Madeline

Adventure · Comedy

First published: 1939
Print length: 10 pagesViking Kestrel, 1987

Description

At an all-girls boarding school in Paris, twelve pupils live in orderly rows under the watchful care of Miss Clavel. The smallest is seven-year-old Madeline, a fearless redhead whose bravery, humor, and appetite for mischief make her stand apart. When Miss Clavel senses that something is wrong, Madeline is rushed to the hospital with a ruptured appendix and undergoes emergency surgery. Her classmates later visit to find her recovering cheerfully and proudly displaying her scar. Set against whimsical images of Paris, the story turns a frightening childhood emergency into an adventure shaped by companionship and resilience, contrasting the school’s tidy routines with the irrepressible personality of the girl who disrupts them.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Direct · Poetic · Witty

Pace

Brisk

Tone

Hopeful · Humorous · Playful · Warm

Structure

Linear

Focus

Atmosphere · Character · Plot

Emotional intensity

2 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 1 / 5
Ideas: 1 / 5
Structure: 1 / 5
Background knowledge: 1 / 5

Themes

Coming of ageCommunityFriendshipSurvivalTransformation

About Ludwig Bemelmans

Ludwig Bemelmans was an Austrian-born American writer and illustrator whose career ranged well beyond the children’s books for which he is best remembered. He wrote novels, travel pieces, comic prose, and screenplays, drawing in part on his experience in New York’s grand hotels and restaurants. Across these forms, his characteristic register joined an alert, worldly eye to a generous comedy of human weakness. The Madeline books gave that sensibility its most enduring shape. Beginning with Madeline in 1939, Bemelmans set brisk, witty adventures against a vividly rendered Paris, using direct, poetic language and illustration to balance order with mischief. Madeline’s fearlessness, Pepito’s troublesome energy, and Genevieve’s disruptive arrival let him treat children as distinct personalities rather than decorative innocents. The long interval before Madeline’s Rescue also reflects a working life not confined to one series. His work is distinguished by the ease with which sophistication and innocence, urban observation and storybook simplicity, occupy the same page.

Series

Madeline

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: Viking Kestrel
Language: English
ISBN: 9780670816675

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