All jumblied up.
These illustrations are very interesting. The pig they buy is the color of the sky, clouds and all. There's a giant, realistic looking, Stilton cheese. It's... interesting. It's not great, but it's not bad. It's just goofy.
If you do something impossible, everybody will be jealous. Or, maybe there is no message.
I can't accuse her of trying too hard.
It's kind of like The Ugly Duckling, except that the duck finds her way home before she turns into an adult, and she doesn't get horrendously abused.
Wood ducks are different from chickens.
The biggest wonder: Why?
It comes across like somebody made this character, Arthur the dog, and wanted to illustrate him in a bunch of locations.
Traveling is educational and cool.
All good things must come to an end.
It's rare to get that kind of honesty in a children's book, and it makes the story about the life that Madeline and her Grandpa shared.
Spending time with your Grandfather is fun. Or, death is a part of life, but it's not the only part.
At least they're toilet trained.
Whenever books start down the path of 'it is better to be this type of person than this other type of person,' which this book is very clearly doing, they risk alienating a great deal of people, children and adults alike. I don't like my books to be this judgmental.
Dads who act like children are awesome.
Time of wonder, book of boredom.
It just drags. It's not badly written, but like many old books, it's incredibly wordy and just goes on forever. It seems older than a book written in 1957.
Living on an island is fun.
This book! Yuck! Yuck!
It's just not okay for a book to basically trample over a kid's wishes, especially when it's really a simple thing that he's asking for. She needs to find something else that she can do for him, or with him, that is the equivalent to her of kissing that he at least tolerates, if not enjoys. Does he like gentle kisses? Hugs? High-fives?
Suck it up if you don't like kisses.
I dunno, electricity is nice.
Looking at it from the house's standpoint, it's a perfectly reasonable story. It's not great, but not bad. And it's rather dated.
Some houses prefer to be in the countryside.
There's a reason zookeepers usually use sedation.
I'm not crazy about this book, but I like the way the idea is presented: both of the characters feeling the same way about each other but being brave or not wanting to get angry. It seems like it would help children understand the concept of empathy, and the idea that 'he's just as scared of you as you are of him.'
Try to think about others' points of view, and understand how others are feeling.
In the words of War, "Why Can't We Be Friends?"
It seems like it's trying to say that you need to be nice to people for them to like you back, which is a decent message to have. It kind of reminds me of the book "Grumpy Cat" (not to be confused with the internet superstar).
Even creatures that don't get along at first can learn to appreciate each other.
