Roger Hargreaves was a British cartoonist, illustrator and writer of children's books. He created the Mr. Men series, Little Miss series and Timbuctoo series, intended for young readers. The simple and humorous stories, with bold, brightly coloured illustrations, have sales of more than 85 million copies worldwide in 20 languages.
I can relate a little to Little Miss Helpful, poor dear. She desperately wants and loves to help people. The problem is when she does that, she usually makes the situation worse unintentionally. Mr. Tall’s shoe came untied and instead of tying the lace, she tied his shoes together so he hurt himself. Mr. Happy gets sick and Little Miss tries to help him, but just gives him a day of hell.
As a child, this is kind of how I was. I wanted to help and when I did, it seemed to do less good and the person got frustrated even more. I learned to sit back and not offer help at a young age in some ways. Wow, I just realized this now. OK. So I relate to this funny story. It is all done for humor in this story.
The nephew loves Mr. Happy and Mr. Tall too, so this book made him happy. He gave it 3 stars because it was about Little Miss Helpful and he doesn’t like the girl books, so he says. Anyway.
I absolutely loved these Mr Men and Little Miss books. I remember getting them from my granny every week. There was so much from these simple characters, I remember filling my little bookshelf with all these books making sure I had got them all in right order. I wish I still had these books but somehow most of them got lost with many house moves or my mum gave the rest away. If I ever have kids, I will make sure they get the chance to experience these wonderful, colourful books.
Ah, Mr Men and Little Miss, how wonderful you are!
These books made up so much of my childhood. No matter what I would go ahead and pick one up. I worked my way through them all a couple of times. Each one has a wonderful story for the child to engage with, each character being fun to read.
Everyone has a bias for their favourite character, yet every book is delightful.
Little miss Helpful is so helpful, she causes trouble. Rushing to do the right thing, she cause upset and chaos to make things 10 times worse for the person she is trying to help. But at least she is trying!
The title is, as with many Mr. Men and Little Miss books a little ironic. Little Miss Helpful thinks she is helpful, whereas everyone else sees her as a walking disaster area. Still, she means well.
the pile is getting lower and this is another little miss book and as always another charming read and the typical illustrations you expect from Hargreaves. This universe is such a fun place - I really need to consider getting them all and just read one a day on repeat!!
Another re-read as I work through the box set, this one is relatable, sometimes I try to be helpful but feel like I have caused more hinderances! This is number 8 in the box set I read. Little Miss #8
I know that I read more than one of these, but this is the only one I remember clearly. I'm not sure if they all were a book with a cassette or not, but that is what I had. It made the little chime noise when it was time to turn the page. Now that I think about it, I'm not 100% sure that I knew how to read it at first! I also had stickers of these characters and my siblings had pjs.
Having last read them as a child, I had no idea how good these books were until I read two of them today. And this one's even better than Mr Lazy (which I also gave 5 stars). The writing is perfect and the illustrations somehow make it even better. Read this book - it's so good!
I found this little book at a giveaway recently. I used to adore this series as a kid (and got labelled Little Miss Chatterbox by one of my parents...)
Surprisingly, this book teaches children the important lesson that WANTING to help isn't enough. I feel like we need more of this kind of lesson for toddlers.
Ah, Madame Catastrophe... Elle a le cœur à la bonne place, veut aider tout le monde, mais ne fait qu’aggraver la situation chaque fois. Quelle maladroite ! Quelle empotée ! Et nous rions de ses mésaventures avec les chaussures de Monsieur Grand, la convalescence de Monsieur Heureux... Puis, nous fermons le livre, ignorant qu’en fait, Madame Catastrophe est une authentique révoltée, qui travaille à saboter l’ordre social en agissant superficiellement selon son conditionnement (souriante, pleine de bonne volonté, toujours prête à aider...) pour mieux tourner le fer dans la plaie des oppresseurs. Observons seulement ce qu’elle inflige à Monsieur Grand : après l’avoir fait tomber en attachant ses lacets ensemble, elle lui met un pansement sur la bouche en guise de bâillon, pour ensuite l’arracher d’un coup sec. Bref, sous couvert de prêter assistance à Monsieur Grand, Madame Catastrophe le torture. Elle se venge, peut-être inconsciemment en quelque sorte, de son infériorité, et dans la chute de Monsieur Grand, il faut voir celle d’un système qui ne trouve aucune défense contre une femme qui a su détourner son conditionnement au point d’en faire une arme. Aussi, de mon point de vue, Madame Catastrophe est à ranger au côté de ces résistants passifs de la littérature, comme Oblomov ou Bartleby.
Bien sûr, on peut faire abstraction de cette lecture pour ne voir dans Madame Catastrophe qu’une histoire amusante grâce à l’humour slapstick, mais même à ce niveau-là, ça fonctionne très bien. C’est en tout cas mon Madame préféré, et si vous n’aviez qu’un livre de cette collection à acheter, c’est celui-là que je vous conseillerais.
I find most of the books in this series funny and charming, but this one rubbed me the wrong way because it goes against what I am trying to teach my children.
Poor Miss Helpful wants to help, but it always ends in disaster. True to life for a lot of toddlers, no? That's the funny part.
But even when kids are trying and failing, we need to encourage them to keep trying, because we do want them ultimately to grow into people who are willing and able to help. It doesn't come without practice. This book doesn't address the idea that people can change and improve; it just makes fun of Miss Helpful instead.
Mme Catastrophe joue avec la maladresse pour provoquer des situations humoristiques. Le style d’humour est évidemment simple, assez premier degré, mais efficace.
C’est étrange qu’en anglais ce livre s’intitule Little miss Helpful (Madame «aidante»), qui donne un autre sens je trouve, car oui elle veut toujours aider, mais cela tourne en catastrophe…