For some reason today I started thinking about the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books. I think it was because I was preparing for a class I’m teaching tomorrow, and I couldn’t focus on figuring out some compelling search examples for students researching mercury levels in salmon.
I really shouldn’t have children, because I’d be tempted to give my kid the name of one of the characters in the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books, like “Pergola Wingsproggle.” Then my child would probably murder me in my sleep for having been assigned such a traumatic name.
Now, in the first book Mrs. Piggle Wiggle was able to modify a problem child’s behavior by using reverse psychology. My apartment tends to resemble a stage of the “Won’t Pick Up Toys Cure” myself, as I have too much stuff and not enough storage space. I am however able to walk around my apartment, unlike the poor boy who was trapped in his room until he was unable to move and almost missed the circus.
In the first book Mrs. Piggle Wiggle allowed children to never put away their toys until they had to deal with the consequences, labeled all their belongings “Don’t Touch” until they were shamed into sharing, or let them stay up so late that they became totally exhausted and demanded a regular bedtime. In the latter volumes of the series it seemed that Mrs. Piggle Wiggle had run out of patience with the slow approach and stuck to prescribing “magic pills” that just seemed to cure everything. Was Betty MacDonald predicting the rise of drugs used to modify one’s behavior (not that there’s anything wrong with that)? Or did she just run out of steam?
11:46 am on April 9th, 2004 1
I liked the non-magic cures, too. Like “The Radish Cure,” or when she had parents yelling at each other while weighing green beans. But how did her house stay inverted and not fall over? Was that magic, too, was it propped up, or was it just extremely well-balanced?
6:52 pm on April 10th, 2004 2
You assume it had a peaked roof. If it had a flat roof, staying inverted is no trick.
As to mercury levels in salmon, it’s just a matter of the right database. Web of Science might do the trick. Scifinder Scholar would make this a triviality. Oh, yeah. You probably don’t have the same number of seats as students in your class. ACS has priced Scifinder Scholar so that only the “fitch and ramous” (as Bill Straus of the Capitol Steps would say) can use it.
8:17 pm on April 10th, 2004 3
I can’t remember if there were illustrations showing an upsidedown house with a peaked roof in the book
Ah, but the class I was preparing for was a freshmen composition class. They didn’t need anything as technical as Web of Science or Scifinder Scholar.
4:47 am on April 12th, 2004 4
My guess is that she ran out of steam. She never intended to write books in the first place. I know that after reading her non-fiction autobiographical books I’ll never look at Mrs Piggle-Wiggle quite the same way again.
7:58 pm on April 12th, 2004 5
I haven’t read any of her non-fiction, all I know is that she did something with a farm, based on viewing 30 minutes of “The Egg and I”. I’ll have to check to see if they have any of her non-fiction at the library…