Madeline in London (Picture Puffins) - Softcover

Bemelmans, Ludwig

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140501991 ISBN 13: 9780140501995

Publisher: Puffin, 1977

Synopsis

Madeline and her classmates decide to buy a horse for the ambassador's son while visiting him in London

About this title

Review:

What on earth could make Miss Clavel, Madeline, and her 11 nameless classmates leave belle Paris for the tea-and-crumpeted, sometimes trumpeted city of London? A mission to cheer up the lonely, thin, increasingly despondent Pepito, son of the Spanish ambassador, who had to move away from his house next door to Madeline's in Paris. In their efforts to cheer him up, and for a birthday surprise, Miss Clavel and the girls buy him a retired horse. All is fine until the horse gallops off at the sound of the trumpet to take his place at the head of the queen's Life Guards (his occupation before retiring). As readers whoosh through busy London scenes, we forget the horse has had nothing to eat all day. Upon his return to Pepito's home, he eats everything in sight: "The gardener dropped his garden hose. / There wasn't a daisy or a rose. / 'All my work and all my care / For nought! Oh, this is hard to bear.'" Meanwhile, as the horse is passed out from exhaustion and overeating, Pepito's mother says he has to go. And so Madeline and the others take the horse home with them to Paris, where "They brushed his teeth and gave him bread, / And covered him up / and put him to bed." Ludwig Bemelmans charms us again with the uniquely skewed logic and matter-of-fact madness of childhood that young readers will adore. (Ages 4 to 8) --Karin Snelson

About the Author:

Ludwig Bemelmans was a painter, illustrator, and writer for both children and adults. His Madeline book rank among the most honored children’s book series. Madeline was named a Caldecott Honor Book, and the first of its five sequels, Madeline’s Rescue, won the Caldecott Medal and was a New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year. Mr. Bemelmans died in 1962, after completing Madeline’s Christmas. Visit penguin.com/madeline. 

About this edition

• Publisher: Puffin
• Publication date: 1977
• ISBN 10: 0140501991
• ISBN 13: 9780140501995
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 59