who jumps on a chair and declares: "Miss Genevieve, noblest dog in France, You shall have your VEN-GE-ANCE!" (5 Stars).

"Madeline and the Gypsies" (1958-59) has Pepito inviting the twelve little girls over a Gypsy Carnival. A cloudburst sends everybody home, but when the girls are tucked into bed Miss Clavel discovers that Madeline is missing. This is because at the top of the Ferris Wheel, stuck in the rainstorm, are Pepito and Madeline. He climbs down to get aid and the Gypsy Mama, with the aid of the strong man and the clown, get Madeline to safety, and take the children with them when the carnival leaves town for a grand adventure (riding circus horses instead of going to school), that is, until Miss Clavel finds them (4.5 Stars).

"Madeline in Londo, (1961) has everybody going to London to visit Pepito in his new home. There they find a birthday present for Pepito, and then take a tour of London town. This time there is no need for Miss Clavel to wake up in the middle of the night or run fast and faster to some new disaster, because the disaster has to do with Pepito's present for which Miss Clavel is not responsible (4 Stars).

"Madeline's Christmas" was originally published as a special book insert in the 1956 Christmas edition of "McCall's" magazine, is in full color, and is really little more than a Christmas card from Bemelmans. The story seems at first like it might be a take off on "The Night Before Christmas," but it turns out that everybody in the house is in bed with cold except for brave little Madeline, who is taking care of everybody. When a rug merchant shows up with 12 rugs to sell, she buys them so everybody in the house will not have to put their feet on the cold floor when they get out of bed. However, the merchant is also a magician (3 Stars).

This is one of those times when the individual ratings become accumulative, because having all six of the original Madeline stories in one volume, plus the extras, totally justifies five stars overall.

I just bought this for my 3 year old daughter as I wanted to introduce her to Madeline.

Madeline and Miss. Clavel (are) brilliantly brought to life in each of the six short stories. There are are bright, vivid pictures with not too many lines which hold the little one's attention (If the wonderful story lines didn't!)

My daughter and I are really pleased!

Okay, so my title is cutesy, but so is this glorious book. Why it is the publishers waited through four generations of appreciative readers to give little girls (and not so little girls) all the Madeline stories in one volume is beyond me, but who's to complain now that they're finally here? I bought this on first sight. In fact my hand was reaching for it at Borders before my brain had quite coordinated with my eyes what I was seeing. These tales of the spirited little Madeline and her life at the French orphanage are full of the sort of lovely, bright illustrations children react to and remember. (I've written about it before but there's something about vivid colors in a book that stimulates a young mind as little else can, and Madeline is brimming with them.) Now that all Madeline tales can be held in two hands, the opportunity is finally there to settle into bed for the night and read through these beloved little stories until sleep carries you away. Simply grand!

Apprécier!

This is an excellent book for little girls. Our daughter loves it. My only objection is the recommended age range. Our daughter has loved the books and the videos since she was one, and she is four years old now.

"In an old house in Paris
that was covered with vines
lived twelve little girls in two straight lines."

In visiting my granddaughter, age 4, I have been revisiting the Madeline stories by Ludwig Bemelmans. I don't get to see my granddaughter often, but we have been reading Madeline at bedtime. Among other things, she knows the famous, fearless line: "To the tiger in the zoo, Madeline just said 'Pooh-pooh."

Bemelmans (1898 -- 1962) was an American author and artist remembered primarily for his Madeline books. There were six books in the series (another appeared after Bemelmans's death in an edition published by his son) written between 1939 and 1961:

Madeline
Madeline and the Bad Hat
Madeline's Rescue
Madeline and the Gypsies
Madeline in London
Madeline's Christmas

As a child, I was familiar with only the original book which is still the most famous of the series. My daughter knew several of them, as I remember, and now my granddaughter has the entire collection of six little books in this complete edition, "Mad about Madeline." The book also includes, for parents, a useful introduction by Anna Quindlen, an afterward of brief recollections by Bemelmans, and an index after each story of the scenes in Paris that Bemelmans used for his illustrations.

The stories are told in rhymed couplets and feature simple illustrations, some of which are in black, white, and yellow, others in full color. The chief character is the mischievous and adventurous Madeline, the smallest girl in a Paris boarding school of 12 girls, together with the teacher, a nun named Miss Clavel, whose evenings are often disrupted by the antics of Madeline and her companions. Other characters include Pepito, the son of the Spanish Ambassador who lives next door (in three stories) and a dog named Genevive, who saves Madeline from drowning in the story called "Madeline's Rescue". One story, "Madeline in London" takes place in London while another "Madeline and the Gypsies" takes place in part in a Gypsy camp. The final story "Madeline's Christmas" is more fanciful than its companions and includes rides on magic carpets. In each of the stories, the spunky Madeline faces a disaster which is overcome, to the relief of Miss Clavel and the other girls.

It is delightful to revisit these stories, or in some cases to read them anew, with a grandchild. I recently became a grandparent for the second time and have been meeting my new granddaughter for the first time while reading Madeline and having other adventures with her big sister. In a few years, I hope to be reading Madeline to the newborn as well.

Robin Friedman

Madeline is really cool. I'm seven and I like watching Madeline on T.V.and reading the books alot. They're great!

Bemelman's quirky stories and wonderful illustrations captivate my girls when Madeline comes up as the evening's bedtime story. While the original story is by far the most realistic and best, my girls (both under five) love the fact that Madeline has new adventures, and we like that real things happen to her, like her appendix bursting or she falls in the river when playing on a bridge.

Unlike so many children's books, sometimes Madeline's sisters are "very sad." But reading Madeline makes my girls very happy.