Reviews for Mean Margaret

The average rating for Mean Margaret based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-04-03 00:00:00 Josh Pearson This was a perfect read aloud for my 10 and 7 year olds. It took several chapters for the title character to make an appearance, so we were wondering for a time whether there was a mistake with our digital download. However, the time the author took in developing the animal characters was well worth it and we shared many laughs over the antics of Mean Margaret and hilarious one-liners from both the woodchuck and the snake.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-06-25 00:00:00 Michael Rose I am a huge champion of this book. Years ago it was randomly picked a part of a big pile of kids audiobooks we took out for our annual road trip to New Hampshire. The combination of having 3 kids and being a children's librarian has brought me into contact with thousands of kids' books. With most things in life some books are better than others, some will never last the test of time and some are destined to be classics. I am not sure if Mean Margaret will ever get enough attention to become canon for school libraries however it deserves to be. Most literature that is fed to kids is pap! Far too many are sugary sweet and deliver their messages as smoothly as butter on a hot piece of toast. This is one of the reasons kids respond so well to Roald Dahl books, Captain Underpants, Shel Silverstein, and even Doctor Seuss. They don't treat them like little idiots. They are filled with not only the heart but sly humor and easter eggs for both adults and children to find. This is probably why most of these authors always end up on the annual banned book list each year (yes, everyone loves Dr. Seuss until he speaks up about environmentalism (The Lorax) or Fascism (Yertle the Turtle.) I guess the point I am trying to make is that Mean Margaret is one of those books which really starts our very traditional and is reminiscent of E.B. White. but as the book goes on it turns more Roald Dahl. I was so pleasantly surprised by the updated "frog and toad" verbal wordplay and friendship between the main character (who is not Mean Margaret but a groundhog named Fred) and his very cranky erstwhile pal a Snake. And as the book progresses you start to realize how sly the author is building a very humanistic and inclusive world around the very complicated emotional lives of all the animals in the forest. This is really not a spoiler but It is the human characters who are the deeply flawed ones here (what a surprise right?). Gluttony, alcoholism, absent parenting, a group of family members who steal off with their youngest member and unceremoniously dump her in a ditch by the forest hoping she will get eaten by a bear or meet some equally gruesome end. This is the point that more conservative parents and librarians throw the book into the "burn, ban and ignore" pile which is a shame. First off kids (and adults) lead messy, imperfect lives. The real joy of literature and most good art is the universal nature of the human experience which is being reflected back at us. Margaret is from a family of nine children. In order to get any attention or even her fair share of food, she resorts to abysmal behavior, shrieking, grabbing, and making all her sibling's lives miserable in her attempts to get her feelings across, which let's face it is how we real-world adults and kids act. When faced with such a horrible family member wouldn't you lie to plot a way to get rid of them? But don't worry. It's a book for kids so you know there are lessons which are going to be learned by both the human and animals who populate this world. Kids will do a few double takes during this book which will give them a "did that really happen" shock. Did that fat German kid really get sucked down a pipe towards an incinerator (oops wrong book...however right feeling.). Margaret is awful. You want her to get eaten by a bear. Fred is a very wound up little guy who would be quite at home living in the west village sipping expresso and attending book signings by notable European authors and returning to his lux-modern apartment filled with Scandinavian modern furniture (and I am not talking IKEA here.). He too needs to break out of his shell and really expand his own limited world view. So do you think this is really going to happen? No spoilers here. While there are some Mean humans, a really uptight groundhog, and snake and a wonderful collection of earnest animals who wear their hearts out on their sleeves. It's a classic battle of diverging philosophies who unlike us humans of the real world find themselves opened up to life's true possibilities through the honest and moral behavior of others. I remember reading someone's description of what it meant to be a Mod in 1960's England. "Clean living under difficult circumstances!" I am sure Fred would empathize fully with this sentiment. P.S. I was only going to write you a few sentences about the book to peak your interest. I figured full disclosure is the best way to go. I loaned this book out to an English teacher colleague with my assurance that this was a wonderful book that will really not only engage the students but be an interesting read aloud as well. Upon returning the book to me, I notice that they seem to look at me as one who has questionable tastes and perhaps a very skewed moral center. Guilty!