All in a Muddle (Little Miss Library: Little Miss Contrary: All in a Muddle - Adam Hargreaves)

Member Name: MI9to5

Product:	Little Miss Library: Little Miss Contrary: All in a Muddle - Adam Hargreaves
Date:	25/09/09 (52 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Loveable character

Disadvantages: Once you start you'll never stop

== The New Library ==

The Mr Men and Little Miss classic library's played a big part in my reading as a child and I was on all counts a huge Mr Men fan. To be perfectly honest I still am a big fan but my enthusiasm for the Mr Men and Little Miss was so much greater in the late 90's than it is now. For that reason it is probably no surprise for you to hear that when in 1998 Roger Hargreaves' son Adam Hargreaves released a new story library that told new stories about existing characters I was more than eager to collect the books.

The original Little Miss and Mr Men library has fully white covers and white spines, their popularity laid in their uniqueness but in order to distinguish the new library from the old one Adam Hargreaves created the covers with a pink (or blue) stripe down the left hand front side and right hand back side. I say pink (or blue) because the Little Miss were pink and the Mr Men blue. 'Were' however is the operative word as when I have seen the books lately all of them have had a blue stripe down them - don't ask me what the reasoning behind this is.

== Book 11 ==

The Little Miss 'new' library consists of 12 stories with the eleventh one, the one I am now going to review, being about Little Miss Contrary and subsequently titled Little Miss Contrary all in a muddle. The front cover of the book has a lovely and bright picture of Little Miss Contrary looking slightly scared and stood on a simple brown stool. The back of the book is then full of much smaller pictures of all the other books in the Mr Men and Little Miss new story library's. This is a brilliant feature because it makes it easy to spot which books you haven't already read and therefore which one to go out and purchase next.

== The Plot ==

Little Miss Contrary being somewhat contrary in nature lives in Muddleland and in Muddleland cows live in chicken coops and hens in barns and the butcher sells loaves of bread. Mr Muddle however, who is similarly contrary, doesn't live in Muddleland. He meant to but got himself in a muddle and ended up buying a house near Seatown. Every year though Mr Muddle goes on holiday to Muddleland and stays with the subject of this story, Little Miss Contrary.

Once we know Mr Muddle is going to stay with Little Miss Contrary the book then details Little Miss Contrary's Autumn clean actions, which are as you might imagine quite contrary. It then goes on to tell us about some of the even stranger things that little Miss Contrary does and also how Mr Muddle manages to get her down from that small and simple brown stool.

== My Opinion ==

Little Miss Contrary is in my opinion a fantastic character as her strange and funny antics make her appeal to young children from the very start. Furthermore she is rather colourful, which always helps and she in many ways reminds us all of someone that we know, although I do hope that none of you know someone quite as contrary as Little Miss Contrary. The book is however one that has the ability to make young children not only smile but also laugh, as they read about the strange and weird things that Little Miss Contrary manages to get up to.

The traditional format of text on the left hand side and pictures on the right hand side also makes sure that there is always something to engage the attention of small children. The pictures themselves are very bright and colourful, rather like the character, and make it far easier to discuss the story than it otherwise would be.

Personally I think this book is perfect and fits seamlessly in with the others in the collection. It tells another great story about a very bright character and is one that I know lots of people enjoy reading. If you yourself have never read the stories from the new library but loved those in the original one then this book is definitely a must have tale.

Summary: A super little read