Ep 701 - Madeline (series), by Ludwig Bemelmans

Summary

Overdue Podcast Summary: Episode 701 - Madeline Series by Ludwig Bemelmans

Release Date: May 5, 2025
Host: Headgum
Hosts: Andrew and Craig
Episode Focus: Exploring Ludwig Bemelmans' Madeline series

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I. Introduction to Madeline

In this episode of Overdue, hosts Andrew and Craig delve into the beloved children's Madeline series by Ludwig Bemelmans. Celebrating the charm and enduring legacy of these classic tales, the duo examines both the original works and their various adaptations over the decades.

II. Ludwig Bemelmans: Life and Inspiration

Andrew and Craig begin by providing a comprehensive overview of Ludwig Bemelmans' life, highlighting his multicultural upbringing and career transition from hotel work to becoming a renowned children's author.

Andrew [12:16]: "Bemelmans was born in 1898... he quit his hotel jobs in 1926 to become a full-time cartoonist."

Bemelmans' multicultural background—being raised in Austria, sent to Germany, and eventually emigrating to America—greatly influenced his storytelling and the settings of the Madeline books. The tension between Bemelmans' personal life and his professional creations adds depth to his narratives.

III. Visual Style of Madeline Books

A significant portion of the discussion centers on Bemelmans' distinctive illustration style, which masterfully blends simplicity with detailed watercolor work.

Andrew [36:07]: "It's a combination of the masterly and the simplistic that makes the drawing so successful... the simple, almost crude lines of the interiors... the gorgeous watercolor of landmarks like the Eiffel Tower."

The hosts appreciate how Bemelmans alternates between minimalist line drawings and richly detailed landscapes, creating a visually engaging experience that appeals to both children and adults.

IV. Analysis of Individual Madeline Books

Andrew and Craig explore several books within the series, offering insights into their plots, themes, and character development.

1. Madeline (1939)

The inaugural book introduces Madeline, the smallest of twelve girls living in a Parisian boarding school under the care of Ms. Clavel. Her fearless nature is showcased when she bravely confronts a tiger at the zoo.

Craig [05:27]: "I remember the original hardcover was a book I bought... nobody knew he was a son except for me."

2. Madeline's Rescue (1953)

This sequel won the Caldecott Medal for its outstanding illustrations. The story features the beloved dog Genevieve, who plays a crucial role in rescuing Madeline from danger.

Andrew [50:00]: "There's a gorgeous painting of this dog rescuing her from the river Seine."

3. Madeline and the Bad Hat (1956)

Introducing Pepito, the Spanish ambassador’s mischievous son, who becomes a central character. His antics, including building a guillotine to kill chickens, add a darker comedic element to the series.

Craig [53:18]: "Pepito is very compelling."

4. Madeline and the Gypsies (1959)

This installment takes Madeline and Pepito to a carnival, where they encounter stereotypes and fantastical elements, reflecting the era's cultural context.

Andrew [58:05]: "They run away with the circus... it's like a fantasy of the kids being in Neverland."

5. Madeline in London (1961)

Madeline’s adventures extend beyond Paris as she travels to London, showcasing Bemelmans' ability to create varied and imaginative settings.

Craig [60:50]: "They open the front of an airplane and put a horse inside of it. It's very silly."

6. Madeline's Christmas (Publication details vary)

This book stands out for its unique illustration style, featuring a close-up of Madeline’s face, which is both beautiful and slightly unsettling.

Andrew [65:01]: "Madeline's face, like, up close in a way that is kind of jarring."

V. Adaptations of Madeline

The hosts discuss the numerous adaptations of the Madeline series, including animated specials, TV series, and live-action films.

Andrew [20:56]: "Deke Entertainment produced an animated HBO special in 1988 and later a TV series with 59 episodes."

Notably, the 1998 live-action film starring Frances McDormand as Ms. Clavel received positive reviews from critics like Siskel and Ebert, despite not being a major box office success.

Craig [19:31]: "The film makes her an orphan, which is a significant departure from the books."

VI. Legacy and Modern Reception

Andrew and Craig reflect on the lasting impact of the Madeline series, considering contemporary perspectives and critiques. While the original books are celebrated for their positive role models and charming narratives, later adaptations and continuations introduce more complex themes.

Craig [70:14]: "These books and shows have great role models and positive messages... Pepito is a beautiful character."

However, the hosts also acknowledge the potential for mixed messages regarding Madeline's mischievous behavior and the series' handling of sensitive topics through its anthropomorphic characters.

VII. Conclusion

In wrapping up the episode, Andrew and Craig express their appreciation for the Madeline series' blend of engaging storytelling and distinctive art. They encourage listeners to revisit these classics, reflecting on how they continue to resonate with new generations.

Andrew [72:27]: "It's a really distinctive blend of... rough and sketchy... interspersed with full-colored, detailed tableaus."

The hosts invite listeners to share their Madeline memories and engage with the podcast's community through email and social media channels.

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Notable Quotes:

• Andrew [36:07]: "It's a combination of the masterly and the simplistic that makes the drawing so successful... the simple, almost crude lines of the interiors... the gorgeous watercolor of landmarks like the Eiffel Tower."

• Craig [53:18]: "Pepito is very compelling."

• Andrew [65:01]: "Madeline's face, like, up close in a way that is kind of jarring."

• Craig [70:14]: "These books and shows have great role models and positive messages... Pepito is a beautiful character."

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For more insights and to join the conversation, visit overduepodcast.com or reach out via email at [e-mail].

Transcript

[Andrew]

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[Craig]

Andrew. Do you say data or data?

[Andrew]

I think I say data. Sure. You asked me and then I forgot which one that I. Yeah, I got which one it was that I said at my house.

[Craig]

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[Andrew]

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[Craig]

Oh, wow.

[Andrew]

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[Craig]

Whoa.

[Andrew]

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[Craig]

That's great.

[Andrew]

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[Craig]

Upfront payment of $45 for 3 month 5GB plan required, equivalent to $15 a month. New customer offer for first 3 months only. Then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. While Andrew and Craig believe the joy of discovery is crucial to enjoying any well told tale, they will not shy away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary. Plus, these are books you should have read by now. Hey everybody. Welcome to Overdue. It's a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name is Craig.

[Andrew]

My name is Andrew.

[Craig]

And there we once we recorded 12 little podcasts and they were all in two rows. You know, it would really help if we either of us had a name that was like a really good.

[Andrew]

Sometimes I do feel like we read for children's book week this year. We have read the six original Madeline stories by Ludwig Bemelmans.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

And I feel like as in the Madeline stories, we will. If you take like a batch of 12 episodes and you put them up in like two straight lines, they're all gonna be fine. But there might only be one that you need to know the name.

[Craig]

Yeah, that's a good way to think about it. Yeah, I know the rhyming in this is. Is very fun as well, which I was like thinking about, could I do an opening that had. Right. And then I was like, no, I'm too tired.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Like, are you good? Are you gonna write a. Are you gonna write. You gonna write some poetry?

[Craig]

I've ever done it for the show and may tune in next week. Maybe I will do it again. But not this week. But I did. There was a quote in one. I don't know if it was the NPR interview with his grandson, who we'll talk about a little bit, but he talks about him. Bemelman's growing up, like learning multiple languages at a very young age and always moving around. And so he. This is the NPR interview. Quote, he didn't speak any language without an accent. And it must have driven his editors crazy because all of his rhymes are like, well, it rhymes in this language, but not the one I'm writing in.

[Andrew]

That is the. You know, it's often Madeline is pronounced Madeleine instead. But in this book, you could not pronounce it Madeline. Has to be made of the rhymes make any sense because, like, I don't know, I feel like at least a quarter to a third of the rhymes are all like directly with the name Madeline. So it's a pretty load bearing pronunciation that and the dog in these.

[Craig]

The dog Genevieve that rhymes with beef. It has to be Genevieve and not Genevieve because it has to rhyme with beef. I read far. I think. Do you read the same one, Andrew? Do you read the Madeline Treasury?

[Andrew]

I read the Mat. A Madeline Treasury.

[Craig]

Sorry, excuse me. You're gonna do that a lot. Wow.

[Andrew]

Yes. The original stories by Ludwig Bemel Mintz previously published as Mad About Madeline. That's why they changed.

[Craig]

It's got a forward. It's got a pretty good forward. By Anna Cor Quinlan. There's one or two things I might shout out as we are talking.

[Andrew]

This is from good observations in there from 1993.

[Craig]

1993. And then the edition that I think we bought is from 2014. And one of the things, I don't know if this is in the other. I cannot remember the last time I read a standalone Madeline book. Like, must have been when I was a kid, probably.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Before Henry was born. We were in New Orleans and we were in this little bookstore.

[Craig]

Oh, yeah.

[Andrew]

French Quarter that we like. And a nice hardcover copy of Madeline, the original One sure was a book I bought. My son I had not met yet. And nobody knew he was a son except for me. That's all because I hadn't. I wasn't allowed to. I needed to know for myself. But Susanna didn't want to know and I couldn't tell anybody else. And so I just lied to everybody for, like, six months. And I was great at it.

[Craig]

So I don't what I'm saying. This edition for a few of the stories has, like, a little rundown of the, like, locations that Bemelmans has drawn and included in his story. It's not in every one of the six, and it's kind of neat. I like it.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I can say that for the first one, like, and this. This goes for, like, color reproduction and all the other, like, the way that the pages are laid out and everything. It is all as it is in the.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Standalone hardcover. So I assume that if you see the. Because it's for, like, this one and, like, number four or something. I forget which ones get the treatment and which ones don't. But if it's in here, then it probably was in the originals like that as well.

[Craig]

So, yeah, we're going to talk through these six tales, some more than others. We're going to be covering Madeline, Madeline's Rescue, Madeline and the Bad Hat, Madeline and the Gypsies, Madeline in London, and Madeline's Christmas, which was, I think, published in the. In 1956 in some places, but then wasn't released, like, independently until much later. So it's at the end of the collection.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Published in a magazine or something.

[Craig]

Yeah, sure.

[Andrew]

In 56. But yeah, the. The original publication years for. For all of these are Madeline is in 1939, Madeline's rescue is in 1953, Big Gap. Madeline and the Bad Hat in 56, Madeline's Christmas also in 56, Madeline and the Gypsies in 59, and Madeline and London in 1961. And then Bammelman's dies in 1962. He'd allegedly had other ideas for Madeline's stuff. Like, there's a story in a book called Madeline in America and Other holiday tales from 1999 that was written by Bemelmans and then illustrated by his grandson John Bemelman's Marciano. And then there's another. We can talk a little bit about the, the, like, the continuation series, but there's one called Madeline at the White House from 2011 that I believe Marciano has said is based on, like, notes or, like, conversations about, like, how Bemelman's had wanted meeting like JFK or going to the White House or something to be like Madeline's next adventure.

[Craig]

I think it was. Oh man, Jackie Kennedy like loved these books and was like they became friends or something. Yeah. I think before we dive into Bellman's, I do just want to say growing up as a kid in the 90s, where, you know, we'll talk about the adaptations, but there was a lot of Madeline stuff out there.

[Andrew]

Uh huh.

[Craig]

I think I didn't know that it was only these books. I thought it was more. I thought that there was like at least 20 of these dang things. Like I assumed, you know, cuz, like, you know, I also have a son. I found a random collection of these adorable goose books that I wrote about in our, our newsletter for patrons. You can go back a few months and read that patreon.com overdue podcast. But like, we got one of them as a gift and I found like 15 of them and they're wonderful, but I had never heard of them before. These are Gossian friends books and this was one where I was just like, yeah, this was a cartoon when I was a kid. They made a movie out of it. You're telling me there's like five and a Christmas release. Like what is happening?

[Andrew]

Curious George is a little bit like that too. Like the original run of the books by the original authors encompasses like seven stories.

[Craig]

Wild.

[Andrew]

But then there are cartoons, man. But then there are the cartoons and then there are like a million continuation books written by, written and illustrated. We have a collection of. Because the original Curious George stories are mostly about how being curious is bad. And contemporary Curious George stories are mostly about how being curious all kind of works out for George, including an episode from the first. The television show. George's curiosity is very destructive in the first season and is scaled back in subsequent seasons. But the biggest, probably the like in terms of like property damage. The biggest thing that he does is he makes a skyscraper that's under construction fall over with his curiosity. But then the rich guy who's building it, who really likes things that are like one of a kind and unique, comes and he says, oh, this actually looks cooler than like this wreckage looks cooler than the building we were originally planning. So thanks George, for ruining my building.

[Craig]

That's like. That is.

[Andrew]

There are only seven of those and there are a million other things that have flowed from them. And Madeline is similar. Yeah.

[Craig]

So Bemelmans born in 1898. As Andrew said, he passed away pancreatic cancer. I believe in 1962. He was an Austrian American. He was, like, raised in hotels. His father was a Belgian painter. His mother was German. I think she. I don't know if she had been a nun or at least gone to a, you know, a Catholic school or something like that. And he was raised in his dad's hotel in Austria, sent to a private school, and then was shipped off to America. It's a little more complicated than that. Like, his dad left his mom and his mistress. They were both pregnant. They were both pregnant.

[Andrew]

The way that's presented in the Wikipedia article just caught me off guard. It's like, yeah, he left his wife and his. What, like the housekeeper or something? Governess, both of whom were pregnant with his children for another woman.

[Craig]

And so his mom moves him to Germany and, like, as I had read, like, tries to erase all, like, Gallic from him. Like, anything from his father. You know, just get him to Germany. Let's lock him down. He goes to school. There's a story that while he's at school there, he is apprenticed to his uncle, and the head waiter at this other hotel is abusing him and whipping him, and he shoots him in retaliation and chooses.

[Andrew]

Apparently. The story that Benwins himself tells is, I told this guy, if you keep doing this to me, I'm gonna come in here with a gun and I'm gonna sh.

[Craig]

And he did.

[Andrew]

And then he did. But then his grandson's like, I don't know about that. Yeah, that might be a tall tale.

[Craig]

So he ch. The. The end choice in the dialogue tree is the same. Either, you know, go to German reform school or go to America where your father is. And he goes to America. And again, another story is that he made it there and his dad didn't pick him up, so he spent Christmas in Ellis island, and then he is working in hotels. He enlists in the. In the army during World War I. They don't want to send him to Europe because he's German, so they keep him in New York, like, teaching people how to use a bayonet and working in a hospital. He does.

[Andrew]

He does become a second lieutenant.

[Craig]

He does.

[Andrew]

He does become a U.S. citizen in 1918. So, you know, he does all right.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

But.

[Craig]

Yeah, and then in the 20s, he is, like, working at various hotels. And in 1926, quits those jobs to become a full time cartoonist. He had a series called the Thrilling Adventures of the Count Bric a brac. And then he meets Mae Massey at Viking Press and gets into children's books. His first was Hansi in 1934. And there's some other stuff where like Madeline crops up in some early work that he'd done, something called the golden basket in 36. He'd painted her on a mural at one point. Point. But Madeline was rejected by Viking Press and picked up instead by Simon and Schuster. And he goes on to. He does the first book in 39, as Andrew said. And then there's like a long layover until he writes the rest of them. But he is, at that point, he's, like, working in various magazines. He's doing, you know, dozens of New Yorker covers. He did write a script for a Fred Astaire movie called Yolanda and the Thief.

[Andrew]

Huh.

[Craig]

His only script that got turned into a film. And he did write books for grown ups, some novels, some nonfiction. Andrew, you want to tell me a little bit about the origins of Madeline?

[Andrew]

I mean, as far as the origins of Madeline. There is a little bit in this collection we read toward the back called the Isle of God.

[Craig]

Madeline's Origins.

[Andrew]

Madeline's Origin. And it is a very long. About this. Yeah, yeah. About this, like, island where they would go. He and his wife, whose name is Madeline, spelled differently.

[Craig]

Madeline, I think, is what. Is how it would be pronounced.

[Andrew]

Yes, Well, I mean, that's what I'm saying.

[Craig]

He changed it on purpose.

[Andrew]

Going to how. I don't even know how to run it. Run at. Pronunciating. Pronounce.

[Craig]

They're just on the off. They're on an island off the west coast of France.

[Andrew]

Off the west coast of France, Yes. And he talks a long time about how exclusive it is and how the old French families fill up the hotels and nobody could stay in the hotels. And just talking about some idyllic scenes from this island that sort of helped inspire different chunks of Madeline. And he says here at the end, I saw the nun bringing soup to the little girl. I remember the stories my mother had told me of life in the convent school at Altotting and the little girl, the hospital, the room, the crank on the bed, the nurse, the old doctor who looked like Leon Blum all fell into place. I thought about where Madeleine and her friends should live and decided on Paris. I made the first sketches on a sidewalk table outside the restaurant. Voltaire on the key of the same name. The first words of that text in an old house in Paris that was covered in vines were written on the back of a menu in Pete's Tavern on the corner of 18th street and Irving Place in New York. Madeline was first published in 1939. Then he says, took about 10 years to think about the next. Think of the next one. And then he talks about how he drew the river flowing in the wrong direction.

[Craig]

It's pretty good. Yeah. A lot of different interviews, both with him and with his grandson, who has picked up the mantle and published another, like, half dozen books or so. Like the White House one you mentioned.

[Andrew]

It's. Yeah, it's complicated. I can get into it.

[Craig]

But they talk about how Madeline is like a mix of his mom, his wife, his daughter a little bit, and also himself, like, as this kind of, you know, little boy who's not quite fitting in, but isn't necessarily a bad kid. And there is, like, this ongoing, like, is Madeline French? Is it a Catholic? Is it a nunnery?

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

The quote from his grandson is, it's not an orphanage. She's not a nun, and Madeline is not French. And it's like, it is a Catholic boarding school.

[Andrew]

I mean, Madeline's Christmas, they all get fine. They all get magic carpets and they fly home to see their parents.

[Craig]

Yes, exactly. The thing that is that you're going to talk about adaptations in a second, and the film makes her an orphan and makes them orphans. And I think that's a big part of the legacy there.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

But go. Go ahead with. With what has happened with this brand, because it is a brand now.

[Andrew]

It is the Madeline brand. Yeah, It's. It's been mostly dormant lately, I think. But here's. Here's what John Bemelman's Marciano has done is he did. He did the art for the Madeline in America story, which is one of many Bemelman's written stories in that are collected together for this collection in 1999, there is a book called Madeline Says Merci. The Always Be light book. In 2001, there's Madeline Loves Animals, which is a board book for little babies from 2005.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

But in terms of, like, main series continuations, we've got Madeline and the Cats of Rome, which was published in 2008 and billed as the first all new Madeline book in close to 50 years. Then there is Madeline at the White House in 2011. The president appears to have a daughter named Candle. And so I assume that this is not a real president.

[Craig]

Whoa.

[Andrew]

Didn't want to get political. Have Madeline visit Barack hussein Obama in 2011. And then the latest one, Madeline and the Old House in Paris, was published in 2013. This is apparently the first of these new books to feature Pepito, the neighbor and son of the ambassador of Spain, in any way. So Pepito is mostly left by the wayside for a while. In terms of adaptations, there are animated versions of Madeline, starting with a short made in 1952 that was like, nominated for something, but Lost, like a Tom and Jerry cartoon to give you an idea for how long it's been going, and then educational adaptations of several of the books in 1959. There was also, as you mentioned, the live action movie in 1998 starring Frances McDormand as Ms. Clavell, which was given two thumbs up by Siskel and Ebert. So, you know, had to have something going on. It did not make a ton of money, but it, you know, it was fine. One, one note about that that I thought was funny is that unlike the books, the film takes place in 1956 and not in 1939. They don't have to talk about World War II.

[Craig]

Yes. But that and the other big change, like I said, is they make her an orphan. And so, like, if people, people in our Discord were like, wait, she's not an orphan?

[Andrew]

No, she's not an orphan.

[Craig]

No, she's not an orphan.

[Andrew]

But the main adaptation that you and I probably remember was by Deke Entertainment. I don't know if you remember Deke.

[Craig]

I remember the post episode, like, Stinger of De Entertainment. Yeah.

[Andrew]

And so the Deke in The, in the 80s and 90s are just the absolute kings of like, low rent, licensed children's entertainment. And so they are also responsible for the likes of Inspector Gadget, Heathcliff, Captain Planet, the Super Mario Bros. Super show, the Legend of Zelda cartoon, Captain N, The Game Master.

[Craig]

Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And many, many others. Those are all Deke. So Deke makes this animated HBO special about Madeline in 1988. Judy Rothman, who's the woman who developed most of this for TV, she also works on adapting the five other books between 1990 and 1991. And then starting in, I think, 93, Deke does a. Starts doing a proper TV series. They make 59 episodes of this over three seasons and eight years for various TV channels. The Family Channel, ABC, the Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, all kind of had their hands on this ball at some point. This was called Madeline, or in some later iterations, the New Adventures of Madeline.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

And because, like, each season is basically produced for somebody else, there's like a lot of cast changeover and not a ton of continuity between seasons. Christopher Plummer narrates for the first couple seasons.

[Craig]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Andrew]

But, yeah, there's just a lot of, lot of, a lot of changing. And then Also, as part of this, like, production run, There are some TV movies that follow. One in 1999, one in 2002, and. And the last one in 2005 called Madeline and Tahiti, which I think is almost lost media, except it finally did start coming out, like, direct to dvd.

[Craig]

Okay, okay.

[Andrew]

Because I don't. I think Madeline's. Like, the sun had set on the Madeline empire by the time this movie was finally coming out.

[Craig]

The little thing I read about that was a. I found articles in kids. Screen.kids screen.com the magazine about children's entertainment. There's an article from 1999 celebrating the 60th anniversary, talking about all of the merchandising happening around Madeline. And, you know, just. We're in a golden age of, like, we can, you know, get. Hey, we can import cheap products from around the world, and we can just tie them to various properties that children like. Because the 80s happened and now we sell directly to kids. Yeah. And they're talking about, like, tea parties all over the nation for Madeline and her 60th. Wonderful. And then I also found an article in Forbes called Madeline and the family business from 2013, which is explicitly about his daughter Barbara, who is John Bellman's Marciano's mom. And, like, he and his two brothers are like, stand to inherit. It's like, very King Lear. Like, they stand to inherit the. Is the estate of Madeline, but he's the only one who's really involved, and she doesn't know what to do with it. But one of the things that was mentioned in there that stood out to me was they lost the licensing rights, like, in the 90s. Like, I think Deke had them or somebody else had them. And so that's this proliferation of Madeline stuff happens, but. And they're making money off of it. Sure, but. But they don't have the lights. The rights were in perpetuity and they had to go to court to, like, get them back. So I. I think there might be a. Like, a rebotling of Madeline and all of that activity probably after that went down. Sure.

[Andrew]

That makes sense.

[Craig]

Thing to think about where it's like, this guy made six books and they're beloved. And then the 80s and 90s happen, and we gotta. We gotta churn them out. We gotta. We gotta get as much as we can, you know?

[Andrew]

Yeah. There's a similar chain of custody thing that happens with the 10 mid to late 90s Madeline educational CD ROM games.

[Craig]

Need to hear about these. I didn't look up anything about these other than knowing that they exist.

[Andrew]

These are also narrated by Christopher Plummer. There's an extremely lengthy Wikipedia article, the Age of Multimedia. Yeah, that I suspect is just the tip of the iceberg. But it does. They do kick around among several companies for a few years. First a company called Creative Wonders, then.

[Craig]

The Learning Company and the Learning Company. Okay.

[Andrew]

And then they go to Mattel. And then after like once they get to Mattel, they bounce around a lot. But at this point in time they are owned by Hoofton Mifflin Harcourt, which also through like similar bouncing around of licenses got the rights to the Carmen Sandiego series. They have, they have restarted the Carmen Sandiego series for the modern day, but not this Mad Line series of CD ROM games. They were, I, you know, they were, they were well received partly because people thought that they would appeal to girls and you know, computer games and educational stuff. Even was like a lot of it was very Boyd targeted. Yeah, they were. They're also remembered for very, very repetitive voice acting that were some like, little girl with a very fake French accent keeps telling you what a good job you're doing over and over and over again.

[Craig]

Just right. Yes, that is right. That fits. It fits. You have found its proper place. No, I don't like this little girl. It fits. I don't like. Oh, I don't like. She is really putting a lot of stake on the accent.

[Andrew]

As somebody who, you know, talking to you as somebody who knows how to put a tsank on a fake French accent, like, how do you. How would you evaluate that it's accent?

[Craig]

I'm both impressed and horrified. It's when she says put it in its proper place. Like I don't. That's not a word. That's in my wheelhouse to think about.

[Andrew]

Rolling the R's in a way that is really weird and just reads as like generic accent, I guess to me.

[Craig]

Yes. It's just. What if it came from elsewhere?

[Andrew]

But the 10 of these games, Madeline and the Magnificent Puppet Show. A learning journey in 1995. And there's Madeline Thinking Games. Madeline European Adventures. Madeline Classroom Companion. Preschool and Kindergarten. Madeline Classroom Companion 1st and 2nd grade. Madeline Thinking Games Deluxe. Madeline Rainy day activities. Madeline first and second grade reading. Madeline first and second reading. First and second grade reading deluxe. And then Madeline first and second grade math. Catch the series in 1999.

[Craig]

I would do math with Madeline. Listen, they're always in two lines. There's 12 of them.

[Andrew]

There's 12 of them. A lot of numbers.

[Craig]

You got to do some math to figure it out.

[Andrew]

Yep.

[Craig]

That's. That's bonkers. I was reminded of, like, I know that they. They did a run of, like, Nancy Drew games starting in, like, the late 90s. I could all make. Like, why not adapt everything, Put on. Put everything on computer.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

There's no downside, I'm sure. But, no, these are beloved books. This is a beloved character. This, like, guy who made them. I'm just always fascinated when a man's personality is Hotels. Like, it's just, like, how often do.

[Andrew]

You run into that?

[Craig]

It happens every once in a while. There's just a guy who's just hotels, and, you know, he just has this interesting. Quinlan says in the. In the intro, two interesting things that stood out to me. One, we have not read Eloise for the show. I imagine we'll get around to Eloise at some point, but she talks about, like, envisioning the adult that Eloise would grow up to be and being, like, really worried for her, kind of scared for her.

[Andrew]

I felt kind of a similar way about Pippi Longstock.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Just like you can. People can't live like this. No.

[Craig]

This is not sustainable. Talking about somebody whose personality is hotel. But Madeline, she thinks, is gonna, you know, make some positive change in the world and be interested in. And the other thing that Quinlan talks about is kind of the indelible children's authors. Like, how does Sendak break through? But they're all the, you know, imitators don't. Yeah. What is it about Schultz? You know, just, what are these children's properties and books in particular that, like, kind of breakthrough and speak to us forever? And it's.

[Andrew]

And, yeah, Henry and I, like, we go to the library and we bring home books. And, like, some of those books do not hit my least.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

The. Lee, if you want to completely turn me off of the entire rest of your children's book, here's the thing that you can do is you go in and you don't just. You can't decide whether you're going to rhyme or not. And also, you can't decide what your, like, meter is.

[Craig]

Oh, my God.

[Andrew]

Because the thing about Dr. Seuss is, like, that guy keeps time.

[Craig]

Yes, he does.

[Andrew]

I know.

[Craig]

He made the rhymes run on time.

[Andrew]

There's a bit of, like, you know, find another author, make room for some new authors. But, like, find me somebody who you could set your watch to. Like, you can Dr. Seuss. You know what I mean? But, no, I'm not going to besmirch any particular authors on air right now. But like, you got, you got to pick a rhyme scheme.

[Craig]

Boynton's pretty good.

[Andrew]

Make it super clear whether you're going to rhyme or not going in. I need this. I need it.

[Craig]

The thing that Quinlan says is like, they're not. These authors are not like necessarily writing down to children. They're not, they're, they are themselves, like, tapping into something that is, you know, quintessential to the human experience. And kids and adults will always respond to like, it's just people. These people are unique. They're good. You got to, you got to read them, and they're great.

[Andrew]

I, you know, I think that, that, that is a, that's a beautiful sentiment. And I feel like that is, that is true in a lot of ways. But I also, there's gotta be some small slip of, like, the reason why we have to listen to the same 12 Christmas songs over and over and over again, 80 years is because, like, this is what the boomers grew up with. And so this is what we all have to grow up with forever, for the rest of time.

[Craig]

True.

[Andrew]

There's like a little speck of that.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah. Because they're, you know, two paths diverge in the woods. One is Madeline and the other is Roblox. Like, this is what we have to deal with here. Well, let's take a quick break, Andrew, and we'll come back and talk about as many of these books as we have time for.

[Andrew]

Craig, this podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Do you know what do you know about websites, bud?

[Craig]

Well, you plug them in and you turn them on and people can click on them and then you get stuff. That's about as much as I know about how websites work.

[Andrew]

And listen, if you are like a sort of a back end web developer and you listen to that, you're probably shaking your head right now, but that's all you need to know to make a beautiful website with Squarespace.

[Craig]

It's true. It's true.

[Andrew]

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[Craig]

I don't want to go to their website.

[Andrew]

And you make it.

[Craig]

No.

[Andrew]

Here are things that we like about Squarespace, Craig. Yeah, I'm telling you what we both like about Squarespace.

[Craig]

Right already.

[Andrew]

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[Craig]

Finally. Okay, sold me. I will do it.

[Andrew]

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[Craig]

No.

[Andrew]

They're working hard. And you know the thing you can get for a mom who's working hard is a nice gift like an Aura frame.

[Craig]

Ooh, an aura frame.

[Andrew]

Yeah Craig. Aura frames, as you may know, are beautiful wifi connected digital frames that allow you to share and display unlimited photos. It's super easy to upload and share photos via the Aura app. And if you're giving an aura as a gift, you can even personalize the frame with preloaded photos and memories. As I have said on the show before, I've given aura frames to gave one to my grandmother, gave some to my in laws. They like to look at the pictures. They like that it gets updated dynamically. They like that you can like touch it on the top to put a little heart on the picture to show that you liked it.

[Craig]

My son likes to view himself on his grandmother's Aura frame and like swipe left on himself sometimes he loves it.

[Andrew]

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[Craig]

In an old house in Paris that was covered with Vines lived 12 little girls in two straight lines. In two straight lines they broke their bread and brushed their teeth and went to bed. They smiled at the good and frowned at the bad. Sometimes they were very sad. They left the house at half past nine in two straight lines in rain or shine. The smallest one was Madeline.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that's her.

[Craig]

That's her. She's the one. I like that on the page where he says because he does the writing and the illustrations. Yeah, music and lyrics. He has a person measuring her for her little outfit. Like, yeah, she's the smallest one.

[Andrew]

She is the smallest one.

[Craig]

Now she's not afraid of mice or tigers. She says poo, poo to the tiger at the zoo.

[Andrew]

She does regularly, regularly, always teasing that tiger at the zoo. That is not a big enclosure either. That that tiger is in. No, this is not Big Cat Falls at the Philadelphia Zoo. That this tiger is in.

[Craig]

Andrew, tell me a little bit about your read on the visual style of the Madeline books. Just like if someone at home hasn't read them at all. And what are they? What do you see when you crack open a fresh Madeline?

[Andrew]

Yeah, I was, I was struck by something Quindlen said in her introduction actually that I think encapsulates it well. She says it's a combination of the masterly and the simplistic that makes the drawing so successful too. I hope it would not offend Bemelman to say that the illustrations are in many ways quite childlike. The simple, almost crude lines of the interiors, the faces with dot eyes and U shaped mouths, the scribble quality to much of the detail work. The rendering of the Eiffel Tower as a Christmas tree in the holiday Madeline book is wonderful and yet sensible to children who might well embellish the landmark in exactly the same way. And yeah, like, it's all of the books, like, especially this. They all, they all do this. I was struck by it most in the first one is like, they kind of alternate between two different basic styles of illustration. One is sort of a. A, like a monochrome yellow kind of thing where you've got like yellow, black and white in different, like, shades. And it's a bit simpler on the detail, not a lot of backgrounds. And then, you know, you turn the page and you hit like, Notre Dame or some other like, French landmark and it's suddenly a gorgeous watercolor. Yeah, full, full color illustration. Like, much more detail. And yeah, like Quindlen says, like, there is kind of a, you know, there's kind of a scribbly quality to like some of the sky and the clouds and stuff. But it's the kind of, I don't know, there's a kind of roughness that you can get away with if you know what you're doing underneath it. Like, if you are talented enough to make it come off as a stylistic choice rather than the best way that you know how to draw.

[Craig]

Uh huh. No, there's a.

[Andrew]

Then, yeah, that's what Bebelman does here.

[Craig]

There's a page in the third book, the Bad Hat, where little Pepito is running with his bag of something that he's bringing to dogs. And it is this like, gorgeous painting. But again, the characters are like these like, kind of little line drawings. There's gorgeous watercolor. And then sometimes in the middle of like a watercolor landscape, he'll be like, I don't really want to paint this much. I'm just gonna like, squiggle bushes. Like, it's kind of this beautiful mishmash of. I'll give you as much detail as I want. If I want to lovingly depict architecture, I will. There's only one image, I think, in the whole collection where he like, really gives you a close up of Madeline's face. And it's in the Christmas one.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

You can actually see her eyes. And it is a little unsettling because, like, we never zoom in that far on a character like that. And in general, the Madeline Christmas one, I think, like, stands out to me as a. As a very different visual style. There's no, there's none of those, like, big yellow saturated pages at all.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it's a lot like, I guess sketchier. I don't know. Like, it's, It's, It's.

[Craig]

It's still beautiful. It's just very different from the rest.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Like if you.

[Andrew]

So compare on. If you have the book, Craig, compare girls in beds on page 19 compared to page 298. That is the first illustration of the girl. Little girls and two straight lines going to bed. And then the illustration that you get of them all being sick in the Christmas story. And just like the, you know.

[Craig]

298.

[Andrew]

Yeah. 298.

[Craig]

Okay. Yeah. Because the original. The first one. Right. It's almost like when you, you know, you give a kid like you a big pad of different colored construction paper and like. Well, they just want to draw on the yellow ones. Okay, great. So he's drawing on all the yellow ones. That's what the one on page 19 of this collection is. All the best. All the beds are white.

[Andrew]

The deed. But the look at like the details on the face. It's like all very simple. But everybody's like hairstyle is clearly defined. Everybody has different hair going on.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Everybody's faces are clearly readable as like they are peacefully asleep. And then look at page 298 where it's just.

[Craig]

What is doing.

[Andrew]

Just gonna screw. Just gonna scribble them. That one. One up from the bottom on the right.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

What is. What it would. What is wrong with that kid?

[Craig]

Yeah, they're. They're way more sketchy. And I.

[Andrew]

It just. It feels like it was done quicker. Which. Which would make sense as done on a sign.

[Craig]

He did like.

[Andrew]

Yeah. For a magazine. Just real quick. For like a Christmas thing. Yeah, but, but yeah, like it's. You can really tell the difference between somebody who's. Who's just scribbling and somebody who's like scribbling on purpose to create a sort of childlike, almost like dreamy kind of effect.

[Craig]

Yeah. And he's. He's not doing anything in his storytelling that is like overtly magical. Like, he's not using the. This style to like allow him to get away with a certain supernatural quality in any of these stories. It's not that type of book. But like, I direct your eyes to page 127. Andrew in the bad hat, where this isn't. This is a yellow page with white and black on it. It's a very simplistic drawing. And the.

[Andrew]

Look at that owl.

[Craig]

I know, but it's like so good. The text is. On summer nights, he ghosted and this is Pepito in a ghost costume with a Yorick style skull and a bat and a scared owl.

[Andrew]

And this is not him, like, not texting somebody back. This is, like, dressed up and scaring people like a ghost.

[Craig]

But then you go, like, you know, 10 more pages and he's. It's a full color. He's dressed as a bull fighter. Like, really rendered beautifully. Like, he's just the. What is kind of fun about reading these books is, like, page to page, you don't know what the visual style is gonna be. It's all gonna. It's all gonna feel of a piece.

[Andrew]

Right.

[Craig]

But he is gonna, like, he's gonna ebb and flow in what he thinks you need and what he wants to create to, like, drive at home, which is just kind of fun, you know?

[Andrew]

And it's. It's very, like, it's very loose in a way that sometimes seems a little. That sometimes reads a little busted. Like, if you look at page 31 and try to divine where Ms. Clavell's shoulders exist, like, it's difficult.

[Craig]

Oh, yeah. Oh, boy. Wow. Her left shoulder is, like, below her rib cage, and her right arm is very long. And then. But, like, why on the previous page, after several. So, like, that's one where it's like, he's given us the whole Madeline, like, poem, right. Of, like, how cool she is. A lot of beautiful, beautiful watercolor work and stuff. And then the next page, it's all yellow, everything's in shadow. And it's Madeline walking dangerously on a bridge over the river Seine. And it's just like. I don't know why you did that on that page, but you did. And I like it. Yeah, it's. Yeah, it's a very interesting, like, collection of visual styles. And, yeah, Quinlan's writing on it is great because it is childlike, but it. It has craft to it as well.

[Andrew]

So in terms of, like, plot, stuff that happens. The first. The first book is our introduction to Madeline. She is rambunctious. She's spunky, she frightened. Nobody knows so well how to frighten Ms. Clavel.

[Craig]

Correct. Who is their keeper? She's not a nun. She's just a keeper.

[Andrew]

She just dresses, like. What?

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And then Madeline wakes up in the middle of the night. Her stomach hurts. It's an. It's an appendix.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

So this is dial dials. Dan 10. Dan Ton 10 6. Nurse. An appendix.

[Craig]

So that is part of the, like, origin story, is he was. Ben. Womans was in a bicycle accident on that, like, Beautiful island off the coast of France. While he was in hospital, there was a little girl getting her appendix taken out. It's also where the, like, crack on the ceiling that looks like a rabbit comes from. And it's interesting to me that this is like, here's a. It's a children's story and this happens. I. It doesn't. This is part and parcel with the, with the whole genre, I suppose. But, like, she's a kid who acts like this, and that's what makes her interesting. And then the story is. And then something randomly happened. It's not like she did a thing on purpose or had a curiosity and it had effects or something like that. She's not a little monkey with curiosities.

[Andrew]

She's not. She doesn't. She doesn't get into the ether while she's recovering from her appendicitis. Oh, she's Curious George.

[Craig]

Just spent 10 days in the hospital following an appendectomy, which I guess it was 1939, but still. Like, I read this book to Simon today, and Laura was like, she spent 10 days in the hospital.

[Andrew]

Yeah, man.

[Craig]

Oh, boy. Check it here.

[Andrew]

Okay. Just a quick, quick art thing. And I don't want to do this too.

[Craig]

I got a few of these. Yeah, for sure.

[Andrew]

But, yeah, check out the. Check out page 25.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And just look at, look at. Describe the sun to me on page 25. This is one of the beautiful full color watercolor images.

[Craig]

Oh, this is one. You know, the girls in the line go. They walk around, rain or shine.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And yet the sun in this one is this over. Like, I don't know if it's Versailles. I don't have the, the little directory in front of me, but it is, It's a gorgeous, like, French, like, villa or something. And yeah, the sun is just a big orange ball.

[Andrew]

The garden at the Luxembourg.

[Craig]

Oh, it's Luxembourg. Okay. It's a big orange ball. And the rays are just, like, very long.

[Andrew]

Now check out the sun on page 41. Tell me what that guy's up to. This is.

[Craig]

Yo. Who is this blazed sun on page 40 and 41?

[Andrew]

So long and chill. Look at this chill, son. I would. I would love to hang out with this son.

[Craig]

I love his cheeks.

[Andrew]

He's got.

[Craig]

He's sleeping in his cheeks. I love him.

[Andrew]

It might be even better on page 40 while he's like. When he's, like, peeking in your window.

[Craig]

Being like, hey, man, how's it going?

[Andrew]

How you doing in there? I hope your appendix is better.

[Craig]

Hope you're feeling. What a guy.

[Andrew]

I love. All the art in this isn't great.

[Craig]

It's so fun. So, like, okay, so she goes to the hospital. She's there for a while. It's worth shouting out, I think. So most of these pages, there is this effect where the words are at the bottom. And there's kind of a, like, rectangular, like, frame, for lack of a better word, where it. Sometimes it feels like it's. It's the pad of paper. Right. Like I said earlier. And then, like, that's where all the art is. And it. Sometimes it's pretty contained in some of the pages, especially in the later volumes, it's not. But you can get a sense of speed. Maybe sometimes when he does almost a comics thing, like when the doctor shows.

[Andrew]

Up or when Ms. Clavel is running fast and faster. She always really, really leans forward.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

To. Yeah.

[Craig]

And you. And you get more than one image on a page. That happens when the doctor shows up. In this one, you get a. You get, like, two pages with double images on them to kind of drive home that we're moving faster. The image in this book that Quinlan shouts out in the intro and that I really love is on page 47 of the collection where all the girls come to visit her. It's very sweet. She's gotten presents from her papa. She is not an orphan. And she is standing on her bed showing them her scar. She's the only one not in a uniform. She's literally standing on her bed, like, raising up her, you know, hospital pajamas to show them her stomach scar. And there's, like, the. The string from the balloon that's tied to her bed is, like, drawing your eye right down to where her scar would be, even though you can't see it. It's just a really wonderful. All the girls are, like, looking up at her, and she's, like, straight. Her whole back is straight. She's, like, perfect, like, posture. She's just clearly the most impressive of all of them.

[Andrew]

And then the rest of the book, they go. They leave Madeline's house.

[Craig]

I love it. I love it.

[Andrew]

They all do their normal stuff. They break their bread, they brush their teeth, they go to bed. But all the little girls have these little frowny faces on their faces for the whole rest of the whole rest of the night routine. Then Ms. Clavell in her bonkers arms wake up in the middle of the night again because something is not right. She runs fast and faster. And all the little girls are crying because they want their appendix out, too. And there's something to. What Quindlen said about capturing that essence of childhood is like, yep. Yeah. Something really scary happened. And when the scary thing was happening, we did not want any part of it. But now that it's, like, safe and.

[Craig]

Seems cool and that person got a lot of attention.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Like, where's my. I want my appendix out.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Where'd you get five bucks? I want five bucks.

[Craig]

And the book ends with Ms. Clavell being like, you're fine. I love it. It's great. You're all okay. Go to bed. The closing line of and that's all there is. There isn't any more. I did see someone asserting that's a reference to something Ethel Barrymore used to say during, like, curtain calls, where it'd be like, no, there's nothing else to say. We're gone. Leave.

[Andrew]

Okay, sure. So I have no way to confirm.

[Craig]

No, I do not either. But. But no, I love that little inversion. And a similar thing happens in. In the second book where it's like, okay, Madeline exists. How do the rest of the girls exist? Also, they never get character names or anything.

[Andrew]

I believe in the cartoon series they get names, but it's because there are like 60 of those.

[Craig]

Madeline's rescue. We agreed that we don't need to talk about this one too much.

[Andrew]

This is the one that won the.

[Craig]

It did. Yep.

[Andrew]

Metal for. For illustration. So it's. So it's noteworthy for that, but it does not contribute to. I mean, I think Genevieve and the, you know, the dog appears in the cartoon series like it is. It does come back elsewhere. But this book does not affect the continuity of future books the way that Bad Hat does.

[Craig]

No. Yes. Bad Hat is like, actually, it's a Pepito book, but yeah. Madeline's rescue. The things that stood out to me is that the book opens with her almost falling to her death in the river Seine. I read this book to my 22.

[Andrew]

Year old because you don't. Because you don't want him walking around the house talking about a watery grave.

[Craig]

I don't want him to use the word watery grave.

[Andrew]

Yeah, he.

[Craig]

He is very, like, repeating everything I say right now. And I don't want him to know the words water.

[Andrew]

I'm trying to figure out how Simon was say watery grave.

[Craig]

Water. We grave.

[Andrew]

Watery grave.

[Craig]

So silly. But there's like a gorgeous painting of this dog rescuing her from the river Sen. And it's like several yellow pages and then all of a sudden a full watercolor of this dog. They call the dog Genev. It Rhymes with beef. We do meet landlord C. Cuckoo Face. C C Face. Cuck.

[Andrew]

I'm. Yeah.

[Craig]

And then the solution at the end of this is that the dog has, you know, gets kicked out and then comes back and has Lord Cuckoo Face.

[Andrew]

Rhymes with disgrace.

[Craig]

Okay, sure.

[Andrew]

And embrace and race.

[Craig]

So all the dog. All the. All the little girls get a dog which is cute and fun and a good way to end.

[Andrew]

Does Genevieve. The Genevieve is lost. She comes back and then she has puppies. And then they have 12.

[Craig]

12 dogs. Yeah. The thing.

[Andrew]

And there's no, you know, no, no word on how they're gonna get past Lord Cuckoo Face's next inspection. But it's not important.

[Craig]

This book, which it did. You know, as you said, it took him 10 years to come up with an idea of what if they all loved a dog. It does have a little bit more of the. Like we're. I'm still operating in the rhythms of the first book. Like there is more like Ms. Clavel heard a sound at night like she's gonna go check on all the. Get all the kids and stuff like that. It feels like much more of a direct sequel to compared to Madeline and the Bad Hat, which is like, I came up with Pepito and I need the whole world to meet Pepito.

[Andrew]

It's expanding the universe.

[Craig]

Tell me about Madeline and the bad Hat, Andrew.

[Andrew]

Madeline in the bat hat is the Spanish ambassador moves in next door to the old house in Paris. It's covered with vines. And that is literally how it is, is one day the Spanish ambassador moved into the house next door.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

And he has a son named Pepito. And Pepito knows how to act nice in front of the grown ups so that they think that he's nice. But he's a real pill.

[Craig]

He's a stinker. He's a Dennis the Menace.

[Andrew]

So he's like slingshotting people's butts. He's ghosting people on hot summer nights.

[Craig]

He's like capturing animals and inviting people to over to look at his captured animals when they.

[Andrew]

He's flying. He's. This is flying a kite on the roof in the autumn. When he boasted that he flew the highest kite.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Year in, year out, he was polite. He's just looking at the camera like while he's flying this.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

He knows we're here on the roof of this building.

[Craig]

He's dead.

[Andrew]

It's very unsavory the way it is.

[Craig]

Well, Ms. Clavel thinks he's a good little boy.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And he says, well, girls, the Reason he's acting out. He's a good little boy. He just needs our support. Let's get him a present. Let's get him some tools. And he builds a guillotine.

[Andrew]

He builds a guillotine for killing chickens. Pepito has lots of animals that he has trapped from around the neighborhood.

[Craig]

This is a trope. Kid who kills animals is a trope for psychopath. Like this is not. I think it's an understatement when we call him the bad hat and we. The COVID of the book is him like input in underpants, lifting a barbell.

[Andrew]

You know, said Ms. Clavell. It seems to me he needs an outlet for his energy. A chest of tools might be attractive for a little boy that's very active. I knew it. Listened to him play hammering, sawing and working away. Oh, but that boy was really mean. He built himself a guillotine. He was unmoved by the last look the frightened chickens gave the cook. He ate them. Roasted, grilled and Frito. Oh, what a horror was Pepito.

[Craig]

I do think it's not. Wow. It's not quite at the same level. We've never done Shel Silverstein for the show, Andrew. But there is. I haven't. Yeah, just put that in the back of your brain.

[Andrew]

I think about him all the time, though.

[Craig]

There is I. Every time I get to the end of a sidewalk, I think about him.

[Andrew]

But every time that there's one piece of pie left, I think about that poem that he wrote about the guy who would die whether he ate the piece of pie or not, until he eats it and dies.

[Craig]

Simon has asked to read the Giving Tree several times and he is not ready for what the Giving Tree is about. But I have to deal with it when I read it. And I. Not fair. Not fair, sure. But no Pepito. And like some of the stuff, broadly, I think there's like a little hint of. This is. It's not edgy. I'm not saying it's like the Joker, but there is like Watery Grave Pepito killing chickens. Like some of the.

[Andrew]

Some of. Now some of this is old timey kids book stuff. Like when they kill Babar the elephant's parents in front of him and Babar's parents are laying there dead. But I do. This is just old timey. Like, yeah, kids, they can handle it.

[Craig]

That's kind of. But that's what I mean. Like the. The they can handle it thing is, I think what has helped some of this stuff endure now. I don't know. That doesn't track with Goodnight Moon. Nobody gets killed in Goodnight Moon.

[Andrew]

But that you know of.

[Craig]

That I know of. I don't know what happened to the mush. I don't know what the mush is. But no, they have to rehabilitate.

[Andrew]

Why? It's sitting out at bedtime.

[Craig]

No, his whole thing is he's got this bag with cats in it and he's going to go out and give it to a bunch of dogs. And he does get mauled by the dogs.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And the girls.

[Andrew]

But Ms. Clavel saves him.

[Craig]

Yes. He becomes. I love when he becomes a capital V vegetarian. And he repents. And that the page turn when it cuts to four separate images of him releasing animals at the zoo. Because he loves animals so much now.

[Andrew]

Well. And because he had so many animals to release.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Oh, wait, no. Yes. The ones of him going to the zoo and letting the animals.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Okay. This is different from the ones of him letting.

[Craig]

Oh, yes. When he left. All of his.

[Andrew]

Letting his animals back into the wilderness. Yeah.

[Craig]

And the way that Madeline solves him is to be like, you are no longer a bad hat. You have nothing left to prove. It's okay. You can be domesticized Pepito. It's fine. And he is reformed. And I do. He does become basically her boyfriend for, like, a few books.

[Andrew]

Her bf.

[Craig]

Yeah. But I, I, I like this book a lot. It's very fun.

[Andrew]

This is probably the second, my second.

[Craig]

Favorite after the first one.

[Andrew]

After the first one.

[Craig]

After the first one.

[Andrew]

What's your second favorite?

[Craig]

After the first one? I did like Madeline's rescue, but Madeline's rescue is fine. But Pepito is very compelling. And yeah.

[Andrew]

Genevieve, don't come back. Pepito is, like, basically promoted to second billing in every subsequent Madeline book. So.

[Craig]

So the next book is Madeline and the Gypsies. You know, we, I guess we're just using the word gypsies in the 1950s. That's a thing we're doing. Roma people are in this book. This book is fine.

[Andrew]

It's weird.

[Craig]

Like, it's very strange.

[Andrew]

It's got the trappings of a Madeline book. But it's just like, yeah, they all went.

[Craig]

They went to a carnival.

[Andrew]

They went to a carnival. And then it started raining. But they left Madeline and Pepito there. So Madeline and Pepito run away with the circus.

[Craig]

The circus takes care of them because they were in the rain on the Ferris wheel and they got rescued from the Ferris wheel. And then while they're at there, it's this kind of, like, fantasy of the kids are In Never Neverland kind of thing. And they write a postcard to Ms. Clavel, and she's like, oh, my God, they can't spell. We have to go save them.

[Andrew]

They can't. It's true. And then the. The. The gypsy woman, see, looks in her crystal ball and sees Ms. Clavel coming back to reclaim her stolen children. And she's like, oh, no, I don't want.

[Craig]

So she sews them into a lion skin and tells them to be a lion.

[Andrew]

And there's never any. Like, nobody ever seems to blame her for this.

[Craig]

Nope.

[Andrew]

There's no, like, comeuppance or judgment or, like, her admitting that it was wrong to do this.

[Craig]

Because we all love Madeline and Pepito and we would love to have them around all the time. We understand her plight, but she does basically curse them to being a lion until they can prove. Until they can find Ms. Clavel.

[Andrew]

There are a few pages of them walking around in this lion suit, and it does. The book does just shift to describing the lion as a lion.

[Craig]

It's absurd. I did really, like, you know, they. They go home at the end, and it's very nice. And I did really like the train station page. I don't remember what. Like, the art in this book is great.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Like, all the full color circus picks are pretty fun.

[Craig]

Even the crystal ball one is like. It's good art. Yeah.

[Andrew]

It's just like, playing. It's just like trafficking in a bunch of really harmful stereotypes about robot stereotypes. Yeah.

[Craig]

I really like the elephant on page 179, Andrew. This is when it's raining and lightning, literally lightning in the carnival. And there's just an elephant coming at the camera who's like, yeah, I'm the size of a horse. I'm a little elephant. Somebody's got to help me. But yeah, there's a really good train station towards the end of that book. Madeline in London. Here's what I really like about Madeline in London.

[Andrew]

Okay. What do you like about Madeline London? Madeline London left very little impression on me. But it also seems to be the one that set the, like, the tempo for the. The newer revival ones. Because all these newer ones are just like, here. They're going somewhere else, man. They're going to a different place now because we're not actually from France, so we can't, like, dig deep into this culture.

[Craig]

Yeah. The thing I like. There's a couple things I like about Madeline in London. One is the very first page, the.

[Andrew]

The sum up, like.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Getting you caught up Paige. Because every one is the best of them.

[Craig]

Every one of these books has some variation on the initial opening of Old House in Paris. Covered in vines, little girls, two straight lines. Madeline. And then they, like, build on it as necessary. This One has the 12 girls holding up little pieces of paper to, like, give you the ketchup. Like, they're in on the story, which is just really clever.

[Andrew]

My favorite one of these is. Is the smallest one was Madeline. And it's a picture of Madeline pointing at a picture of Madeline. You get a little bit of a. Like, a drosty effect.

[Craig]

It's really good. Yeah, it's very clever. And also then, like, right away, we're on a page where, like, Pepito and his family are going to London. And he becomes thinner because he's so, like, lonely girls. And this is an interesting couple of pages where now. And this happens throughout this book. There's a lot of art that does not have any background. Like, there is art where that is just floating. It's very legible. It as. As in a. In a children's book context. It's like. It's not.

[Andrew]

Then you turn the page and you get another four.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

And it's in. The backgrounds are all, like, super detailed.

[Craig]

Yeah. It's just very kind of fat. Oh. When he does those, like, little squares of art and they have, like, actual borders on them that he's doing art in the borders. It's so fun.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

The one. The fourth one.

[Andrew]

The art in this is good, even if the plot of it seems the strangest. It's just like, yeah, let's send these 12 little girls. Nobody even knows why they're here or who they belong to. We're gonna send them.

[Craig]

And their one caretaker, Pepito, has been vague booking. And he sounds very sad. We all need to fly to London to make him feel better.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Pepito's dad called and said we should all come out to London. He didn't offer to pay for anything.

[Craig]

No.

[Andrew]

He invites them, but he does not say, you shall have it all expensive paid pass on this jet.

[Craig]

And Ms. Clavell is like, remember when he said he loved horses? We should get him a horse. And they get him a horse. And the horse likes parades, and the horse goes in the parades. And it takes a long time. My other favorite part of the book is when they put a horse in the front of an airplane. It's a. They got it. They. The horse can't be there. It eats too much. It can't stay with Pepito. And they have to bring the horse back to France. And there is a little piece of art where they are. They open the front of an airplane and put a horse inside of it. It's very silly. This is page 278, Andrew.

[Andrew]

Here's. I was just. I'm just. I'm. I. So on page. As soon as. Hold that thought to page 238, they're getting off a plane. I was like, in 1939, would they even be able to get on a plane and fly to another country? And the answer is, like, maybe, maybe not.

[Craig]

In what?

[Andrew]

Like, There was commercial 1939.

[Craig]

Well, okay. Set in 1939. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Yeah. So like, the. The commercial aviation, like, like, existed, but it didn't really take off and become, like, a recognizable version of what we've got until after World War II.

[Craig]

So, no, this is very. This is very mid to late 50s. They're just flying over to London for something. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Like, they could. They can do this now.

[Craig]

It's not happening. They can. They can get a horse through customs. It's fine.

[Andrew]

Okay, but look at.

[Craig]

Look at page 278. I just need you to see how this airplane opens up to receive horse.

[Andrew]

Oh, yeah. Yes. I took note of this, too. It's just like. Yeah, just throw some doors in that bad boy. It doesn't matter where the engine is in this place.

[Craig]

No, it doesn't matter.

[Andrew]

You just put. Just put horse in front.

[Craig]

Just put a horse in there.

[Andrew]

Just put a horse in front. The horse is perhaps one fifth the size of the entire airplane.

[Craig]

Yeah. And then they keep the horse in their house.

[Andrew]

But, like, Genevieve, I don't think we ever see the horse again.

[Craig]

I do like that they love Pepito so much that they wanted to go see him.

[Andrew]

I like that they do love Pepito.

[Craig]

And then Madeline's Christmas, the. Again, there's. There's art on page 295 of this collection where you see Madeline's face, like, up close in a way that is kind of jarring.

[Andrew]

Yeah. I don't like Madeline with pupils.

[Craig]

Don't like to see her. Don't like all the kids get sick except Madeline. I do like the couple of shots of her, like, taking care of the house. They're very fun. And then a carpet. A rug merchant, a carpet salesman who is definitely not Santa Claus appears. Or not. Or not. One of the three magi. Unclear.

[Andrew]

And he sells her all his carpets. And he's like, man, that was stupid. It's so cold out. I should have sold all my carpets.

[Craig]

And then he's also. He's a magician. And so all the. All the carpets make the girls feel better, and then he makes all the carpets fly so that they can go visit their families, which. What were their families doing? I don't understand. Boarding schools.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Like, why Madeline is home and her mom and dad have two other little baby kids and, like, a dog.

[Craig]

Mm.

[Andrew]

It's like, well, Madeline, you didn't need to be a part of this. We're gonna send you off to, like, to suffer through life and death situations with Ms. Clavel in France.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

We were really sorry to hear about the time that you almost went to a watery grave. But it seems like it worked out fine.

[Craig]

We. You did spend two weeks in the hospital. Were we there? Who knows? Bemelmans did not draw it.

[Andrew]

Papa sent.

[Craig]

He did send toys.

[Andrew]

He sent toys.

[Craig]

If you'll recall, it is revealed in. I don't know which book it is. Her last name is Fog.

[Andrew]

That happens The. The 1999 story that Marciano illustrated. But Bellman's Roach. Yeah. You don't actually get it in any of these, Jason.

[Craig]

In the Patreon, Discord said her last name is Fogg, which implies her father left her at boarding school for 80 days while he travels around the world. Is that. It does imply that maybe that did happen. It's kind of uncomfortable.

[Andrew]

We don't get a first name for Alphinius.

[Craig]

No, we do not. We do not. Madeline's dad, they call him. He's.

[Andrew]

She's in. She's gotta be in this bad boy for more than 80 days. Like, even in bad hat, there's, like, multiple seasons that go. That we learn about.

[Craig]

There's that page where it says, like, years. It, like years and years. He's very polite. Like, what do you mean by that? What is happening? I think she's seven forever. This is babysitter's club. These books are great. They're very fun. They do have that old timey children's book thing where it's like, is this appropriate? I'm not sure this. None of this feels informed by child psychology.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Year in, year out. He was polite.

[Craig]

Yes. It feels, you know, less like it is trying to create a world for children, whereas it is reflecting a world that children live in. You know.

[Andrew]

Children love to fly to London with their nun caretaker and bring a horse back home.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah. It's true. But they're. They're very charming. I had not sat and read all of them. I do. I did remember that Pepito existed and I could certainly have told you that the girls were in lines. But yeah, I had a good time with these.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I had, you know, I the first one we'd read ahead and read a few times because we own it and then we got a couple from the library, we got Bad Hat from the library and then the other one we ended up getting that I did not remember the name of ended up being Old House in Paris, which. Okay, one of the reboot ones, sure I did not read but Susanna said was not as good so I'll just take her word for it I guess. But cool.

[Craig]

Yeah yeah, that's Madeline.

[Andrew]

In general, people on Amazon, Goodreads, etc. I don't have reviews, but in general the new ones seem to be received okay, it seems like yeah, these are nice and probably not essential, but I.

[Craig]

Do have Kid Reviews from commonsense media.org.

[Andrew]

Oh please tell me what the kids.

[Craig]

Think Three years ago CSM Content Default said I don't know what this username is.

[Andrew]

Tell me what these kids think when they've taken a 10 minute break from watching Skibidi Toilet.

[Craig]

Well, I just don't know. I can't verify that this is a child. I don't really know. It's under kids review, but then it says adult next to it. I don't really know.

[Andrew]

Okay, maybe they're an adult now and they were a kid at the time.

[Craig]

Maybe a classic Kids Kid books maybe inspires mischief behavior I enjoyed this book, but I'm a bit concerned about all the mischief Madeline commits. Does the book promote doing mischief? I mean, I feel like that's the whole point of the book to make the book interesting. Overall, this book is a fun read. Kid 7 plus should read this book.

[Andrew]

Talk to your kids about mischief and then review.

[Craig]

Girl 13 says 5 stars for ages 4 plus. This is from 15 years ago, so times have changed. Probably. Who knows. Great for little kids. Okay, the books and the movies delighted me so much when I was five and six years old. Of course I don't think they're great now, but back then I loved Madeline. The books and the movies are very educational. Kids will learn some French like Au revar a Bonjour. You will not learn those from these books. That doesn't happen.

[Andrew]

You will learn what you say when you are being attacked by wild dogs.

[Craig]

I learned those words at age 5 or 6 and I know what they meant. Plus, Madeline has great manners and she can teach kids how to be polite and respectful. The books in the shows aren't annoying like Dora or the wiggles the shows in the books have great role models and positive messages. Yeah, like Pepito. He's a beautiful.

[Andrew]

Is Madeline a good role model or is she getting up to too much mischief? I'm getting mixed messages.

[Craig]

Parents, these books and shows are a great pick for your child. I don't think kids that are older than six will be too thrilled with the books or shows I need you to know about. Review Girl 13's like just history where they really like using the word iffy about stuff.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

Like the book.

[Andrew]

It's a useful word.

[Craig]

The book Hoot language is iffy, but great message. The movie the Little Mermaid. Pretty iffy. Facebook. An iffy site, but can be useful. Didn't know you could. Didn't know you could review Facebook on common sense media.

[Andrew]

But yeah, that's good though. Wow. Okay.

[Craig]

I'm glad people are out there reviewing Facebook. Somebody needs to hold them accountable.

[Andrew]

Somebody their board won't.

[Craig]

I'm glad that Madeline never lived in a world with Facebook. I don't want her to ever know what it is.

[Andrew]

She went. I mean, she went to the White House. 2011. Yeah.

[Craig]

After Obama's Facebook victory. Oh, no.

[Andrew]

Yeah, no, it's Madeline. Like Madeline and the Arab Spring. She's like, on her. She's on her phone waiting to visit Barack Hussein Obama and watching people tweet.

[Craig]

I don't want to follow Pepito on Twitter. Oh, man.

[Andrew]

Does seem like he would be the most at risk for becoming a right wing podcaster.

[Craig]

The problem is he would not know that he was being problematic. Like, he's a good kid.

[Andrew]

He would position himself as an ally. But then it would come out that he'd done a bunch of bad stuff. Like tried to, like, put a bunch of cats in a bag and tried to feed them the dogs. And then he would get canceled.

[Craig]

They used to call it getting Pepitoed, but then they gave up with milkshake duck. It's true. These are the Madeline books. We had a good time. I think they're fun. The art is beautiful and really, like, there isn't much like this art is what I'll say.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it's this really distinctive blend of, like, rough and sketchy, like several of the. You know, you get several, like, full pages that are just like an outline that are not like colored or shaded or even like filled in really in any way at all. And then interspersed with these, like, full colored, detailed tableaus. Yeah, it's very interesting.

[Craig]

So those are the Madeline books. You can send us an email. Thanks, Andrew, for reading these with me. I'm glad we did them. Sorry I caught you mid yawn. I apologize.

[Andrew]

That's fine. No, that's what we get for podcasting on a Sunday night.

[Craig]

You can send us an email up about your favorite Madeline memories. Have you played the games? Did you watch the cartoon? Are you like really into Francis McDormand's performance as Ms. Clavell in the movie? Like, let us know.

[Andrew]

Did that performance do anything to or for you?

[Craig]

Yeah, please. We would love to know. Overdue Pod Gmail.com is where you send those in. You can also hit us up on social media. We're mostly on Blue sky and Instagram these days at Overdue Pod. Thanks to Amber, tl, May, Izzy, Desiree, Stephanie, Anna and more for reaching out in the past few weeks. Andrew Our theme song is composed by Nick Laurengis. If folks want to know more about the show, where do they go?

[Andrew]

Overduepodcast.com is our Internet website. We have a list of the books that we have read and the ones we are going to read. I'll let Craig tell you about our May schedule in a minute. I don't remember if we've talked about that yet, but we can do it again. Also. Patreon.com overdue pod, we mentioned earlier, is a place to support the show financially. Directly. You pay for our web hosting, you pay for books, you pay for equipment, including microphones and computers and all kinds of things that we need to make the show go. And you, in return for that, you get the satisfaction of a job well done. And also access to our Discord server, to various bonus recording streams, episodes and our newsletter, which has gone up today. Dusty bookshelves. Yes, this week we are writing about what we're writing about Babysitters Club. We're writing about time travels, books, and we're writing about music that you listen to while you're reading.

[Craig]

Right?

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Craig]

Yeah, those are the ones.

[Andrew]

Yeah. So patreon.com overduepod to get all that and more. Everybody who supports us, we appreciate you. Everybody who's considering it.

[Craig]

Maybe give it a.

[Andrew]

Maybe give it a. Give it a good hard think this month.

[Craig]

Yeah, give it a think.

[Andrew]

Do it for us and for you.

[Craig]

If it works for you.

[Andrew]

What are we doing in May?

[Craig]

We're doing Children's Book Week. Madeline. We just did that. Ludwig Bevelmonts. Then next week, Alice Adams by our old friend Booth Tarkington. Booth I was struck by people in our Discord being like, of all the Booth Tarkington's, you chose that one. I don't know what that means.

[Andrew]

What does that mean? It's one of the one. One of the ones that won the award.

[Craig]

It's one of the ones that won the award, yeah. Okay, we'll find out after that.

[Andrew]

Were we supposed to. Were we supposed to read some of the racist ones? Because I found. I've been doing some Booth Tarking research already, and my dude, I don't think meant to be racist, but it was 1910 or something, and he was a white guy, so, like, it happens.

[Craig]

You just roll the dice. It's a very high chance.

[Andrew]

Booth Tarkington.

[Craig]

Booth Tarkington. After that played as It Lays by Joan Didion. I don't think that's about golf. Cursed bread by Sophie McIntosh. Rounding out the month. I'm excited for the schedule.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it's gonna be fun. We're gonna bring Booth Tarkington back or decide that he's fine where he is.

[Craig]

Yeah, I don't. I haven't heard enough people canceling him, so I don't know what our assignment is.

[Andrew]

It just doesn't sound like anybody thinks about Booth Tarkington that much. I read a very. Here's a tease for next week's episodes. I read a very tantalizingly titled, I think, New Yorker article called the Rise and Fall of Booth Tarkington.

[Craig]

Whoa.

[Andrew]

Mostly just a description of all the things that he had written, didn't actually talk about why he went from. Why he went from America's favorite writer to somebody nobody liked. That's what I'm trying to. I'm at the point I'm considering emailing some, like, professors of literature who work in Indiana just to be like, can you give me something on Booth Tarkington? Like, what's this guy's deal?

[Craig]

I've never read Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, but is it. I don't assume that that book has no why in it. I assume that that book has more than just it happened in it. So I would like to know a little bit more about the why of boothtart.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that's what we figure out. It's gonna be. Gonna be in the recording booth talking about our favorite. Our new favorite author.

[Craig]

No, thank you.

[Andrew]

All right, everybody, until we talk to you next week, please try to be happy. That was a headgum podcast.

[Craig]

McCrispy strips are now at McDonald's. Tender juicy and its own sauce. Would you look at that? Well, you can't see it, but trust me, it looks delicious. New McCrispy strips now at McDonald's.