Madeline and the Bad Hat

I really wasn't fond of this book, at all. I didn't like the plot, I didn't like the boy, I didn't like the female adult's blindness to the boy's faults, I didn't like the total 180 he did after the dog attack, I didn't like the violence and actions and words portrayed, I didn't like almost any of

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it. The only redeeming quality was that the boy did eventually learn from his mistakes. But even there, the change was so complete that it felt almost fake. I do not really recommend this book to anyone.

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Madeline and the Bad Hat by Ludwig Bemelmans is one of the books about Madeline, a young girl who lives in a home with eleven other girls. During this installment, the Spanish Ambassador moves next door. The Ambassador has a son who terrorizes not only the girls, but the neighborhood animals as

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well. The “bad hat” decides to have a little fun one day. He puts a cat in a bag and soon all the dogs are following him. Miss Clavel and the girls happen to be out walking and see him let the cat out of the bag which then jumps on his head and all the dogs attack. Miss Clavel and Madeline save him and he swears he will not terrorize animals anymore.
I like this book. I haven’t read many of the Madeline books, but I may have to pick up a few.
This might be a good book to use to introduce the concept of government in foreign countries. Because the book revolves around the son of the Spanish Ambassador, it might be a good idea to start with Spanish government.

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A new little boy moves next door to Madeline, and she and the girls think he is a bad kid. The boy, Pepito, taunts the girls. Ms. Clavel tries to help find an outlet for the boy's energy. Pepito learns from the error of his ways when letting a cat out of a bag backfires, and he gets attacked by

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dogs. He becomes really good, but the girls miss the old Pepito. He goes back to his old silly ways, but he promises never to harm animals ever again. This book is really cute. I love all the Madeline books!

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I liked this book as much I liked the other ones in the series. The big idea of the story is patience and being polite to others even when they aren't polite to you. One thing I really liked about the book was the big idea. This book gives children an example to follow. Even though they might not

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like how someone behaves, they have to be patient with them and be polite, because they might surprise you. I also really like how Pepito's character is developed. He is introduced as a stereotypical boy who doesn't care about manners and likes to cause other people harm: "In the spring when birdies sing / Something suddenly went "zing!" / Causing pain and shocked surprise / During morning exercise." I like how Madeline's character develops further through the dialogue she exchanges with Pepito: "So Madeline went in on tiptoe, / and whispered, 'Can you hear me, Pepito? / It serves you right, you horrid brat, / For what you did to that poor cat.'" This shows that she is an honest person who is not afraid to speak her mind, which I find to be an admirable quality. Also, the illustrations continue to show the characters' feelings. One of the best pictures in the book that shows this is the one where Pepito has clearly pushed everyone over my ice skating all over the place; all the girls and Miss Clavel look unhappy, but Pepito continues to just have his hat raised politely to them.

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Madeline and her friends in the French private school are continuing in their regular routines, until the day the Spanish Ambassador moves in nearby. While his son, Pepito, is deceptively polite to the adults, the girls read his true nature. He is mean to animals and likes to tease the girls. His

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only occupations during the day are mischievous and mean-spirited. Even Miss Clavel begins to notice his darker nature, but she magnanimously decides he just needs healthy habits to occupy his mind. She gives him a tool kit, and he uses it to build a guillotine for the chickens he eats.

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I greatly enjoyed reading Madeline and the Bad Hat. Ludwig Bemelmans does a fantastic job of grabbing the reader’s attention through the use of rhyming words. For example, in the book when the little boy gets hurt and is sent to the hospital, Bemelmans writes “There was sorrowing and pain. In

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the Embassy of Spain.” This text also allows the reader to feel empathy towards the character. I also really liked how the colors and details of the pictures related to what was happening in the story. For example, when Madeline was trying to tiptoe over to the bed where the little boy was sleeping, the colors are all light and dull and there aren’t many details in the picture. However, when Madeline is outside playing the colors are bright and vivid and the details are so incredible that you can see every knot in the tree.
The message of the story in Madeline and the Bad Hat is, what goes around comes around. Throughout the story, a little boy is being very mean to Madeline and her schoolmates. He is constantly tricking them and trying to scare them. One night when he tries to get a group of dogs to attack a small cat, the dogs instead attack him and he ends up in the hospital.

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A new character is introduced in this book in addition to madeline, the girls, miss clavel. Pepito is the new boy their age that moves in next door but does not behave well. Journal entries can be continued and turned to either pepito or madeline and how these two regard each other.

My son's all time favorite Madeline book. He laughed so hard! And not just once. But EVERY time we read the book.

Mischievious little bugger that Bad Hat! Better than Calvin and Hobbes or Dennis the Menace.