Module 2 – Madeline

image from www.amazon.com

Bemelmans, L. (1939). Madeline. New York, NY: Puffin Books.

Summary –

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

Miss Clavel is the nun in a habit who lives in the old house in Paris. She’s in charge of twelve little girls, the smallest and bravest of which is young Madeline. She’s not afraid of mice in the kitchen or tigers in the zoo.  She loves to skate and frighten  Miss Clavel with acts of daring. One night, Madeline comes down with a horrible pain, and Miss Clavel phones the doctor. It’s Madeline’s appendix, and it must come out.  She spends the next ten days recovering at the hospital, where the other girls come to visit her, bringing flowers. Once she shows the girls her new scar, all eleven want to have their appendixes out, too.

Lucien’s thoughts –

This beautiful story told in rhyme is a treasure.  The couplets are great for reading out loud to pre-readers, who can enjoy the sing-song lilt of this delightful tale.  The language is lively, yet simple, and it tells the story of how the littlest girl can have the biggest heart, by not being afraid of the things that might frighten other girls.  I love the fact that Madeline is shown as having courage and spunk, and I can see why she’s part of a long literary tradition of brave girl heroines.

Bemelmans deftly illustrates his own book with landmarks from Paris, including the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, and the Opera House, using a loose and impressionistic drawing style.  The twelve little girls are drawn in bright yellow uniforms with broad-brimmed yellow hats.  The color pallet of the illustrations is spare, often times monochromatic with accents in yellows, reminiscent of children’s own art work. Nevertheless, Bemelmans artwork captures the architecture of Paris in with his fun sketches.

Librarian’s use –

I think one of the new concepts that librarians can explore with young readers is the need for unplanned visits to the doctor.  Starting with appendectomies and moving on to tonsillectomies and other childhood ailments, the librarian can ask the audience to contribute stories from their lives about visits to the doctor, both planned and unplanned.  Reader can discuss times when they were brave in the face of scary medical adventures (such as needles and vaccine shots or visits to the ER).  The librarian can then ask the audience to draw pictures of their medical adventure story.

Other Reviews –

Eastman, J. (1991) Aesthetic distancing in Ludwig Bemelmans’ Madeline. Children’s Literature, 19, 75-89.

For a young reader, one of the most satisfying of these delights is a pervasive sense of controlled danger—a tantalizing tension between the anarchical naughtiness of a supremely vulnerable heroine on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the order and sense of aesthetic distance implicit in such elements as rhymed couplets and the recurring image of "twelve little girls in two straight lines." Madeline's central crisis is as compelling as that of many fairy tales; the climactic rush to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy embodies two of childhood's most painful and frightening possibilities—separation from loved ones and a brush with death… This opposition between symmetry and asymmetry, between order and anarchy, civilization and nature energizes all of Madeline, at the same time that the dominance of the forces of order affords us a sense of security. The mightily glowing sun—a powerful locus of yellow which our black-and-white reproduction cannot adequately depict—suggests the unharnessed force of nature. On the other hand, the massive buildings, the perfect double-line formation of children, and the placement of trees symmetrically suggest the restraints of civilization.

Munson-Benson, C. (2006) 15 picture-book classics for preschoolers. Book Links, 15 (6), 66-68.

This Caldecott Honor Book can barely contain the exuberance of the spunky main character, Madeline, whose exploits in Paris—where she resides with 11 other girls and their headmistress, Miss Clavel—fascinate preschoolers, who delight in the lilting rhyme and her derring-do in this first book…

Breen, K., Fader, E., Odean, K. & Sutherland, Z. (2000) One hundred books that shaped the century. School Library Journal 46 (1), 50.

This all-time favorite introduces one of the best-loved, best-known, and most enduring characters in children's books. Fearless and intrepid, Madeline will live on forever.