Why I Built The Boogle House [Hardcover]

Helen Marion Palmer (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 63 pages
• Publisher: Beginner Books; Book Club (BCE/BOMC) edition (1964)
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0006BLUE8
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #137,546 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Captures the imagination, October 2, 2007

By 

Cathy Sisson "Runs With Cats" (MI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Why I Built The Boogle House (Hardcover)

This is a children's book about a little boy who gets a pet turtle, decides to build a house for the turtle, then loses the turtle. A succession of pets follow and he adds on to the house to accommodate each animal, turning the structure into a hodge-podge of design and a contractor's nightmare. Through it all, the original turtle house can be seen.

The book doesn't try to teach a lesson, but does capture the imagination of kids. It's a refreshing change to see something that shows a kid trying to solve his own problem, using his own skills to build, utilizing his brain to visualize what he wants, then attempting to make his idea a reality. Much like kids did before the advent of Baby Einstein and similar learning materials. This book lets kids put themselves into the character's place and just have fun with the story.

This book made such an impression on my sister-in-law that 20 years after she read it, she bought it for her own son and he loves it. Very few kids books can do that, and that makes this book a classic.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Funny, quirky kids' book, September 23, 2007

By 

Pauline J. Alama "Fantasy author" (Rutherford, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This was a childhood favorite of mine which I recently picked up used for my 4-year-old son. A boy who gets a pet turtle decides it needs a turtle house, so he builds one--only to lose the turtle. One pet after another follows, and the boy adds more and more lumber to the haphazardly-constructed little house. The original tiny turtle house never goes on the scrap heap: it's always visible as an odd little cupola sticking out of the duck house--no, kitten house--no, rabbit house. . . . It caught my imagination when I was a kid, and it's doing the same for my kid now.

I think of this as one of the books that built my brain: whenever I find something built haphazardly and added on to as you go along, whether it's a building or an organization or a system, somewhere in my mind the image resurfaces of the gigantic Boogle House with the original Turtle House still stuck on top. It's educational in a way that none of this Baby Einstein junk ever can be: it shows a child trying to solve his own problems with his own ingenuity, creativity, and strength, and at the same time, quietly demonstrates a flaw in a common approach to solving all sorts of problems--without ever once seeming to try to teach a lesson. It's odd, it's funny, it appeals to kids, and overall, I think it's brilliant, and I'm sorry to find it's out of print. The local library was crazy to sell it, but I'm glad we got it.