Posted on by TracyC

Madeline and the Bad Hat

Madeline and the Bad Hat by Ludwig Bemelmans, 1956.

Madeline is a little girl at a small boarding school in Paris. The Spanish ambassador moves into the house next door, and the girls at the boarding school get to know his son. However, his son, Pepito, is a wild boy who Madeline starts calling the “Bad Hat.” He teases the girls, scares them by playing ghost, and worst of all, is cruel to animals.

However, Pepito is actually lonely, and he wants the girls’ attention. He tries to win them over by being polite and doing things to impress them. Unfortunately, his idea of what impresses people can be horrific, like building a guillotine for the chickens the cook will prepare and playing practical jokes.

One day, he goes way too far and tries to release a cat into a pack of dogs! The cat tries to evade the dogs by getting on top of Pepito’s head, so the girls and Miss Clavel have to rescue both the cat and Pepito himself from the dogs!

Because Pepito has now gotten hurt himself by one of his pranks, he swears to Madeline that he’s learned his lesson, and he won’t do anything to hurt another animal. He even decides to become a vegetarian!

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

My Reaction

I didn’t remember much about this book from when I was a kid. I vaguely remembered that Pepito was a troublemaker who played pranks and teased the girls, but I didn’t remember that he was cruel to animals. Actually, I was kind of horrified by the guillotine for distressed chickens and the cat that he attempted to feed to the dogs.

Pepito only learns his lesson when he gets hurt himself and discovers what it’s like to be on the receiving end of pain. I didn’t mind him showing off a bit or playing pranks like dressing up like a ghost. The cruelty to animals part, though, I found distressing, even as an adult. I don’t think I’d read this book again because of that.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

Hester Bidgood

Hester Bidgood, Investigatrix of Evill Deedes by E.W. Hildick, 1994.

Hester Bidgood was a character in one of the McGurk fantasy mysteries, which involved time travel, and in this book, she investigates a mystery of her own in her own time, the late 1600s, Colonial America.

Goody Willson’s cat has been found, badly injured, with the shape of a cross burned into it. Some people are spreading the rumor that this is a sign that Goody Willson is a witch and that the injuries to the cat were a sign of God’s disapproval for Goody Willson’s “witchy ways.” Of course, Hester and her friend, Rob, don’t believe that. Old Mistress Brown worries that if the witch rumors go too far, everyone will soon be a potential witch suspect, like in Salem. Rob takes care of nursing the cat back to health, while he and Hester try to determine how the cat came to be injured in such a strange manner.

Rob knows what it’s like to be an outcast. Although he’s a white boy, he lived for a time among the Native Americans as a young captive and adopted many of their habits. He doesn’t know how to read, and Hester has been helping him. However, there are people in the community who don’t trust Rob because of his connections to the American Indians, and they call him derogatory names.

Hester and Rob consider that the mark on the cat could have been made by a branding iron. They go to the blacksmith and ask him if he has an x-shaped branding iron or if anyone has asked him to make one, but he says no. But, then Hester begins to consider that maybe the cross isn’t really a cross. A cross sign could also be made by putting two capital ‘T’s together at an angle.

Their investigations also take them to the old Morton homestead, where the entire Morton family was killed by American Indians some years before. Someone has been staying there in secret, and there are signs of blood, possibly from the injured cat. Gradually, Hester and Rob begin to put the pieces together, realizing who the person responsible must be and how this evil deed is actually connected to an earlier crime.

I didn’t really like this book because of the cruelty to animals. It wasn’t just what was done to the cat but also when Hester remembers Rob finding a dragonfly and considering taking off its wings. Hester stops him from doing it, but it’s still a disgusting thought. I thought that the villain was pretty obvious from the beginning, too, although I didn’t know the motive. When there’s a witch hunt, the person who is the most guilty is the first one to bring up the subject of witches.