Madeleine the City Pig - Karen Wallace

Advantages: Gently amusing, finely drawn characters
Disadvantages: No swash and very little buckle!

...Monsieur Peluche is a self made man, proud to be a member of the Parisian bourgeoisie. He is wealthy, methodical, a little pompous and a little ridiculous and has made a considerable fortune manufacturing and dealing in artificial fruit and flowers. He dislikes the upper classes, France’s titled noblemen and women who have made their money in which he considers the easy way – by inheriting it. He adores the city and despises the country. It is odd then, that he ever came to be best friends with Madeleine, his almost exact opposite. Although the same age as M. Peluche, Madeleine is happy-go-lucky, gregarious bachelor and totally uninterested in money. One day, to M. Peluche’s horror, Madeleine decides to sell his modest little business and retire to the country where he intends to live off the land, hunting... Read review

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Advantages: Can read it over and over again
Disadvantages: None, actually

...Okay, I know the start of the book is rather cliche, but it's actually the one book I actually love this starting for. This is one of my favorite books I have ever read. I don't know how young I was the first time I picked it up, but I do know I'd read it several times by the time I was 12 years old. I'm now 24 and I still find myself going back to it again and again. Meg Murrey is a bright student who struggle with school because she gets easily frustrated with the step by step processes required for her classmates to solve their math problems. Both her parents are brilliant scientists while she and her adored younger brother, Charles Wallace, are seen by most as backward. Charles Wallace, who is never called Charlie or even Charles, was seen as backward because of his lack of speaking as a young child. He did not speak until he... Read review

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Advantages: imaginative, speaks volumes about who we are and why, and the emaning of family, doesn't talk down
Disadvantages: Child should be a proficient reader with a good vocabulary before attempting this book

...is a child genius, possibly on the autistic spectrum, and though a genius, he is still a child and misses his father very much. The truth about their father is that he did not run off at all; his wife hopes he will someday return from the secret Tesseract project he was working on. The children learn all about the truth of his disappearance one day when they meet a very unusual being who explains what happened to their father, and the peril he now faces. A peril only Meg and Charles Wallace can save him from, and by saving him, save several worlds and ultimately, the human race. Madeleine L'Engle rightfully won a Newberry Award for this book in 1963, and it was because she did that this first came into my possession. My parents would regularly buy me books, and they were particular about what I read. Thus, I was given classics and Caldecott... Read review

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