But unlike the unalloyed sadism of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, in which children are tortured and maimed for sins like overeating or chewing gum (while touring a candy factory), Mrs.

If this sounds like gothic horror, well, it is. That story alone was curative enough to make me raise my parents’ water bill for months. Piggle-Wiggle to prescribe the “Radish Cure”: Poor Patsy goes unwashed for so long that her parents plant radish seeds in her dirt-encrusted face while she sleeps, so that plants sprout overnight. More unfortunate is Patsy Waters, whose refusal to take baths leads Mrs. When Hubert Prentiss refuses to pick up his toys, he is abandoned to this vice until his mess traps him in his room, forcing him to take his meals through a window off a garden rake. Piggle-Wiggle’s “Tattletale Pills” cause a dark-tailed cloud to emerge from her mouth.Įven more haunting are Mrs. Jody Jones, who skips school to build his tree house, is treated with “Ignorance Tonic,” which makes him forget how to count and read. Piggle-Wiggle prescribes “Crybaby Tonic,” which makes Melody produce enough tears that she nearly drowns. When little Melody Foxglove’s mother complains that Melody cries too much, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle possesses a treasure chest of medicines to treat children’s bad habits-and unlike Ritalin, these cures involve bad trips. Piggle-Wiggle, a childless woman who serves as an unlicensed psychopharmacologist to her suburban neighborhood’s Baby Boomer kids. The books, children’s best sellers from the 1950s that my mother passed to me in the 1980s, are seemingly anodyne stories about the improbably named Mrs. But when I read them to my own children, I was stunned to discover that these silly books are actually horror stories-though for reasons no child could ever comprehend. Piggle-Wiggle books, a series about magic cures for children’s foibles that amazed me as a child. Recently I came across my old copies of Betty MacDonald’s Mrs. Amid constant unpredictability, one small unsung comfort for parents is the chance to revisit books from childhood, to share with your own children the stories you knew and loved. So much of raising children is unimaginable until it happens, an abstract future materialized awkwardly into an actual child covered in dirt. This article is part of Parenting in an Uncertain Age, a series about the experience of raising children in a time of great change.

Betty macdonald mrs piggle wiggle