Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's Won'T-Take-A-Bath Cure (Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle Adventures)
PreSchool-Grade 2.  A plump, rosy-cheeked Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, her bun held in place with a knitting needle and pencil, half glasses sitting on her nose, inhabits this picture-book adaptation of one of Betty MacDonald's popular stories about the legendary child-loving, bad-habit-curing matron who lives in an upside-down house. When Patsy Brown suddenly refuses to take her bath, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle advises her parents to leave her alone until enough dirt accumulates to allow them to plant radish seeds on her forehead, arms, and hands. The resulting plants that sprout a few days later convince Patsy that baths are necessary after all. The text is quite faithful to the original, although the father's voice has been completely eliminated. Whatley's large cartoons, rendered in watercolor, are filled with whimsical touches such as upside-down tulips and lamp in Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's strange house, and Patsy's doll who changes outfits as her mistress does and gets progressively dirty as well. Patsy, a vision in dirt and budding leaves, is sufficiently gross to delight youngsters. The endpapers feature Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and her pets, and the sly grin on the cat's face prepares readers for her silly pranks on the dog. Joan Elizabeth Goodman's Bernard's Bath (Boyds Mills, 1996), about another reluctant bather, would make a fine story-hour companion.?Marianne Saccardi, Norwalk Community-Technical College, CTCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.