Dear Hildegarde

by Bernard Waber

Hildegarde is a wise old owl who readily counsels anyone with a problem, from a dog with a bone problem to a moth with a flaming passion

64 pages, Hardcover

First published October 27, 1980

About the author

Bernard Waber was the youngest in a creative family. At age 8, he ushered in a movie theater after school, so he often saw only the last ten minutes of a movie. He made a game of inventing beginnings and middles. When he returned from a tour of duty in World War II, he entered the Philadelphia College of Art. With a diploma and a new wife, he traveled to New York City, where he began working for the Condé Nast magazines as an illustrator. Reading books to his three children inspired him to apply his pen and ink and watercolor style to his own picture books. His first book, Lorenzo, was built in 1961. Today, his characters are some of the most beloved in the library. He and his wife, Ethel, live on Long Island.

Reviews

[Manybooks · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, after quickly skimming through Bernard Waber’s 1980 illustrated chapter book Dear Hildegarde (which I found on Open Library whilst I was in fact looking for a specific children’s book title on Hildegard von Bingen and had borrowed Dear Hildegarde quite inadvertently) I can now definitely understand why this book, why Dear Hildegarde is not really all that well known (with two positive reviews on Goodreads but only six actual shelvings, period).

For honestly, with regard to the author’s, with regard to Bernhard Waber’s presented narrative (a supposedly and proverbially wise old owl named Hildegarde giving written lifestyle advice for letters penned to her by a number of different animals), I can only say that almost every single printed word I have encountered in Dear Hildegarde feels strangely artificially contrived, ridiculously silly and boring, with nothing even remotely interesting and engaging to and for me (and not to mention that the accompanying black-and-white artwork in Dear Hildegarde is also and equally pretty much aesthetically not at all personally appealing).

And although the intended audience of Dear Hildegarde (in my opinion, children from about the age of eight to eleven or so) might well be able to relate to some if not even to many of the topics (the presented problems) featured and being discussed in the fictional letters (such as for example not liking one’s name, being considered stuck up, feeling unappreciated), for me (and yes, even if I had read Dear Hildegarde as a child), aside from those epistles feeling and reading totally tediously, annoyingly and with a certain sense of smugness, the featured anthropomorphism equally drives me textually batty and leaves one star as my only possible rating for Dear Hildegarde. For indeed, anthropomorphic characters such as Hildegarde the owl and the letter writing animal clients to which she gives her advice are generally, are usually just not at all my textual cup of proverbial tea so to speak and Dear Hildegarde would therefore and most definitely need to really be narrationally special for me to appreciate and let alone feel happy regarding Bernard Waber’s storyline (and to be perfectly honest, for and to me, there just really is nothing even remotely readable here, as I have certainly found the entire textual representation of Bernard Waber’s Dear Hildegarde majorly frustrating and rather infuriating at having totally wasted my reading time).

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

A wise owl runs an advice column for other animals. Each instance poses a problem that children may be able to identify with in some way.

[SeaTea · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adored this book when I was a kid. Very clever and fun “advice column” for anthropomorphic critters.