Tag Archives: The Tale of Meshka the Kvetch

Barney Bipple’s Magic Dandelions

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Barney Bipple is six, but he’d rather be eight.  He’d also like a big, shiny car of his own and for his dog to be able to talk.  One day he does a favor for his very well dressed next-door neighbor, who rewards him with three white, puffy dandelions.

“Make a wish, blow on a dandelion, and your wish
will come true. But stick to simple wishes, like for diamonds
and furs. If you need more, just let me know.

Now Barney can have everything he’s ever wanted. But things don’t turn out quite the way he expected in this playful book.

Steven Kellogg’s pictures are sunny and fun (and give a very different tone to this book than Arnold Lobel’s work gave to the same author’s work in The Tale of Meshka the Kvetch). The boys love seeing how Barney’s wishes in action and suggesting ones of their own.

Author:  Carol Chapman
Illustrator:  Steven Kellogg (apparently we have the revised edition of this book, where Kellogg did new, more colorful, illustrations)

 

The Tale of Meshka the Kvetch

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Tonight I thought I’d give the boys a treat by reading How I Became  a Pirate. (I don’t like romanticizing pirates, so we don’t have many pirate-related books. Which may make reading about them more exciting, rather than less. Huh.)   But the boys took one look at it and moaned, in unison:  “We have that at school!”

So, I picked out Meshka.  And they were thrilled.  Go figure.

Meshka is a practiced complainer (a kvetch).  Her back doesn’t simply ache, it feels as if she has “carried the Wall of Jericho itself.”  Her studious son “sit[s] around the house like a bump on a kosher pickle.”  And so on and so forth.  But, one day, everything she complains about literally comes to pass.  What is a kvetch to do?

The message here (praise the good in your life rather than bemoan the bad) isn’t subtle, but it is a good one and easily carried along by the humorous plot and lively illustrations.

Author:  Carol Chapman
Illustrator:  Arnold Lobel