| Product: |
Mr. Men Collection: Volume 1 - Roger Hargreaves |
| Date: |
27/03/02 (1686 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Short, simple, funny stories. Brightly illustrated.
Disadvantages: Trying to change people, not so sure about that!
Timeless, that is the word I would use to describe the Mr.Men books. Before you read on stop and think how many of the Mr. Men you can name, it’s even harder than the seven dwarfs!
When I look at the Mr. Men library on our shelf it brings back so many memories from the time my own children were small. They loved to have the stories read to them and the more familiar they became the more they loved them! Isn’t it wonderful that children never tire of hearing the same stories over and over again? When they were older they enjoyed reading the stories to themselves or even to me if I was very good!
Now our youngest foster child (oh so nearly six years old) loves them just as much and every night just before bed she picks out the one she would like read. So I thought I would write about these books in case you have never discovered them or through time forgotten them.
They were all written by Roger Hargreaves, a man born in 1935 in Yorkshire, when he grew up he worked in advertising but held on to a dream to write children’s books. Read on and you will see he realised his dream! Ten years later and he crossed the gender line and wrote the Little Miss stories, I don’t know why but I never was so enthusiastic about them.
Allow me now to introduce you to the Mr.Men in their number order, I’ll tell you now if you collect them all and store them in numerical order the spines spell out ‘my Mr. Men library’. These men are in no way anatomically correct so the fact that they appear naked is not an issue! The titles tell you what the stories are all about, the character is spelled out by their name, often it involves trying to change them but more about that at the end of this review.
1.Mr.Tickle the first of these that he wrote is one of the more famous of the men I feel with his long oh so tickley arms! He is an orange fellow and he sports a tiny blue hat, nothing else you understand but alwa
ys the hat and he just can’t resist tickling every one he meets!
2. Mr. Greedy is bright pink and looks like he has an enormous beer gut! You may imagine he has a larger than life appetite and it takes a giant to change him!
3. Mr. Happy is yellow, round and wears a huge grin. This tale is not about him changing but rather about how he helps to change his doppelganger!
4. Mr. Nosey is green and looking at the size of his nose it is a wonder he can walk! His nose is longer than the height of his body, (honestly I measured it!) and he pokes it into every thing!
Atishoo! Oh excuse me. 5. Mr. Sneeze is blue and is made in a many pointed shape with a red nose. Bless him, he lives in Cold Land where the sun never shines, well not till the end of the book any way!
6.Mr. Bump is famous too for his round blue body partially covered in bandages where he keeps on bumping into things. He really is a walking disaster but I rather like him and I’ll tell you why. He doesn’t struggle to change but he learns to accept himself for what he is and makes the most of it!
7. Mr. Snow well he is a typical snowman really complete with hat and stripy scarf and he come to the aid of Father Christmas.
8. Mr. Messy is one big pink scribble with a pair of eyes and a smile but along comes Mr. Neat and Mr. Tidy and some dramatic changes are made.
9.Mr. Topsy-Turvy is orange with a mustard colour walking stick and hat which he wears upside down. Now he is not content to be topsy-turvy himself he makes all around him in a similar state, put it this way when he visits you know he’s been!
10.Mr. Silly has large yellow shoes and a large orange top hat sits on his beige body. Everything in his world is silly and confused and just to give you a taste I will quote you the final line, “Woof it said, and flew off, backwards!”
11.Mr Uppity is a burgundy colour, very rich and quite de
void of manners, he is also my grown up daughters favourite! When I asked her (this morning) why, she thought it was all to do with the memories of her Dad reading it and making all the different voices for the goblins and king that feature in this tale. He is another of the men that makes some dramatic changes to his lifestyle.
12. Mr. Small, can you see him there a tiny little red chap with his blue hat on? Now this man is seriously small, no bigger than a pin and believe me it does bring him problems. He is looking for work and not finding it easy but he eventually finds employment with the author!
13. Mr. Daydream is like a blue cloud and he has an adventure with a boy called Jack who is rather inclined to daydream himself.
14. Mr. Forgetful is blue and rather round with a tiny red hat and if you think you’ve got a problem remembering things maybe you should read this and then not feel so bad about yourself!
15. Mr. Jelly is pink and like a shivering, wobbly jelly and was scared of every thing. Even a single leaf falling from a tree was enough to scare him but help was once again at hand.
16. Mr. Noisy, red with big shoes and a mouth nearly as large just couldn’t help doing everything as loudly as possible. It took all the local shopkeepers working together to change him.
17. Mr. Lazy is pale pink has another tiny blue hat and even Mr. Bustle and Mr Busy find him hard to change.
18. Mr. Funny is very pale green with red and white shoes, yellow gloves and hat with a flower. He lives in a tea pot and drives a shoe, are you beginning to see this man is an individual? Well he may be strange but at least he makes people laugh!
19. Mr. Mean is tall, skinny, blue and wears a grumpy face. When the story begins we are told he has given his brother a piece of coal for Christmas but don’t worry by the end he gives him two!
20. Mr. Chatterbox is bright pink, shaped like a lay
ing down capital d, wearing a green hat and blue and white shoes. As his name tells us he is inclined to talk too much but with the aid of a magic hat he learns a lesson.
21. Mr. Fussy is green and one of the few Mr. Men to have hair. He really takes fussiness to new heights as he straightens the blades of grass out in his lawn and irons his shoe laces but he gets a visitor he couldn’t have wished for.
22. Mr. Bounce is like a yellow bouncy ball and sadly he gets mistaken and treated like one! Some specially made boots help with some of the problems but they create a new one.
23. Mr. Muddle is green with a red hat and would appear to have his body on backwards. No poor man he really does try but everything goes wrong, he just hasn’t got a clue.
24. Mr. Dizzy is beige and lets just say he is bottom heavy! To be quite honest he is not blessed with intelligence and this is made worse and far more noticeable as he lives in Cleverland, most unfortunate!
25. Mr. Impossible a man with a mission (!) is lilac, somewhat wide and wears a blue top hat. He really can do remarkable things and he helps out a lad called William at school one day.
26. Mr. Strong another of the more famous characters, is red and very square and puts his great strength down to his diet of eggs, lots of eggs. When he helps a farmer out in an emergency it is easy to think how to reward him.
27. Mr. Grumpy, well we’ve all met him I imagine although he may not have been as blue or rectangular as him! Hi is the most bad tempered person you would ever hope not to meet, but one day Mr. Happy and Mr. Tickle decide to take him in hand.
28. Mr. Clumsy is green with messy hair and moustache and he lives in an equally messy house. He manages to make a mess or disaster of all he touches and take my word for it you wouldn’t want to follow him around the supermarket!
29. Mr. Quiet, shhh he is a little mustard cha
p who is easily frightened. Sadly for him he lives in the middle of Loudland, bad choice !
30.Mr. Rush the only triangular Mr. Man, is purple and always in a hurry. When he tries to find a job to suit him he finds difficulty, imagine being served by him in a restaurant, he’d put you r dinner down and then whisk the plate away a moment later!
31. Mr. Tall has incredibly long blue legs on top of which perches his blue head and body. When he complains about his legs being too long he finds other Mr.Men with problems of their own!
32.Mr. Worry is a blue round fella who found himself worrying about everything. Do you know the type? Well you may recognise someone if I tell you that he ends the story worried because he has nothing to worry about!
33. Mr. Nonsense is yellow with a large red nose, a green hat, blue gloves and blue and white shoes. He is a strange chap, but happy, his favourite food is porridge on toast, when asked why he said he’s tried it in sandwiches and didn’t like it. Need I say more?
34. Mr. Wrong is red with odd shoes and gloves and of course does everything in a strange way. Until that is he spends a period of time with Mr. Right and that change him, or does it?
35. Mr. Skinny has an oh so thin yellow body and he has problems some of us can only dream of! He struggles to eat, one cornflake for breakfast one baked bean for lunch and so it goes on, his problem is he is instantly full, so he visits Dr, Plump for advice.
36. Mr. Mischief is yellow with a blue nose, a pink hat and a very cheeky grin. He seems unable to resist playing practical jokes but the story tells how the tables are turned!
37. Mr. Clever (was) the only bespectacled Mr. Man (till they added a few new ones) is orange with t agree top hat. He is the cleverest person in the world and he knows it which is fine until he tells some of his fellow Mr. Men. He soon finds their idea of clever is quite d
ifferent to his.
38. Mr. Busy is blue with a brown and white hat and is always in a hurry. He lives next door to Mr. Slow and of course their different natures cause complications in their friendship.
39. Mr. Slow is I can only say a sludgy green colour with a big white moustache and still living next door to Mr. Busy. This tale though is about the time he tries to get a job, something which preoccupies a lot of the Mr. Men.
40. Mr. Brave is one of the newer Mr. Men, he is a yellow chap, with glasses and sporting a red and blue cap. Several of the Little Misses feature in this story and in fact his bravery is challenged buy Little Miss Trouble.
41. Mr. Grumble is lilac, with a grey hat and a very grumpy face. He loved to grumble but the wizard has other ideas and by the end of the story we even see a smile creep on his face!
42. Mr. Perfect is round, blue and the hair he has is all positioned perfectly. He really is too good to be true but that does not always go down well with those around him, it ends when they discover his fault, he has none!
43. Mr. Cheerful another round fellow this time orange with a yellow nose which co-ordinates nicely with is blue and yellow hat! I have a feeling that some Dooyooers may feel some sympathy for him when he is criticised for not raising his hat to a lady. His problem is he has only three hairs on his head, oh bless him!
So now you have met the Mr.Men, loveable chaps they are by and large and lovely little stories too. The only reservation I have about some of them is the preoccupation with wanting to change people! How many relationships go pair shaped when one tries to change the other? Now it’s true some of these little men do have things about them that even a saint couldn’t live but I still rather like the tales that don’t involve a total reverse of character.
I would heartily recommend these books they only cost £1.50 per book
and each one is complete in it’s own right a child doesn’t need to collect them all, although I should warn you they will want to!
Reading to and with children is so important and such fun, these stories give ample opportunity to try out all your different voices to make the characters really come to life. After all that is what my daughter remembers about these tales and why she picked Mr. Uppity as her favourite, she remembers the time spent with her Dad, now how precious is that?
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