Bubble Trouble

by Margaret Mahy, Polly Dunbar (Illustrator)

"Read this aloud and expect a lot of giggles and calls for a repeat performance."— Horn Book , starred review Little Mabel blew a bubble, and it caused a lot of trouble . . . When little Mabel’s bubble gets away from her, it’s her baby brother who gets into trouble. Soon he’s floating out of the house, above the fence, and all over town! It’s up to Mabel, Mother, and the rest of the townspeople to get him safely back down. Who knew that so much trouble could come from one little bubble?

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Poetry, Fiction, Adventure, Storytime, Family

40 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Margaret Mahy was a well-known New Zealand author of children's and young adult books. While the plots of many of her books have strong supernatural elements, her writing concentrates on the themes of human relationships and growing up.

Her books The Haunting and The Changeover: A Supernatural Romance both received the Carnegie Medal of the British Library Association. There have 100 children's books, 40 novels, and 20 collections of her stories published. Among her children's books, A Lion in the Meadow and The Seven Chinese Brothers and The Man Whose Mother was a Pirate are considered national classics. Her novels have been translated into German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Italian, Japanese, Catalan and Afrikaans. In addition, some stories have been translated into Russian, Chinese and Icelandic.

For her contributions to children's literature she was made a member of the Order of New Zealand. The Margaret Mahy Medal Award was established by the New Zealand Children's Book Foundation in 1991 to provide recognition of excellence in children's literature, publishing and literacy in New Zealand. In 2006 she was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Award (known as the Little Nobel Prize) in recognition of a "lasting contribution to children's literature".

Margaret Mahy died on 23 July 2012.

On 29 April 2013, New Zealand’s top honour for children’s books was renamed the New Zealand Post Margaret Mahy Book of the Year award.

For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret...

Reviews

[Lisa Vegan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of fun to read aloud! There is a lot of rhyming, a bit of alliteration, and many tongue twister lines.

Great for lovers of blowing bubbles!

Great for older siblings too!

I enjoyed the wacky story for the most part, but for me it went on a bit too long and started to get just a bit tiresome. But the screwball comedy and the language used are delectable, and seems to me that it took great skill to write it so masterfully. Overall, this book is a joy.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the cover illustration but many of the pictures inside have lots of quirky components that I really appreciated. I really liked the dog and cat and the people’s facial expressions, etc. etc. etc.

If I’d been in a different frame of mind it’s possible I might have given this book 5 stars.

[Manybooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Now even though upon commencing with Margaret Mahy's Bubble Trouble, I was indeed smiling and very much enjoying both the fantastically hilarious premise of a little baby stuck in a large bubble and floating away and the humorously engaging, songlike rhymes (although I have to say that occasionally, the cadence and rhythm of Mahy's featured verses do have the annoying tendency to turn and feel a wee bit frustratingly uneven), sorry, but really, the actual featured storyline of Bubble Trouble, it just seems to go on and on for much too long, and yes, by the end of Bubble Trouble, I was actually getting both quite massively bored and thus also more than mildly peeved (especially since I also have not really aesthetically enjoyed Polly Dunbar's accompanying illustrations all that much either and have indeed even found that their garish gaudiness actually often seems to majorly distract me from the author's, from Margaret Mahy's verses, and so much so that I more than once have had to actually force myself to refocus my eyes back onto the actual text, back onto the verses themselves). Still an entertainingly engaging enough little interlude is Bubble Trouble (and likely because of the rollicking poetry, with ample plays on words and fun alliterations a perfect choice for a read aloud, although my ageing eyes do rather wish that the font size had been a trifle larger and the letters a bit thicker in circumference). But truly and sadly, from a total and complete personal reading pleasure point of departure and view, I have definitely found Bubble Trouble a bit ho-hum and much too tediously drawn out (and therefore, its Boston Globe Horn Book Award notwithstanding, for me, three stars is the absolute maximum I am willing to consider for Bubble Trouble).

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

2009 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award-Winner for Best Picture Book

"Little Mabel blew a bubble, and it caused a lot of trouble... Such a lot of bubble trouble in a bibble-bobble way. For it broke away from Mabel as it bobbed across the table, where it bobbled over Baby, and it wafted him away."

What fun! This is a great story for those who love words; as a child, it would have just made me giggle with adoring all those fun words, string together so charmingly, creating a zany and delicious read-aloud.

[Abigail · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pandemonium ensues when Mabel's bubble breaks away, enveloping her baby brother, and taking him on an extraordinary flight: "The baby didn't quibble. He began to smile and dribble, / for he liked the wibble-wobble of the bubble in the air. / But Mabel ran for cover as the bubble bobbed above her, / and she shouted out for Mother, who was putting up her hair." The fun takes off from there, as Mabel and Mother set out in pursuit of the baby in the bubble, joined by an ever-growing train of similarly concerned neighbors and townspeople, eventually reaching a crescendo over the local church, where "Oh they giggled and they goggled until all their brains were boggled, / as the baby in the bubble rose above the little town. / 'With the problem let us grapple,' murmured kindly Canon Dapple, / 'and the problem we must grapple with is bringing Baby down.'" All ends well of course, but not before the maximum amount of mischief and fun has been extracted...

Only the second picture-book I have read from Margaret Mahy - the first was The Boy Who Was Followed Home - a New Zealander who is one of my favorite young adult authors ( The Tricksters is particularly brilliant), Bubble Trouble is non-stop reading fun! Originally published back in 1992 in the collection Bubble Trouble & Other Poems and Stories , this selection was reprinted in 2008 with new illustrations by Polly Dunbar, and thank goodness, say I! The rhyming text is simply delightful, tripping off the tongue with a rollicking rhythm that makes the foot tap. I loved the text itself, the story being told, and the entertaining illustrations from Dunbar. This book is made for reading aloud, and would be the ideal story-hour selection! I'm so glad it has come back into print!

[Melki · Rating 4 out of 5]

A baby trapped in a soap bubble causes all sorts of hilarious havoc as the townsfolk band together to rescue him. The rhyme flows nicely, and Polly Dunbar's illustrations are both sweet and funny.

[Sasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of our favorites. Written entirely in sixteenth-note alliterative tongue twisters, it's not for bed time - not at all a relaxing experience - but tons of fun to trade stanzas with your partner, and will probably be even more fun to watch the kid fail at reading it if he ever stops failing to read at all.

[Aysheh M · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was an interesting children's book, with a lot of quirky rhymes. The cover and colors grabbed my attention and began to question what the book was actually about. The storyline was okay, but the book was rather too long and made me feel bored.

[Carter]

"Bubble Trouble is an absolute tour de force" - Harry Ricketts

[Heidi-Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fun story to follow with humorous action and possibly tongue-twisting rhymes and text. I think it will be an enjoyable story to use in storytime (as I'm trying not to do all bedtimey-themed books for PJ storytime).

4/6/10 This did not go as well as I had hoped because of distractions to my mind, and the easily distracted group I had for the day. Wasn't quite their fault, either, but the slightest noises or movements had me completely losing their attention and trying to gain it back again. Having my mind elsewhere at the same time did not help matters. Then there was the loud family in the corner where I have to face a bit as I read from the book. I know they were drowning me out, no matter how much I kept trying to get louder. I felt I was screaming--and this is not an easy book to read aloud with it's tongue twisting and non-straight lines of text. I was so hoarse by the end and didn't feel I did the book justice.

4/8/10 This read went a lot better. I was able to focus. I got the rhythms and pauses better. Unfortunately, I had a smaller and younger crowd and I think some of it was completely going over their head. I knew a couple of bigger words would never be gotten, but I think the tongue twists and action words were lost, too. They kind of got the pictures, but they were antsy. Perhaps too long, too. I don't know. I'm thinking this will be a definite hit for a group with older kids.

So maybe I'll try a school-aged group in the future.

Well, even with the difficulties, having read the book more I enjoy it even more. Original rating: 3 stars. New rating: 5 stars.

10/9/13 Thought I'd try it again with preschool in my Bubble theme. No. Not as much. The 1st half they were not quite following. I'm OK doing a new word or two, but this book was full of them. Still, I had them tell me ideas for how to save the baby and they were a bit more into the book by the end because of that.

6/15/15 Used in school-age movement storytime at Fitness Center. MUCH better. The K-3rd are probably the best for this book. They enjoyed the reading, and liked the story as well. The older kids smiled, but tried not to show more emotion than that.

9/14/16 Used in preschool bubble theme. I warned ahead of time that there would be some tongue twisters for me. I only got jumbled up maybe 3 times! Though I did notice I pronounced a couple of words/names wrong as I read fast, but the flow was still there. The adults laughed a lot. The kids enjoyed the story. And one girl, on her bubble coloring sheet, drew a baby in one of the bubbles. :-)

5/10/17 Used in P theme (pop). The adults enjoyed. The kids overall liked the story. But way too young to pick up on some of the humor in the rhymes or tongue twisters. Perhaps I should just consing myself to only use this with the older crowd. Smiles are great, but laughs would have been nicer with this.

[Carolynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

New Zealand writer Margaret Mahy has written another superb picture book, perhaps not quite matching the standard set by _The Boy Who Was Followed Home_, one of my favorites of all time, but delightful in its way. The book tells of a hapless baby, Mabel's little brother,who is caught up in a bubble and seems likely to float right away out of everyone's grasp. In an unexpected turn of events, the baby is rescued in a surprising (but well fore-shadowed) way. Well, that is not much of a story. What sets this book apart is the rhymed verse, as bouncy as a bubble and just as full of alliteration. Here's a sample: "The baby didn't quibble. He began to smile and dribble, for he liked the wibble wobble of the bubble in the air. But Mabel ran for cover as the bubble bobbed above her...." This would make a terrific read aloud story, full of laughter and excitement for young children. The cartoonlike drawings reflect the action, always including the unruffled baby--until disaster strikes.

[Treasa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mabel's little brother gets caught up in a bubble she blows. As he flies all over town, people begin to gather, trying to figure out how to save the baby from falling.

I smiled for the whole 37 pages of this book... and kept on smiling afterwards. The rhyme and rhythm of this book is wonderful - it has pep and humor and tells the story at the same time. I loved it. I could just imagine myself trying to read the tongue-twister-ish lines out loud to a child and stumbling all over myself, which made me smile even more. Some of the lines reminded me of Dr. Seuss's Fox in Sox, which is a favorite read-aloud of mine.

Poly Dunbar's illustrations go perfectly with the text. The lines are very simple, but the colors and patterns are colorful and silly. Just like the text, the illustrations are fun and a little bit crazy. And yet, the very last page is touchingly beautiful as the mother and big sister hug the baby in relief that he is safe, which reflects the genuine worry that everyone feels for the child, despite the funny, bizarre way in which the story is told.

[Elicia L · Rating 5 out of 5]

This fantastic book begs to be read out aloud! Told through playful rhyme, tongue twisters and alliteration, the potentially perilous story of Mabel's brother, caught in a floating bubble, eventually reaches a satisfying conclusion. However, there is plenty of mayhem, twists and turns along the way. Margaret Mahy is a master with language and does not make concessions for her young readers in terms of the rich vocabulary used. Herein lies some of Mahy's appeal to both children and teachers. This story is perfectly accompanied by Polly Dunbar's joyful, expressive and innocent illustrations. Children in Early Years or Year 1 would love this book during a story time session, although Bubble Trouble would also be an ideal model for older children working on poetic devices such as alliteration, assonance, and consonance.

Just remember to practice reading this book out loud first to nail the rhythm!

[Alice · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 Stars, I know HARSH but it got 2 stars because the writing was excellent and really well thought out put together. The pictures are good, but all the rhyming and the endless prattling was obnoxious! It seemed like it took forever to read and it was just a mouthful. It was clearly meant to be read aloud (that is if you can hold the kids attention that long)

For instance

"But she bellowed, "Gracious, Greville!" and she groveled on the gravel, when the baby in the bubble bilbble-bobbled overhead. "

Now that sentence once is not bad but the whole book all 37 miserable pages of it goes on and on in this same cadence and rhymes! Enough to make me want to scream.

However, if you are looking for a good tongue twister book, this is it!

[Angie · Rating 5 out of 5]

AWESOME! This would be such a delight to read if I had someone young enough to be interested. It would really take a reader who pays attention.
And a young-in would certainly delight to the words and sounds.
SPOILER: the last page:
And the people there still prattle -- there is lots of tittle tattle--
for the glory in the story, young and old folk, gold and gray,
of how wicked treble Abel tripled trouble with his pebble,
but how Mabel (and some others) saved her brother and the day.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I definitely would have loved this more when my patient sons were little enough. Great to read aloud to them. My youngest would never have sat still through the whole thing though. And, I admit, adult me almost gave up, too. I really liked the random bit in the middle where the crabby couple got cured of their limps.

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has a cute premise. I found it on one of Oprah's recommended reading lists for three year olds. I wasn't too impressed. I think it is too wordy and the word choices are too advanced for this age group. Maybe it's better for kindergarteners and up?

[Nicki · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very hard to read with the text in wavy lines and the nonsensical rhymes.

[Michael Fitzgerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of the rhymes are just perfection. Wonderful.

[Katie Fitzgerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is how you write a rhyming book. Do it this well, or don't do it at all!

[Chance Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

With a Lexile level of 1240, this is the Finnegan's Wake of picture books.

[Aneesa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun to read aloud, sweet illustrations

[Hannah Knight · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good story. There is rhyming throughout the story and the illustrations show the emotions of the people in the town. "If you start something, finish it" is the motto for this story. Mabel was able to finish what she started in a way that made everyone happy.

[Jenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a wonderful example of a rhyming story. Reader beware: this book may take a little practice, the rhymes don’t slip easily off the tongue, but the text is such creative use of word play that the practice will pay off. “Little Mable blew a bubble, and it caused a lot of trouble. Such a lot of bubble trouble in a bibble-bobble way.” The bubble goes over Mabel’s baby brother and lifts him up out of his highchair. The baby floats outside with Mabel, her mother and then one by one more and more townspeople in rumpus pursuit. The crabby couple, the scrabble players, the patchwork quilters - they watch in horror when naughty Abel shots a pebble at the bubble. Not to fear - the patchwork quilt and the towns people save the rosy-cheeked baby.

“And the people there still prattle - there’s is lots of tittle-tattle-

for the glory in the story, young and old folk, gold and gray,

of how wicked treble Abel tripled trouble with his pebble,

but how Mabel (and some others) saved her brother and the day.”


The words match the main object of the story - they bubble in the mouth and are such creative use of language - they introduce young listeners to delightful words. The illustrations are warm, sweet and endearing. They combine bright watercolors, softly textured pencil strokes, and paper cutouts of beautiful prints to create vibrant and funny scenes. As the baby in the bubble wobbles across the two-page spreads, the text wiggles and waves up and down to mimic the movements. The story would probably work well in a story time - it’s fun to hear and the illustrations heighten the sense of commotion and adventure.

[Hope Irvin Marston · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one's for kids who like words that rhyme.

[Melanie Hetrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Little Mabel, while blowing bubbles, caused lots of trouble by catching her baby brother in a bubble and he began to float away. As he floats away his mother starts to run after him...as do half the town. Finally a plan is developed to try to bring him down by several children standing on a wall! while trying to reach him. However, the little boy is eventually brought down by an evil child with a sling shot and a pebble!

This book was very well-reviewed by the industry journals when it first came out. Many starred reviews. Overall, I love it. However, in terms of a storytime book or a book for one-on-one reading, this isn't great for the targeted age group. Mahy is a New Zealand author. Therefore some of her wording is very dialectical. Three to five year-olds may not enjoy this book because they are at an age when they feel the need to understand a story.

Babies/toddlers will love the rhythm of this story. As always with any book read aloud, readers will need to practice this one before they read it aloud. The rhythm of the story is key to a successful read aloud.

[Jennifer (JenIsNotaBookSnob) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars for including Scrabble and a ridiculous rhyme structure that many parents will barely limp through.

It is a lot of fun to try to read though. lol
You are a braver person than I if you attempt this book for storytime. Kids will enjoy listening to you mess up though and the wacky rhyming. There are also a few opportunities to take out the dictionary and look up definitions. Illustrations weren't my favorite style, but, that's more personal preference and really they do go well with the text.

[Rundle Family · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sonia: His sister tried to save him. And she's a good girl and she does nothing that hurts anybody or hurts their feelings.

Maddie: I like this book because this book is awesome, how they put the words. THey put it in different colors and I love the pictures. I like when it falls down, there's a purple blanket. The characters are pretty. THe little girl and the baby and the mom are my favorite characters.

[Emmeline Guest · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun, silly story about a baby boy trapped in a bubble full of "she sells seashells by the sea shore" inspired text, that will make you and your child giggle.

As fun as this story is - I would not recommend it as a read-out-loud for a large groups - the words are slippery and at times confusing.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Story of a baby that floats away in a bubble and all the people that see and chase the baby and eventually get it back to safety (and land it in a quilt!)

It is Margaret Mahy gone too far with her over the top adjectives - would make it impossible to read aloud to a group. Actually it makes it very hard to read - some of the words are verging on (medical)jargon.

[Lauren Brown · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't like this book as well. I felt like it was way too much playing around with words. Some were rhyming and others were just too much. I didn't enjoy this book. I think some children would enjoy it though because of the funny use of words.