Mrs. Piggle Wiggle

Mrs. Piggle Wiggle (Mrs. Piggle Wiggle #1)

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4.16 of 5 stars 4.16  ·  rating details  ·  23,903 ratings  ·  598 reviews
Everyone loves Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. She lives in an upside-down house and smells like cookies. She was even married to a pirate once. Most of all, she knows everything about children. She can cure them of any ailment. Patsy hates baths. Robert never puts anything away. Allen eats v-e-r-y slowly. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle has a treatment for all of them.

Contents:
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle,...more
Paperback, 119 pages
Published (first published 1947)
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Community Reviews

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Marvin
Wow. I forgot all about these books. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle was an eccentric lady that parents turned to when they became frustrated with their children's misbehavior. Her techniques were pretty predictable. Let the child do what they want until their behavior back-fired, then she would tell the parents to do some nasty little trick that sent the kids running to the sanctity of good behavior. For instance, when the children wouldn't wash, she would let them get really dirty, then plant radish seeds...more
Chandra
Although I can’t say I am head over heels in love with this book I would call it a very successful chapter book read aloud and I would very highly recommend it as such. It is an odd little book because many of the things I consider to be potential negatives could also be construed as positives.

First, having been published in 1947, the family dynamics presented are extremely old fashioned. Think Leave it to Beaver – mom stays home, dad goes to the office and for the most part leaves all domestic...more
Anagha Pashilkar
Mrs. Piggle Wiggle is a very funny book and it's fun to read. Mrs. Piggle Wiggle lives in an upside down house, has a dog named Wag and catt named Lightfoot, and knows every kid in the neighborhood. I like Mrs. Piggle Wiggle because she is kind, funny, and knows everything about kids there is to know. This book explains in detail so it paints a perfect picture in your mind and the stories that this book tells can actually tach you things like how doing chores is good and can be fun.I give this b...more
Jonathan
Rather enjoyable book that the family listened to while riding in the car. Essentially, Mrs Piggle-Wiggle knows exactly how to parent all children, even though she's never had any children herself. All the neighborhood parents call her for advice, she gives it to them, and it works wonders. Not too deep on plot, but the vignettes are humerous, both intentionally, and due to the somewhat dated nature of the book. Imagine the trouble Mrs piggle-wiggle had once tv was invented...
Janet
Banned books:

Are you there God, its me, Margaret
Huckleberry Finn
Heather has two Mommies

Why are people wasting their time on those well meaning books when Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle is still out there on shelves, unchallenged, messing with people's heads?! I read this odd little book when I was about eight and STILL have recurring nightmares about The Radish Cure. I just reread it today, trying to vanquish my fears, and now I'm afraid to go to sleep.

I will not go into details about The Radish Cure except...more
Leigh Anne
As a parent, I have tried to steer my children toward some of the books I loved as a child, with indifferent success. I chalked it up to the generation gap, among other things. So I could hardly believe it a few years ago when my kids went mad, I mean bonkers, for Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, a children's book character who is like the 1940s version of Willy Wonka. As a result, I have read nearly every episode in the life of Mrs. P.-W., and I must warn anyone tempted to go down the same road that the sto...more
Julesmarie
I can remember just absolutely adoring these books as a child. But I'd completely forgotten about them (and then unfortunately mistaken them for the Amelia Bedelia books...) until I found this in a bookstore yesterday.

I remember being so fascinated by Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's upside-down house with the slidey floors and the dress-up clothes and the pony and wishing so badly I could be one of the children who got to visit her.

It's curious how different the experience of reading this as an adult was....more
Debbie
I really enjoyed this kids book! Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle is your neighborhood busybody, but this one loves kids and they love her. She not only lets them, but encourages them, to dig for treasure in her backyard, make cookies, darn socks, and do other chores that they can learn as "fun" at her house. It's no wonder she knows every child in her small town...

The book is written mainly as entries for advice that Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle provided neighborhood moms when they were trying to improve the behavior...more
Megan Larson
Recommended for grades 1-4.
I preview-read the first couple of chapters of this for my kids as my before-bed reading, and I laughed aloud so much that I couldn't wait to share it with them the next day. Sure enough, they were taken by Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle in a way I don't think I've seen before. She's the neighbor every kid wishes for, and would make an ideal grandmother--her home and person are entirely at the children's disposal. But Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle is no child's fool, and when it comes time...more
Anna Ligtenberg
ISBN 0064401480 - Let's get the crazy parents out of the way first. If you think reading a book in which all the moms are stay-at-home moms will cause your child to have a psychological break with the reality of 2007, please leave this review and do not buy this book. If you think that the reference of a parent to their desire to paddle the behind of a poorly behaved child will scar your innocent child for life, or that the one-time mention of a father calling his overweight son Blimpy is too ha...more
Mistiemae1 Downs
In Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, by Betty MacDonald, readers are introduced to a clever, imaginative, and eccentric character whose love of children allows her unique insight into their behavior. Each chapter beyond the first illustrates Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle offering her expertise and loving cures to distraught parents, usually via some ridiculous and hilarious manner.

The good news is that my children were more entertained by the book than I was. Each chapter follows the same basic formula, with a mother ex...more
Jared Burton
MacDonald, Betty, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1947.
Genre - Fiction
This is a book about a rather odd lady who lives in an upside down house. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle started off in the neighborhood lonely without any friends until one little girl who was running away from home because she was tired of doing the dishes was taken in by Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. After she told Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle her ordeal, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle showed her how she did the dishes. She told the little gi...more
Lydia Presley
I just finished reading this book to my niece (4) and nephew (6). There are so many things I loved about it, I think I'll just list them out here.

1. Everything was so simple - simple enough for me to laugh and enjoy reading, and simple enough that the children could understand what I was reading about. As much as I love reading descriptions aloud to them, it's more fun for THEM to hear dialog and funny cures.

2. The symptoms are VERY real ones. Never wanting to go to bed, fighting all the time, n...more
Emily
I never encountered Mrs Piggle-Wiggle as a child, but I know that many people who did really adore this series. Coming to it as an adult, I feel like I've missed out on some kind of special magic that it must have, because while I liked it well enough, it's hard for me to see how it could inspire such fond devotion.

I read Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle to my six-year-old, having just recently resolved to make more of an effort to read aloud chapter books to him (we've been stuck in a loop, reading the same...more
Nik
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Jane
Not sure how I missed this when I was little, since I read just about everything I could find, but I do think that I would have enjoyed it for the charming language and for waiting to find out the ingenious "cure" that Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle dishes out in each chapter. As an adult I found the book a bit blatantly moralistic and preachy, despite the tongue-in-cheek tone, and I might, as a child, have felt that the characters were being condescended to. The book doesn't follow particular child charact...more
Natalie
Nov 30, 2009 Natalie rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Children everywhere
Recommended to Natalie by: NEH Classics list
This book is truly delightful. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle lives in an upside down house, has buried treasure in her back yard, and understands children like nobody else. She knows how to make mundane jobs like doing the dishes and making the beds an adventure. And she has the perfect solutions for childhood tantrums and idiosyncracies -- common sense ideas taken to the extreme include the Won't-Pick-Up-Toys cure, the Answer-Backer cure, the Never-Want-to-Go-to-Bedders cure, the Slow-Eater-Tiny-Bite-Take...more
Kim Bui
I think I still own a Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. I think they read them to us in grade school and I started reading the rest from the school library. They're such cute stories with pretty good morals that aren't so obtusely hidden. I mean the kids that are reading this are smart enough to figure out that these are stories to teach them.
Elizabeth
I read this book about 4,657 times when I was a kid. It is JUST as hilarious when I re-read it as an adult. In fact, I appreciated some parts even more, such as the snarky references to other parents' "helpful advice." Also, this book seems SO great for talking about moral issues with kids! Not only is it funny, but Mrs. Piggle Wiggle "cures" bad behavior by either forcing someone to see his sin for what it really is or giving someone exactly what he wants so he can see how it leads to emptiness...more
Allie
I've been reading these funny stories to my daughter who is 3. It's a chapter book so it doesn't have pictures but we read a chapter a day and she likes the story. I can remember MY Mom reading these to me time and time again.. until I could read them myself.
Tawny
A friend recommended this book to me and I enjoyed it. I think it is a good book especially for parents to read to their children. It seems as if Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle has a cure for everything. No matter if it not putting things away, not liking bathes, or kids who don't want to go to bed she is always coming up with creative ideas how to take care of the problem. She is never mean to the children either. I think it also can show that there are different ways to handle the children if need be. (No...more
Amory Blaine
I loved this book when I was a kid! Mrs Piggle-Wiggle herself is Mary Poppins meets Pippi Longstocking. She lives in an upside-down house overrun with pets, married a pirate, and leads neighborhood children on fantastic adventures. Her real skill, however comes in dealing with overwrought parents, who turn to her to find cures for common childhood "ailments" like selfishness and answering back. The parents are the same characters (distant and wise-cracking father; baffled and concerned mother) i...more
Megen LaVine
I don't often write about the children's books we read, but this one was notable! Notable because while I found it to be a bit tiresome- my children loved it!!! I started reading it to one and they all became enthralled! It became our "family" reading story, which is tough to find for a 4,6 and 8 year old and I look forward to reading more of her books with them. They remembered details of Mrs. Piggle Wiggle which cracked them up and reference her cures and silliness all the time. Whereas there...more
alex
I'm happy to say that Mrs. Piggle Wiggle has stood the test of time quite well - I loved these as a kid, and Leon is loving them now, 25 years later. Aside from a few moments where the author describes motivations in a way that would be considered dated today (like when a mother is described as resorting to crying on the phone to the father, because she's frustrated but also because she knows that will get his attention), the stories are still fun and funny, and the behavioral problems are still...more
Erika
The girls loved Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. There are parts of the book that are a little dated, but that was fine as the problems the children (and their parents!) were having seem to be timeless: Not wanting to go to bed or take a bath or pick up toys, selfishness, bickering, and picky eating. There were many times when we were reading the book and I was describing the exasperated parent and the girls said, "Mommy she sounds just like you!" Ah! After we had finished the book, I happened to ask my seve...more
Elizabeth
I remember when I was a little girl, this was my favorite series ever. I just remembered I read it like two seconds ago, so I thought I would add it. Even if you read the premise on this site, it sounds adorable, and it makes me want to read it again. I remember when I finished it even. I was in church, and I was reading. HAHAH. Even that is hilarious. I guess I just couldn't put it down. And I remember after I finished, I could barely concentrate on anything else because I loved it so much and...more
Poiema
I scouted this book out because I had such pleasant memories of a teacher reading it to me back-in-the-day, around 1963. Fine literature it is not, but Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle understands children and she made just as deep an impression on my children as she did on me. My daughter scouted out all of the books in this series and laughed over them, shared them with her little sister, and re-read them. They are just clean fun, honing in on bad habits that all children are prone to have and calling Mrs....more
Ann
I remember adoring the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books when I was little, except for Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's Farm because it didn't have any magical cures in it. I was surprised to find that this first book in the series didn't include them either. I didn't love it as much as I think I will love re-reading the next couple of books, but I still think the little stories are really fun. I love the old-fashioned feeling of these books. However, the radish cure story is the grossest thing ever and I had to cri...more
Dana
This was a cute book written in an era before my time. We enjoyed watching our 3 year old as we read all the interesting words. She also thought it was funny that all the grown-ups didn't know what to do with their misbehaving children, and they would call Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle for advice. She would give the parents very practical and creative solutions to the child's bad choices. We also didn't expect to see positive changes in our daughter after each chapter. It was a fun read, however, it was ha...more
Angela Wade
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
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Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle (Hardcover)
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Mrs. Piggle Wiggle (Hardcover)

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The first book written by Betty MacDonald, The Egg and I , rocketed to the top of the national bestseller list in 1945. Translations followed in more than 30 languages, along with a series of popular movies. In the wake of World War II, the hilarious accounts of MacDonald's adventures as a backwoods farmer's wife in Chimacum Valley were a breath of fresh air for readers around the world. On the ne...more
More about Betty MacDonald...
Hello, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's Magic Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's Farm The Egg and I Mrs. Piggle Wiggle Box Set

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