Madeline
Poor Miss Clavel! In "an old house in Paris that was covered with  vines," Miss Clavel oversees the education of 12 little girls, the littlest of whom is  the mischievous Madeline. Despite her size, she fearlessly pooh-poohs the tiger in the  zoo and frightens Miss Clavel with her adventurous antics. When she awakens the entire  house with her plaintive cries in the middle of the night, Doctor Cohn whisks the  appendicitis-stricken Madeline off to the hospital where, some two hours later, she  awakens to find a scar on her stomach! The scar (not to mention the flowers, toys, and  candy given to Madeline by her father) proves quite interesting to the rest of Miss  Clavel's charges when they make a special trip to visit her. Ludwig Bemelmans's lilting  rhymes are music to children's ears, and the quirky, oddly perfect drawings of the girls in  "two straight lines" lend an enticing Parisian flavor to this perennial  children's favorite.(Ages 3 to 8)